Six Sigma: valuable tool, or crock of shit?

[bertha katzenengel]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Sigma

[Wapsie B]

1. A way for MBA's to justify their existence in a corporation.

edit: If you want to improve processes in a workplace get the input of the people out on the line, not those in a soft corner office job.

[TZ]

2. CROCK OF SHIT!!

Especially when applied to something that can't be standardized like biological processes!! GRRR. I had a big biotech decide that Sig Sigma was da bomb and made me and many other biologists totally MISERABLE with it.
I HATE SIX SIGMA!!!!:grr: :nuke: :mad: :puke:
Touched a nerve..can you tell? Seriously though, six sigma is okay I think in certain situations (engineering processes) but its totally overused and misused..the company that I worked for had a lot of ex-GE corporate types who just loved the whole thing..Ugh.

[Frank Cannon]

3. A crock of shit that uses a lot of valuable tools

There's certainly nothing wrong with the methods of Six Sigma, it's just that they're all wrapped in a package that is onerous to implement, does not lend itself well to some service industries, and that demeans itself by adopting adolescent "Mortal Kombat" nomenclature to describe its practitioners (Black Belts, Green Belts, etc. :eyes:).

The recent popularity of "Lean" Six Sigma has tried to correct some of the implementation issues, but there is still a lot of shit in that crock.

[TZ]

4. My company did "Lean" Six Sigma....

and to me that was even worse because it justified some truly miserly penny pinching ways---cutting back on lab supply budgets in order to train more green belts..and to hire more and more Six Sigma MBA's!

[Frank Cannon]

5. Well, that's sort of defeating the purpose

I am of the opinion that quality initiatives should not, themselves, NEGATIVELY impact quality. A lot of people tend to forget that.

[lizerdbits]

7. That was the stupidest part

Q: Why aren't these reports going out?
A: You won't let us order more company letterhead until next quarter.

Q: Why isn't this testing completed?
A: You won't let us order those reagents until next quarter.

And don't forget the scrambling of an entire building to cram all the cell culture into 2 incubators because the purchasing of CO2 wasn't allowed.

[lizerdbits]

6. Mostly Crock of Shit

Most of this can't be applied to life science. Cells, viruses, etc won't do the exact same thing on the exact same time schedule every time. If you want to harvest virus from cell culture you usually go by CPE, not by time (at least all the ones I've done) so you can't predict when it's going to be ready. You can make a good guess if you've worked with the virus before but it's not an absolute.

There were a few glimmers of hope in terms of streamlining processes (saving time is always good especially when they won't hire enough people to prevent 50 hour weeks while complaining you're working OT but by the way you need to do a bunch more work on top of it) but in the end the MBAs with no scientific knowledge wanted to implement faster but less accurate methods or processes that were not scientifically sound. ("So if you incubate at 37 for 1 hour can you do 1/2 hour at 60 something?" :banghead: ) They didn't care about accuracy, speed was the only issue. And it's not going to work at all with R&D. If you don't do things right you will no longer have customers, which according to the few people I still talk to there is now happening. Glad I got out when I did.

Geez, now I have a headache thinking about that shit hole again.

[RetroLounge]

8. i voted valuable

only because it's what my company does and because of it, it pays my bills.

but i never use it, i just write code for it,

:hi:

RL

[ThomCat]

9. In theory, very valuable. As implemented, usually a crock of shit.

It's usually all show, with a healthy amount of power struggles for aditional authority, all to please the executives that something is being implemented.

[lizerdbits]

10. I've heard that a lot

It's often implemented incorrectly which makes people hate it. It sure made everyone in my entire department hate it. Except our old boss who was doing the "green belt" project which primarily was yell at us in weekly meetings to get better numbers so she could look good. Not a very effective way to make things more efficient but very effective in causing 70% of the staff to leave in about a year.

We'd all like to be more efficient and have more efficient processes but not when you're chipping away at quality/accuracy and treating people like shit.

[TZ]

11. Yeah thats pretty accurate

I was totally nauseated by the amount of sucking up I would see with regard to someone with a black belt..Yeah, taking extra training and getting a new title must make you smarter than you used to be!:banghead: :puke:

[Pharlo]

12. As far as I'm concerned, ASQ (American Society for Quality) sold out

when it partnered with (or officially sanctioned) Six Sigma.

There are several other options which are just as good, and, as stated above, more applicable to some industries.

Yes, Six Sigma does have some useful tools companies can implement, but mostly, as an official form of Quality Management, it's a crock.

And, it's roots were based on the originator's study of martial arts, not Mortal Combat. The color rankings in Six Sigma are indicative of the rankings in a martial arts regimen.

[Frank Cannon]

13. Yeah, I'm aware of where the colored belts come from

And I still think it's juvenile.

[hobbit709]

14. I've worked at four different places that used it

3 of them are now defunct and one went from 24/7 production to to 1 shift/5 days a week with about 50% capacity.

[lizerdbits]

15. The one I worked for

Actually I worked at a nice company that was purchased by a 6S using company. After a couple rounds of layoffs of predominantly very experienced people (some had been there for over 2 decades and were therefore too costly to keep) and loads of people quitting they sold it for HALF of the purchasing price. I think the phrasing went something like "Not fitting into the *company name* model." I heard there was a BIG party when the news broke (I was out by then) although that didn't last long since the new management is apparently using the same tactics. I tried once to bring up the quality issue which was a HUGE mistake. MBAs know best about how to run labs so shut your mouth.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

16. I thought this was a copycat at first...

...and went looking for the thread about Sex Stigma

[Cabcere]

17. I prefer Sigma 6.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigma_6

:smoke: