Management Quality

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Management Resources
Overview Classic Tools Leading Methods Articles Thinkers George Box Philip Crosby W. Edwards Deming John Dewey Fredrick Herzberg Kaoru Ishikawa Joseph M. Juran Kurt Lewin Lawrence D. Miles Alex Osborn Walter Shewhart Genichi Taguchi Frederick W. Taylor J. Edgar Thomson Quotes Database Recommended Reading Order PathMaker Order ipathmaker Order Theseus

Dr. W. Edwards Deming
Dr. Deming's Ideas Dr. Deming's famous 14 Points, originally presented in Out of the Crisis, serve as management guidelines. The points cultivate a fertile soil in which a more efficient workplace, higher profits, and increased productivity may grow.         
Create and communicate to all employees a statement of the aims and purposes of the company. Adapt to the new philosophy of the day; industries and economics are always changing. Build quality into a product throughout production. End the practice of awarding business on the basis of price tag alone; instead, try a long-term relationship based on established loyalty and trust. Work to constantly improve quality and productivity. Institute on-the-job training. Teach and institute leadership to improve all job functions. Drive out fear; create trust. Strive to reduce intradepartmental conflicts. Eliminate exhortations for the work force; instead, focus on the system and morale.

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(a) Eliminate work standard quotas for production. Substitute leadership methods for improvement. (b) Eliminate MBO. Avoid numerical goals. Alternatively, learn the capabilities of processes, and how to improve them. Remove barriers that rob people of pride of workmanship Educate with self-improvement programs. Include everyone in the company to accomplish the transformation.

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Comments on some of Dr. Deming's points: The first of the 14 Points charges management with establishing continual improvement through the redefinition of the company's purposes. Quite simply, the company must survive, compete well, and constantly replenish its resources for growth and improvement through innovation and research. In the fifth point, Dr. Deming states that only a commitment to a process of continual improvement truly rewards. A company cannot expect to ignite and feed a quality revolution from which it will prosper for all time. Instead, it must adopt an evolutionary philosophy; such a philosophy prevents stagnation and arms the company for the uncertain future. Part of the evolutionary mentality is to abandon practices that, despite their obvious short term benefits, ultimately detract from the company's effectiveness. Point number four specifically warns against this scenario: the purchasing department of a company consistently patronizes those vendors who offer the lowest prices. As a result, the company often purchases low quality equipment. Dr. Deming urges companies to establish loyal ties with suppliers of quality equipment. Point five condemns mass inspection procedures as inefficient; a product should be monitored by the workers, throughout the assembly process, to meet a series of quality standards. In the long term, the use of better equipment and a more intense worker-oriented method of inspection will markedly improve productivity and lower costs. In order to accomplish these goals, a company must develop a consistent, active plan that involves its entire labor force in the drive toward total quality. Cooperation- Dr. Deming based his new business philosophy on an ideal of cooperation. In order to fulfill its own potential, a company must harness the power of every worker in its employment; for that reason, the third point bars shoddy workmanship, poor service, and negative attitudes from the company. Theory of Profound Knowledge -- In order to promote cooperation, Deming espouses his Theory of Profound Knowledge. Profound knowledge involves expanded views and an understanding of the seemingly individual yet truly interdependent elements that compose the larger system, the company.

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Deming believed that every worker has nearly unlimited potential if placed in an environment that adequately supports, educates, and nurtures senses of pride and responsibility; he stated that the majority--85 percent--of a worker's effectiveness is determined by his environment and only minimally by his own skill. A manager seeking to establish such an environment must: employ an understanding of psychology--of groups and individuals. eliminate tools such as production quotas and sloganeering which only alienate workers from their supervisors and breed divisive competition between the workers themselves. form the company into a large team divided into sub-teams all working on different aspects of the same goal; barriers between departments often give rise conflicting objectives and create unnecessary competition. spread profit to workers as teams, not individuals. eliminate fear, envy, anger, and revenge from the workplace. employ sensible methods such as rigorous on-the-job training programs. In the resulting company, workers better understand their jobs--the specific tasks and techniques as well as their higher value; thus stimulated and empowered, they perform better. The expense pays for itself. The ideas of W. Edwards Deming may seem common or obvious now; however, they've become embedded in our culture of work. Dr. Deming's ideas (and personal example) of hard work, sincerity, decency, and personal responsibility, forever changed the world of management. "It is not enough to just do your best or work hard. You must know what to work on."- W. Edwards Deming

Biography As the sun rose on the 20th century, a baby was born to the Deming family in a small town in Iowa. W. Edwards Deming would become a colossus of modern management thinking. He would live through most of the century, and have a tremendous impact on its second half. The Demings moved from Iowa to Wyoming, and in 1917, Edwards entered the University of Wyoming. To fund his education, he worked as a janitor. He graduated in 1921, and went on to the University of Colorado, where he received a M.S. in physics and mathematics. This led towards a doctorate in physics

