Page 304 - Design for Six Sigma for Service (Six SIGMA Operational Methods)

272 Chapter Nine

• Multicriteria decision analysis (valid apples-and-oranges com-
parisons).
• Toshiba’s medical systems division split into R&D, engineering, and
manufacturing sectors. As a product is being developed, key personnel
and leadership physically move from one sector to another to actively
manage transitions between product development stages.
• “Open the kimono”—everything out in the open communication.
• “Supravision” rather than supervision.
• Coevolutionary marketing; e.g., Amazon.com invites readers to write
on-line book reviews. Other readers often prefer these views to pro-
fessional reviewer evaluations; therefore people visit the site more
often.
• Motorola has an open dissent policy where employees fill in a minority
report to senior management when ideas they consider valuable are
unsupported by colleagues and immediate superiors.
• Use of half-life as a measure of improvement (e.g., the time taken to
cut product development time in half) to encourage large-scale
thinking.

Principle 24. Intermediary

A. Use an Intermediary Carrier Article or Intermediary Process
• Use of impartial body during difficult negotiation.
• PO (provocative operator)—a place between yes and no. This construct
was devised by Edward DeBono to help avoid premature discarding of
ideas.
• Subcontract noncore business (e.g., cleaning and transportation
services).
• Franchisee acts as intermediary between corporate vision and customer.
• Travel agent.
• UPS distribution system using core sorting center.
• KLM “feeder” airline concept—short flights from Germany and
England pull passengers away from national airlines so that passengers
will fly long distances with KLM using Holland as a hub.
• Video Plus—program video using simple codes to represent channels,
dates, and times.

B. Merge One Object Temporarily with Another (Which Can be Easily Removed)
• Introduce specialist troubleshooting or firefighting teams.
• Hire consultant.