Page 67 - The Handbook for Quality Management a Complete Guide to Operational Excellence

54 B u s i n e s s - I n t e g r a t e d Q u a l i t y S y s t e m s A p p r o a c h e s t o Q u a l i t y 55

Other examples of service-based deployments include GMAC Mortgage,
Citibank, JP Morgan, and Cendant Mortgage.
It should be clear that Six Sigma doesn’t cost—it pays. A typical
deployment will emphasize Six Sigma training projects that save at least
as much money for the company as the cost of the training. Larger organi-
zations will spend several years building the program and training addi-
tional team members. With the proper deployment they can expect to
reap rewards as they go, so as program maturity is neared the bottom line
impacts grow.
A properly deployed Six Sigma program addresses the major issues
encountered in TQM (Keller, 2011a):

• Focus. TQM often sought widespread adoption of quality tech-
niques across the organization. Six Sigma deployment revolves
around projects concentrating on one or more key areas: cost,
schedule, and quality. Projects are directly linked to the strategic
goals of the organization and approved for deployment by high-
ranking sponsors, as documented in a project charter (a contract
between the sponsor and the project team). The scope of a project
is typically set for completion in a three- to four-month time frame,
delivering a minimal annualized return of $100,000. Improvement
is achieved one project at a time.
• Organizational support and infrastructure. TQM sought to diversify
quality into the organization by training the masses, in the expec-
tation they would use quality methods to make local process
improvements. Middle management could easily thwart these
efforts, usually on the sound premise that they interrupted opera-
tions. The Six Sigma deployment provides an infrastructure for
success. As noted above, the deployment is led by the executive
team, who use Six Sigma projects to further their strategic goals
and objectives. Projects are actively championed by mid and upper
level leaders in their functional areas to meet the challenges laid
down by their divisional leaders (in terms of the strategic goals).
Teams are led by Black Belts trained as full-time project leaders in
the area of statistical analysis and problem solving, while process
personnel are engaged as process experts (and trained in as Green
Belts in the basic methods).
• Methodology. A standard methodology has been developed for Six
Sigma projects: DMAIC, an acronym for Define, Measure, Analyze,
Improve, and Control. When new products or services are
designed, we can alternatively use the DMADV approach (replac-
ing Improve with Design and Control with Verify), although the
techniques are essentially the same. The importance of the meth-
odology is in its structured approach, fundamentally based on

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