from Yale University. From physics, Dr. Deming gravitated towards statistics. The U.S. Census Bureau hired Dr. Deming in 1940, just at the time that the Bureau shifted its procedure from a complete count to a sampling method. Upon completion of the 1940 census, Deming began to introduce Statistical Quality Control into industrial operations. In 1941, he and two other experts began teaching Statistical Quality Control to inspectors and engineers. Dr. Deming started his own private practice in 1946, after his departure from the Census Bureau. For more than forty years his firm served its clientele--manufacturers, telephone companies, railways, trucking companies, census takers, hospitals, governments, and research organizations. As a professor emeritus, Dr. Deming conducted classes on sampling and quality control at New York University. For over ten years, his four-day seminars reached 10, 000 people per year. The teachings of Dr. Deming affected a quality revolution of gargantuan significance on American manufacturers and consumers. Through his ideas, product quality improved and, thus, popular satisfaction. His influential work in Japan--instructing top executives and engineers in quality management--was a driving force behind that nation's economic rise. Dr. Deming contributed directly to Japan's phenomenal export-led growth and its current technological leadership in automobiles, shipbuilding and electronics. The Union of Japanese Science and Engineering (JUSE) saluted its teacher with the institution of the annual Deming Prize for significant achievement in product quality and dependability. In 1960, the Emperor of Japan bestowed on Dr. Deming the Second Order Medal of the Sacred Treasure. Stateside, the American Society for Quality Control awarded him the Shewhart Medal in 1956. In 1983, Dr. Deming received the Samuel S. Wilks Award from the American Statistical Association and election to the National Academy of Engineering. President Reagan honored him with the National Medal of Technology in 1987, and, in 1988, the National Academy of Sciences lauded him with the Distinguished Career in Science award. He was inducted into the Automotive Hall of Fame in 1991. Dr. Deming was a member of the International Statistical Institute. He was elected in 1986 to the Science and Technology Hall of Fame in Dayton. From the University of Wyoming, Rivier College, the University of Maryland, Ohio State University, Clarkson College of Technology, Miami University, George Washington University, the University of Colorado, Fordham University, the University of Alabama, Oregon State University, the American University, the University of South Carolina, Yale University, Harvard University, Cleary College, and Shenandoah University, Dr. Deming received the degrees L.L.D. and Sc.D. honorius causa. From Yale University, he won the Wilbur Lucius Cross Medal, and the Madeleine of Jesus from Rivier College. Dr. Deming authored several books and 171 papers. His books, Out of the Crisis (MIT/CAES, 1986) and

The New Economics (MIT/CAES, 1994) have been translated into several languages. Myriad books, films, and videotapes profile his life, his philosophy, and the successful application of his worldwide teachings. Links to other quality W. Edwards Deming pages: www.deming.edu www.oqpf.com/links.html www.deming.org www.curiouscat.com/management/demingb.cfm

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Deming's 14 points
by Phil Cohen W Edwards Deming was an American statistician who was credited with the rise of Japan as a manufacturing nation, and with the invention of Total Quality Management (TQM). Deming went to Japan just after the War to help set up a census of the Japanese population. While he was there, he taught 'statistical process control' to Japanese engineers - a set of techniques which allowed them to manufacture high-quality goods without expensive machinery. In 1960 he was awarded a medal by the Japanese Emperor for his services to that country's industry. Deming returned to the US and spent some years in obscurity before the publication of his book "Out of the crisis" in 1982. In this book, Deming set out 14 points which, if applied to US manufacturing industry,

would he believed, save the US from industrial doom at the hands of the Japanese. Although Deming does not use the term Total Quality Management in his book, it is credited with launching the movement. Most of the central ideas of TQM are contained in "Out of the crisis". The 14 points seem at first sight to be a rag-bag of radical ideas, but the key to understanding a number of them lies in Deming's thoughts about variation. Variation was seen by Deming as the disease that threatened US manufacturing. The more variation - in the length of parts supposed to be uniform, in delivery times, in prices, in work practices - the more waste, he reasoned. From this premise, he set out his 14 points for management, which we have paraphrased here: 1."Create constancy of purpose towards improvement". Replace short-term reaction with long-term planning. 2."Adopt the new philosophy". The implication is that management should actually adopt his philosophy, rather than merely expect the workforce to do so. 3."Cease dependence on inspection". If variation is reduced, there is no need to inspect manufactured items for defects, because there won't be any. 4."Move towards a single supplier for any one item." Multiple suppliers mean variation between feedstocks. 5."Improve constantly and forever". Constantly strive to reduce variation. 6."Institute training on the job". If people are inadequately trained, they will not all work the same way, and this will introduce variation. 7."Institute leadership". Deming makes a distinction between leadership and mere supervision. The latter is quota- and target-based. 8."Drive out fear". Deming sees management by fear as counter- productive in the long term, because it prevents workers from acting in the organisation's best interests. 9."Break down barriers between departments". Another idea central to TQM is the concept of the 'internal customer', that each department serves not the management, but the other departments that use its outputs. 10."Eliminate slogans". Another central TQM idea is that it's not people who make most mistakes - it's the

process they are working within. Harassing the workforce without improving the processes they use is counter-productive. 11."Eliminate management by objectives". Deming saw production targets as encouraging the delivery of poor-quality goods. 12."Remove barriers to pride of workmanship". Many of the other problems outlined reduce worker satisfaction. 13."Institute education and self-improvement". 14."The transformation is everyone's job". Deming has been criticised for putting forward a set of goals without providing any tools for managers to use to reach those goals (just the problem he identified in point 10). His inevitable response to this question was: "You're the manager, you figure it out." "Out of the crisis" is over 500 pages long, and it is not possible to do full justice to it in a 600 word article. If the above points interest you, we recommend the book for further information.

There is a lot of hype about the McDonalds' scalding coffee case. No one is in favor of frivolous cases of outlandish results; however, it is important to understand some points that were not reported in most of the stories about the case. McDonalds coffee was not only hot, it was scalding -- capable of almost instantaneous destruction of skin, flesh and muscle. Here's the whole story. Stella Liebeck of Albuquerque, New Mexico, was in the passenger seat of her grandson's car when she was severely burned by McDonalds' coffee in February 1992. Liebeck, 79 at the time, ordered coffee that was served in a styrofoam cup at the drivethrough window of a local McDonalds. After receiving the order, the grandson pulled his car forward and stopped momentarily so that Liebeck could add cream and sugar to her coffee. (Critics of civil justice, who have

pounced on this case, often charge that Liebeck was driving the car or that the vehicle was in motion when she spilled the coffee; neither is true.) Liebeck placed the cup between her knees and attempted to remove the plastic lid from the cup. As she removed the lid, the entire contents of the cup spilled into her lap. The sweatpants Liebeck was wearing absorbed the coffee and held it next to her skin. A vascular surgeon determined that Liebeck suffered full thickness burns (or third-degree burns) over 6 percent of her body, including her inner thighs, perineum, buttocks, and genital and groin areas. She was hospitalized for eight days, during which time she underwent skin grafting. Liebeck, who also underwent debridement treatments, sought to settle her claim for $20,000, but McDonalds refused. During discovery, McDonalds produced documents showing more than 700 claims by people burned by its coffee between 1982 and 1992. Some claims involved third-degree burns substantially similar to Liebecks. This history documented McDonalds' knowledge about the extent and nature of this hazard. McDonalds also said during discovery that, based on a consultants advice, it held its coffee at between 180 and 190 degrees fahrenheit to maintain optimum taste. He admitted that he had not evaluated the safety ramifications at this temperature. Other establishments sell coffee at substantially lower temperatures, and coffee served at home is generally 135 to 140 degrees. Further, McDonalds' quality assurance manager testified that the company actively enforces a requirement that coffee be held in the pot at 185 degrees, plus or minus five degrees. He also testified that a burn hazard exists with any food

substance served at 140 degrees or above, and that McDonalds coffee, at the temperature at which it was poured into styrofoam cups, was not fit for consumption because it would burn the mouth and throat. The quality assurance manager admitted that burns would occur, but testified that McDonalds had no intention of reducing the "holding temperature" of its coffee. Plaintiffs' expert, a scholar in thermodynamics applied to human skin burns, testified that liquids, at 180 degrees, will cause a full thickness burn to human skin in two to seven seconds. Other testimony showed that as the temperature decreases toward 155 degrees, the extent of the burn relative to that temperature decreases exponentially. Thus, if Liebeck's spill had involved coffee at 155 degrees, the liquid would have cooled and given her time to avoid a serious burn. McDonalds asserted that customers buy coffee on their way to work or home, intending to consume it there. However, the companys own research showed that customers intend to consume the coffee immediately while driving. McDonalds also argued that consumers know coffee is hot and that its customers want it that way. The company admitted its customers were unaware that they could suffer thirddegree burns from the coffee and that a statement on the side of the cup was not a "warning" but a "reminder" since the location of the writing would not warn customers of the hazard. The jury awarded Liebeck $200,000 in compensatory damages. This amount was reduced to $160,000 because the jury found Liebeck 20 percent at fault in the spill. The jury also awarded Liebeck $2.7 million in punitive damages, which equals about two days of McDonalds' coffee sales.

Post-verdict investigation found that the temperature of coffee at the local Albuquerque McDonalds had dropped to 158 degrees fahrenheit. The trial court subsequently reduced the punitive award to $480,000 -- or three times compensatory damages -- even though the judge called McDonalds' conduct reckless, callous and willful. No one will ever know the final ending to this case. The parties eventually entered into a secret settlement which has never been revealed to the public, despite the fact that this was a public case, litigated in public and subjected to extensive media reporting. Such secret settlements, after public trials, should not be condoned.
Micheline Maynard, Contributor“Silicon grease may have gotten into the stoplamp switch at the factory…” Joann Muller, Forbes StaffToyota says it happened “during installation of the contact-type stop lamp switch on one of the North American assembly lines”. That’s not very Toyota-like [...] Richard Brookes Here’s the thing: From the outset, Toyota was unwilling to admit they could have done anything wrong. The company’s management was so convinced of Toyota’s [...] 12 comments, 3 called-out Comment Now
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Things have been getting better for Toyota Motor after a few really bad years. So the last thing the Japanese carmaker needed was another headline-grabbing recall. On Wednesday, the company said it was recalling almost 682,000 Camry, Venza and Tacoma models to fix issues with brake lights and airbags. While the number of affected vehicles is large, the problems don’t appear to be anything like the claims of unintended acceleration that dogged Toyota through much of 2009 and 2010.

More Proof That Toyota Faces A Tough Climb Back
Micheline MaynardContributor

Has Toyota's Image Recovered From The Brand's Recall Crisis?
Anne Marie KellyContributor

Leadfoot, Not Electronics, To Blame For Most Runaway Toyotas, Government Finds
Joann MullerForbes Staff

In certain 2009 Camry and 2009 to 2011 Venza cars, silicon grease may have gotten into the stop-lamp switch at the factory, which Toyota said could cause increased electrical resistance. That in turn could trigger warning lights on the dashboard, keep the engine from starting or prevent the transmission from being shifted out of park. In some cases the stop lights may stop working. Toyota is also recalling certain 2005 to early 2009 Tacoma pickups to replace the steering wheel spiral cable assembly. In some cases, the cable can rub against its retainer, possibly disabling the airbag. Toyota is gathering the necessary replacement parts to fix the vehicles and will notify Camry and Venza owners when they should make a service appointment.

Toyota has replaced management and invested more in quality testing since the 2009-2010 unintended acceleration crisis that resulted in the recall of millions of vehicles after several severe accidents, some including fatalities. The suspicion was that software glitches were to blame, but both Toyota and the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration concluded that electronics were not at fault. They blamed thick floor mats, sticky accelerator pedals and, in some cases, driver error. The National Academy of Sciences National Research Council later agreed with NHTSA’s decision to close the investigation. But Toyota hasn’t been able to fully shake the issue. Earlier this month, CNN aired a story suggesting that an internal memo showed engineers had concerns about unintended acceleration during pre-production testing. Toyota angrily responded, “In the face of overwhelming scientific evidence to the contrary, CNN has irresponsibly aired a grossly inaccurate segment on Anderson Cooper 360 that attempts to resurrect the discredited, scientifically unproven allegation that there is a hidden defect in Toyota’s electronic throttle control system that can cause unintended acceleration.” As Forbes contributor Anne Marie Kelly wrote recently, consumer research shows that Toyota still has a long way to go before recovering its quality image. This latest recall surely won’t help. Toyota Motor Corp. is recalling 2.77 million vehicles around the world, including almost 15,000 in Canada, for a water pump problem and a steering shaft defect that may result in faulty steering — the latest in a spate of quality woes for Japan's top automaker. No accidents have been reported related to these two problems announced Wednesday, according to Toyota. Some 1.51 million vehicles are being recalled for the steering defect in Japan and 1.25 million vehicles abroad . Affected models include the Prius hybrid, Corolla, Wish and other models produced from 2000 to 2011 in Japan, and from 2000 to 2009 overseas. Of those vehicles, some 620,000 spanning five hybrid models, including the Prius, have a defective water pump in addition to the steering shaft defect. Those vehicles were produced from 2001 to 2010 in Japan, and from 2003 to 2011 overseas. Another 10,000 vehicles with only a pump problem are also being recalled. According to Toyota Canada, 14,816 Prius vehicles are being recalled here. The latest recalls — affecting Toyota's prized Prius hybrid, a symbol of its technological prowess — come on top of a recall last month for 7.43 million vehicles for a faulty power-window switch that could cause fires. 

Toyota recalls 7.4 million vehicles for faulty window switch

Toyota has been trying to fix its reputation after a series of massive recalls of 14 million vehicles over the last several years, mostly in the U.S., affecting faulty floor mats, braking and gas pedals. Before that, Toyota had a reputation for pristine quality, centred on its super-lean production methods that empowered workers to hone in on quality control. Toyota executives have acknowledged the escalating recalls were partly caused by the company's overly ambitious growth goals. Executives had shrugged off last month's recalls as coming from products made before stricter quality controls kicked in following the soul-searching that came after the recall scandal in the U.S. But the latest recall underlines how quality problems continue to dog Toyota, especially as it has gone back to pursuing aggressive growth. Toyota is now headed to record vehicle sales around the world, offsetting a sales plunge in China with booming demand in emerging markets such as Indonesia, India and Thailand. "Zero Defects" is one of the postulates from Philip Crosby's "Absolutes of Quality Management". Although applicable to any type of enterprise, it has been primarily adopted within industry supply chains wherever large volumes of components are being purchased (common items such as nuts and bolts are good examples). Zero Defects was a quality control program originated by the Denver Division of the Martin Marietta Corporation (now Lockheed Martin) on the Titan Missile program, which carried the Project Gemini astronauts into space in the middle to late 1960s. It was then incorporated into the Orlando Division, which built the mobile Pershing Missile System, deployed in Europe; the Sprint antiballistic missile, never deployed; and a number of air to ground missiles for the Vietnam War.[1]

Contents
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   

1 Principles of Zero Defects o 1.1 1. Quality is conformance to requirements o 1.2 2. Defect prevention is preferable to quality inspection and correction o 1.3 3. Zero Defects is the quality standard o 1.4 4. Quality is measured in monetary terms – the Price of Nonconformance (PONC) 2 History 3 Criticisms 4 See also 5 References

[edit] Principles of Zero Defects
The principles of the methodology are four-fold:

[edit] 1. Quality is conformance to requirements
Every product or service has a requirement: a description of what the customer needs. When a particular product meets that requirement, it has achieved quality, provided that the requirement accurately describes what the enterprise and the customer actually need. This technical sense should not be confused with more common usages that indicate weight or goodness or precious materials or some absolute idealized standard. In common parlance, an inexpensive disposable pen is a lower-quality item than a gold-plated fountain pen. In the technical sense of Zero Defects, the inexpensive disposable pen is a quality product if it meets requirements: it writes, does not skip or clog under normal use, and lasts the time specified.

[edit] 2. Defect prevention is preferable to quality inspection and correction
The second principle is based on the observation that it is nearly always less troublesome, more certain and less expensive to prevent defects than to discover and correct them. It saves lot of human power and cost of inspection and correction. For example If a person changes the poor condition brake shoes of his bike before next riding then it will prevent lot of energy of the rider and reduce the risk of accident on the road and generation of new defect in the bike due to poor condition brake shoes which observed later and needs the correction and in turn of high cost of repair.[2]

[edit] 3. Zero Defects is the quality standard
The third is based on the normative nature of requirements: if a requirement expresses what is genuinely needed, then any unit that does not meet requirements will not satisfy the need and is no good. If units that do not meet requirements actually do satisfy the need, then the requirement should be changed to reflect reality. Further, the idea that mistakes are inevitable is rejected out of hand. Just as the CEO wouldn't accept 'mistakenly' not getting paid occasionally, his/her chauffeur 'mistakenly' driving them to the wrong business, or their spouse 'mistakenly' sleeping with someone else, so the company shouldn't take the attitude that they'll 'inevitably' fail to deliver what was promised from time to time. Aiming at an "acceptable" defect level encourages and causes defects.

[edit] 4. Quality is measured in monetary terms – the Price of Nonconformance (PONC)
The fourth principle is key to the methodology. Phil Crosby believes that every defect represents a cost, which is often hidden. These costs include inspection time, rework, wasted material and labor, lost revenue and the cost of customer dissatisfaction. When properly identified and accounted for, the magnitude of these costs can be made apparent, which has three advantages. First, it provides a cost-justification for steps to improve quality. The title of the book, "Quality is Free," expresses the belief that improvements in quality will return savings more than equal to the costs. Second, it provides a way to measure progress, which is essential to maintaining management commitment and to rewarding employees. Third, by making the goal measurable, actions can be made concrete and decisions can be made on the basis of relative return.

[edit] History

While Zero Defects began in the aerospace and defense industry, starting at Martin Marietta in the 1960s, thirty years later it was regenerated in the automotive world. During the 1990s, large companies in the automotive industry tried to cut costs by reducing their quality inspection processes and demanding that their suppliers dramatically improve the quality of their supplies. This eventually resulted in demands for the "Zero Defects" standard. It is implemented all over the world.

[edit] Criticisms
Criticism of "Zero Defects" frequently centers around allegations of extreme cost in meeting the standard. Proponents say that it is an entirely reachable ideal and that claims of extreme cost result from misapplication of the principles. Technical author David Salsburg claims that W. Edwards Deming was critical of this approach and terms it a fad. Another criticism was that Zero Defects was a motivational program aimed at encouraging employees to do better. Crosby denied ever having said any such thing under any circumstances. He stated repeatedly that defects occur because of management actions and attitudes.[ Six Sigma is a set of tools and strategies for process improvement originally developed by Motorola in 1986. [1][2] Six Sigma became well known after Jack Welch made it a central focus of his business strategy at General Electric in 1995,[3] and today it is used in different sectors of industry.[4] Six Sigma seeks to improve the quality of process outputs by identifying and removing the causes of defects (errors) and minimizing variability in manufacturing and business processes.[5] It uses a set of quality management methods, including statistical methods, and creates a special infrastructure of people within the organization ("Champions", "Black Belts", "Green Belts", "Orange Belts", etc.) who are experts in these very complex methods. [5] Each Six Sigma project carried out within an organization follows a defined sequence of steps and has quantified financial targets (cost reduction and/or profit increase).[5] The term Six Sigma originated from terminology associated with manufacturing, specifically terms associated with statistical modeling of manufacturing processes. The maturity of a manufacturing process can be described by a sigma rating indicating its yield or the percentage of defect-free products it creates. A six sigma process is one in which 99.99966% of the products manufactured are statistically expected to be free of defects (3.4 defects per million), although, as discussed below, this defect level corresponds to only a 4.5 sigma level. Motorola set a goal of "six sigma" for all of its manufacturing operations, and this goal became a byword for the management and engineering practices used to achieve it.

Contents
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1 Historical overview 2 Six Sigma Doctrine 3 Methods





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3.1 DMAIC 3.2 DMADV or DFSS 3.3 Quality management tools and methods used in Six Sigma 4 Implementation roles o 4.1 Certification o 4.2 University Certification Programs 5 Origin and meaning of the term "six sigma process" o 5.1 Role of the 1.5 sigma shift o 5.2 Sigma levels 6 Software used for Six Sigma o 6.1 Statistics Analysis tools with comparable functions 7 Application o 7.1 In healthcare 8 Criticism o 8.1 Lack of originality o 8.2 Role of consultants o 8.3 Potential negative effects o 8.4 Lack of systematic documentation o 8.5 Based on arbitrary standards o 8.6 Criticism of the 1.5 sigma shift 9 See also 10 References 11 Further reading

o o o

[edit] Historical overview
Six Sigma originated as a set of practices designed to improve manufacturing processes and eliminate defects, but its application was subsequently extended to other types of business processes as well.[6] In Six Sigma, a defect is defined as any process output that does not meet customer specifications, or that could lead to creating an output that does not meet customer specifications.[5] CEO Bob Galvin decided to focus on improving the quality of Motorola products, and found an ally in John F. Mitchell,[7][8][9] a young engineer on the rise to becoming Chief Engineer. Mitchell was seen as a demanding,[10][11] hands-on manager who cared for his co-workers[12][13] and insisted on team effort.[14] Mitchell believed in building quality into the engineering and manufacturing processes as a way of lowering costs and improving yield. [10] He also favored competition among product lines and distributors as a business discipline to both reduce costs and to promote quality improvement. [12] Mitchell’s early successes with quality control appeared with the introduction of a new digital transistorized pager, and the formalization of improvised Mitchell Quality Tests.[15] He used Shainin Methods and other tests[16] in his operations.[17] John F. Mitchell set the bar high for his engineers knowing they would respond.[18] By the early 1970s, as John F. Mitchell was on his ascendancy to General Manager, Communications Division in 1972, Motorola had established itself as second largest producer of electronic equipment behind IBM,[19] and as the world leader in wireless communication products, and had been battling Intel and Texas Instruments for the number one slot in Semiconductor sales. Motorola was also the largest supplier of

certain parts and products to Japan's National Telegraph & Telephone Company, but at the same time, the Japanese were beginning to erode Motorola's lead in the pager market. [20] The rapid successes and expansion of the Motorola pager business created by John F. Mitchell, as cited above, led to competitive deficiencies in quality controls, notwithstanding the "Mitchell Testing." In the late 1970s, John F. Mitchell was on the ascendancy to being named President & COO in 1980. He was joined by other senior managers, notably CEO Bob Galvin, Jack Germain,[19][21] and Art Sundry,[14][15][22][23] who worked in John F. Mitchell's pager organization to set the quality bar ten times higher. Sundry was reputed to have shouted "our quality stinks"[20] at an organizational meeting attended by Galvin, John F. Mitchell and other senior executives; and Sundry got to keep his job.[20] But most importantly, the breakthroughs occurred when it was recognized that intensified focus and improved measurements, data collection, and more disciplined statistical approaches had to be applied to the causes of variance.[23][24][25] John F. Mitchell's untiring efforts,[10][26] and support from Motorola engineers[14] and senior management, prevailed. They brought Japanese quality control methods back to the United States,[27] and resulted in a significant and permanent change in culture at Motorola. "We ought to be better than we are," said Germain, director of Quality Improvement.[20] The culmination of Motorola quality engineering efforts occurred in 1986, with the help of an outside quality control consultant, Bill Smith,[28][29][30][31] who joined Motorola when the Motorola University and Six-Sigma Institute[27] was founded. Two years later, in 1988, Motorola received the coveted Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award[32] which is given by the United States Congress. Later, the Six Sigma processes were adopted at the General Electric Corporation. Jack Welch said: "Six Sigma changed the DNA of GE."[23][33] The Six Sigma process requires 99.99967% error free processes and products, (or 3.4 parts per million defects or less).[20] Without the Six Sigma process controls, it may not have been possible for John F. Mitchell to launch the Iridium satellite constellation, one of the most complex projects undertaken by a private company, which involved some 25,000 electronic components, [34] and took 11 years to develop and implement at a cost of $5 billion.[34] Six Sigma processes resulted in $16–17 billion in savings to Motorola as of 2006.[23][35] Over a thousand books have been written about Six Sigma, [23] with over five hundred published since 2009.[4]

[edit] Six Sigma Doctrine
Like its predecessors, Six Sigma doctrine asserts that:   

Continuous efforts to achieve stable and predictable process results (i.e., reduce process variation) are of vital importance to business success. Manufacturing and business processes have characteristics that can be measured, analyzed, controlled and improved. Achieving sustained quality improvement requires commitment from the entire organization, particularly from top-level management.

Features that set Six Sigma apart from previous quality improvement initiatives include:

   

A clear focus on achieving measurable and quantifiable financial returns from any Six Sigma project.[5] An increased emphasis on strong and passionate management leadership and support.[5] A special infrastructure of "Champions", "Master Black Belts", "Black Belts", "Green Belts", etc. to lead and implement the Six Sigma approach.[5] A clear commitment to making decisions on the basis of verifiable data and statistical methods, rather than assumptions and guesswork.[5]

The term "Six Sigma" comes from a field of statistics known as process capability studies. Originally, it referred to the ability of manufacturing processes to produce a very high proportion of output within specification. Processes that operate with "six sigma quality" over the short term are assumed to produce long-term defect levels below 3.4 defects per million opportunities (DPMO).[36][37] Six Sigma's implicit goal is to improve all processes to that level of quality or better. Six Sigma is a registered service mark and trademark of Motorola Inc.[38] As of 2006 Motorola reported over US$17 billion in savings[39] from Six Sigma. Other early adopters of Six Sigma who achieved well-publicized success include Honeywell (previously known as AlliedSignal) and General Electric, where Jack Welch introduced the method.[40] By the late 1990s, about two-thirds of the Fortune 500 organizations had begun Six Sigma initiatives with the aim of reducing costs and improving quality. [41] In recent years, some practitioners have combined Six Sigma ideas with lean manufacturing to create a methodology named Lean Six Sigma.[42] The Lean Six Sigma methodology views lean manufacturing, which addresses process flow and waste issues, and Six Sigma, with its focus on variation and design, as complementary disciplines aimed at promoting "business and operational excellence".[42] Companies such as IBM and Sandia National Laboratories use Lean Six Sigma to focus transformation efforts not just on efficiency but also on growth. It serves as a foundation for innovation throughout the organization, from manufacturing and software development to sales and service delivery functions..

[edit] Methods
Six Sigma projects follow two project methodologies inspired by Deming's Plan-Do-Check-Act Cycle. These methodologies, composed of five phases each, bear the acronyms DMAIC and DMADV. [41]  

DMAIC is used for projects aimed at improving an existing business process.[41] DMAIC is pronounced as "duh-may-ick" (<ˌdʌ ˈmeɪ ɪk>). DMADV is used for projects aimed at creating new product or process designs.[41] DMADV is pronounced as "duh-mad-vee" (<ˌdʌ ˈmæd vi>).

[edit] DMAIC
The DMAIC project methodology has five phases:  

Define the problem, the voice of the customer, and the project goals, specifically. Measure key aspects of the current process and collect relevant data.







Analyze the data to investigate and verify cause-and-effect relationships. Determine what the relationships are, and attempt to ensure that all factors have been considered. Seek out root cause of the defect under investigation. Improve or optimize the current process based upon data analysis using techniques such as design of experiments, poka yoke or mistake proofing, and standard work to create a new, future state process. Set up pilot runs to establish process capability. Control the future state process to ensure that any deviations from target are corrected before they result in defects. Implement control systems such as statistical process control, production boards, visual workplaces, and continuously monitor the process.

Some organizations add a Recognize step at the beginning, which is to recognize the right problem to work on, thus yielding an RDMAIC methodology.[43]

[edit] DMADV or DFSS
The DMADV project methodology, known as DFSS ("Design For Six Sigma"),[41] features five phases:     

Define design goals that are consistent with customer demands and the enterprise strategy. Measure and identify CTQs (characteristics that are Critical To Quality), product capabilities, production process capability, and risks. Analyze to develop and design alternatives, create a high-level design and evaluate design capability to select the best design. Design details, optimize the design, and plan for design verification. This phase may require simulations. Verify the design, set up pilot runs, implement the production process and hand it over to the process owner(s).

[edit] Quality management tools and methods used in Six Sigma
Within the individual phases of a DMAIC or DMADV project, Six Sigma utilizes many established qualitymanagement tools that are also used outside Six Sigma. The following table shows an overview of the main methods used.             

5 Whys Analysis of variance ANOVA Gauge R&R Axiomatic design Business Process Mapping Cause & effects diagram (also known as fishbone or Ishikawa diagram) Check sheet Chi-squared test of independence and fits Control chart Correlation Cost-benefit analysis CTQ tree Design of experiments

     

     

Pareto analysis Pareto chart Pick chart Process capability Quality Function Deployment (QFD) Quantitative marketing research through use of Enterprise Feedback Management (EFM) systems Regression analysis Rolled throughput yield Root cause analysis Run charts Scatter diagram SIPOC analysis (Suppliers, Inputs, Process,

  

Failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA) General linear model Histograms

   

Outputs, Customers) Stratification Taguchi methods Taguchi Loss Function TRIZ

[edit] Implementation roles
One key innovation of Six Sigma involves the "professionalizing" of quality management functions. Prior to Six Sigma, quality management in practice was largely relegated to the production floor and to statisticians in a separate quality department. Formal Six Sigma programs adopt a ranking terminology (similar to some martial arts systems) to define a hierarchy (and career path) that cuts across all business functions. Six Sigma identifies several key roles for its successful implementation. [44] 









Executive Leadership includes the CEO and other members of top management. They are responsible for setting up a vision for Six Sigma implementation. They also empower the other role holders with the freedom and resources to explore new ideas for breakthrough improvements. Champions take responsibility for Six Sigma implementation across the organization in an integrated manner. The Executive Leadership draws them from upper management. Champions also act as mentors to Black Belts. Master Black Belts, identified by champions, act as in-house coaches on Six Sigma. They devote 100% of their time to Six Sigma. They assist champions and guide Black Belts and Green Belts. Apart from statistical tasks, they spend their time on ensuring consistent application of Six Sigma across various functions and departments. Black Belts operate under Master Black Belts to apply Six Sigma methodology to specific projects. They devote 100% of their time to Six Sigma. They primarily focus on Six Sigma project execution, whereas Champions and Master Black Belts focus on identifying projects/functions for Six Sigma. Green Belts are the employees who take up Six Sigma implementation along with their other job responsibilities, operating under the guidance of Black Belts.

Some organizations use additional belt colours, such as Yellow Belts, for employees that have basic training in Six Sigma tools and generally participate in projects and 'white belts' for those locally trained in the concepts but do not participate in the project team.[45]

[edit] Certification
Corporations such as early Six Sigma pioneers General Electric and Motorola developed certification programs as part of their Six Sigma implementation, verifying individuals' command of the Six Sigma methods at the relevant skill level (Green Belt, Black Belt etc.). Following this approach, many organizations in the 1990s started offering Six Sigma certifications to their employees.[41][46] Criteria for Green Belt and Black Belt certification vary; some companies simply require participation in a course and a Six Sigma project. [46] There is no standard certification body, and different certification services are offered by various quality associations and other providers against a

fee.[47][48] The American Society for Quality for example requires Black Belt applicants to pass a written exam and to provide a signed affidavit stating that they have completed two projects, or one project combined with three years' practical experience in the body of knowledge.[46][49] The International Quality Federation offers an online certification exam that organizations can use for their internal certification programs; it is statistically more demanding than the ASQ certification.[46][48] Other providers offering certification services include the Juran Institute, Six Sigma Qualtec, Lean Six Sigma Standardization Association (LSSSA), Air Academy Associates, Management and Strategy Institute, IASSC. EmbryInc.com, and many others.[47]

[edit] University Certification Programs
In addition to certification service provider institutes, there are Six Sigma certification programs offered through a few four-year colleges and universities. These programs provide the same courses verifying individuals' command of the Six Sigma methods at the relevant skill level from Green Belt to Black Belt etc.          

Boston University[50] Cal State Fullerton[51] Emory University[52] Franklin University[53] George Washington University[54] Kent State University[55] Ohio State University[56] Rutgers University[57] University of Texas[58] Villanova University[59]

[edit] Origin and meaning of the term "six sigma process"
The term "six sigma process" comes from the notion that if one has six standard deviations between the process mean and the nearest specification limit, as shown in the graph, practically no items will fail to meet specifications.[36] This is based on the calculation method employed in process capability studies. Capability studies measure the number of standard deviations between the process mean and the nearest specification limit in sigma units. As process standard deviation goes up, or the mean of the process moves away from the center of the tolerance, fewer standard deviations will fit between the mean and the nearest specification limit, decreasing the sigma number and increasing the likelihood of items outside specification. [36]

Graph of the normal distribution, which underlies the statistical assumptions of the Six Sigma model. The Greek letter σ (sigma) marks the distance on the horizontal axis between the mean, µ, and the curve's inflection point. The greater this distance, the greater is the spread of values encountered. For the green curve shown above, µ = 0 and σ = 1. The upper and lower specification limits (USL and LSL, respectively) are at a distance of 6σ from the mean. Because of the properties of the normal distribution, values lying that far away from the mean are extremely unlikely. Even if the mean were to move right or left by 1.5σ at some point in the future (1.5 sigma shift, coloured red and blue), there is still a good safety cushion. This is why Six Sigma aims to have processes where the mean is at least 6σ away from the nearest specification limit. [edit] Role of the 1.5 sigma shift
Experience has shown that processes usually do not perform as well in the long term as they do in the short term.[36] As a result, the number of sigmas that will fit between the process mean and the nearest specification limit may well drop over time, compared to an initial short-term study.[36] To account for this real-life increase in process variation over time, an empirically-based 1.5 sigma shift is introduced into the calculation. [36][60] According to this idea, a process that fits 6 sigma between the process mean and the nearest specification limit in a short-term study will in the long term fit only 4.5 sigma – either because the process mean will move over time, or because the long-term standard deviation of the process will be greater than that observed in the short term, or both. [36] Hence the widely accepted definition of a six sigma process is a process that produces 3.4 defective parts per million opportunities (DPMO). This is based on the fact that a process that is normally distributed will have 3.4 parts per million beyond a point that is 4.5 standard deviations above or below the mean (one-sided capability study).[36] So the 3.4 DPMO of a six sigma process in fact corresponds to 4.5 sigma, namely 6 sigma minus the 1.5-sigma shift introduced to account for long-term variation.[36] This allows for the fact that special causes may result in a deterioration in process performance over time, and is designed to prevent underestimation of the defect levels likely to be encountered in real-life operation.[36]

[edit] Sigma levels

A control chart depicting a process that experienced a 1.5 sigma drift in the process mean toward the upper specification limit starting at midnight. Control charts are used to maintain 6 sigma quality by signaling when quality professionals should investigate a process to find and eliminate special-cause variation. See also: Three sigma rule
The table[61][62] below gives long-term DPMO values corresponding to various short-term sigma levels. It must be understood that these figures assume that the process mean will shift by 1.5 sigma toward the side with the critical specification limit. In other words, they assume that after the initial study determining the short-term sigma level, the long-term Cpk value will turn out to be 0.5 less than the short-term Cpk value. So, for example, the DPMO figure given for 1 sigma assumes that the long-term process mean will be 0.5 sigma beyond the specification limit (Cpk = –0.17), rather than 1 sigma within it, as it was in the short-term study (Cpk = 0.33). Note that the defect percentages indicate only defects exceeding the specification limit to which the process mean is nearest. Defects beyond the far specification limit are not included in the percentages.

Sigma level DPMO Percent defective Percentage yield Short-term Cpk Long-term Cpk 1 2 691,462 69% 308,538 31% 31% 69% 0.33 0.67 –0.17 0.17

3 4 5 6 7

66,807 6.7% 6,210 233 3.4 0.019 0.62% 0.023% 0.00034% 0.0000019%

93.3% 99.38% 99.977% 99.99966% 99.9999981%

1.00 1.33 1.67 2.00 2.33

0.5 0.83 1.17 1.5 1.83

[edit] Software used for Six Sigma
[edit] Statistics Analysis tools with comparable functions
               

Arena ARIS Six Sigma Bonita Open Solution BPMN2 standard and KPIs for statistic monitoring JMP Mathematica MATLAB or GNU Octave Microsoft Visio Minitab R language (The R Project for Statistical Computing[63]). Some contributed packages at CRAN contain specific tools for Six Sigma: SixSigma,[64] qualityTools,[65] qcc[66] and IQCC.[67] SDI Tools SigmaXL Software AG webMethods BPM Suite SPC XL STATA Statgraphics STATISTICA

[edit] Application
Main article: List of Six Sigma companies
Six Sigma mostly finds application in large organizations.[68] An important factor in the spread of Six Sigma was GE's 1998 announcement of $350 million in savings thanks to Six Sigma, a figure that later grew to more than $1 billion.[68] According to industry consultants like Thomas Pyzdek and John Kullmann, companies with fewer than 500 employees are less suited to Six Sigma implementation, or need to adapt the standard approach to make it work for them.[68] This is due both to the infrastructure of Black Belts that Six Sigma requires, and to the fact that large organizations present more opportunities for the kinds of improvements Six Sigma is suited to bringing about. [68]

[edit] In healthcare
Six Sigma strategies were initially applied to the healthcare industry in March 1998. The Commonwealth Health Corporation (CHC) was the first health care organization to successfully implement the efficient strategies of Six Sigma.[69] Substantial financial benefits were claimed, for example in their radiology department throughout improved by 33% and costs per radiology procedure decreased by 21.5%; [70] Six Sigma has subsequently been adopted in other hospitals around the world.[71][72] Critics of Six Sigma believe that while Six Sigma methods may have translated fluidly in a manufacturing setting, they would not have the same result in service-oriented businesses, such as the health industry.[73]

[edit] Criticism
[edit] Lack of originality
Noted quality expert Joseph M. Juran has described Six Sigma as "a basic version of quality improvement", stating that "there is nothing new there. It includes what we used to call facilitators. They've adopted more flamboyant terms, like belts with different colors. I think that concept has merit to set apart, to create specialists who can be very helpful. Again, that's not a new idea. The American Society for Quality long ago established certificates, such as for reliability engineers."[74]

[edit] Role of consultants
The use of "Black Belts" as itinerant change agents has (controversially) fostered an industry of training and certification. Critics argue there is overselling of Six Sigma by too great a number of consulting firms, many of which claim expertise in Six Sigma when they have only a rudimentary understanding of the tools and techniques involved, or the markets or industries they are acting in. [5]

[edit] Potential negative effects
A Fortune article stated that "of 58 large companies that have announced Six Sigma programs, 91 percent have trailed the S&P 500 since". The statement was attributed to "an analysis by Charles Holland of consulting firm Qualpro (which espouses a competing quality-improvement process)".[75] The summary of the article is that Six Sigma is effective at what it is intended to do, but that it is "narrowly designed to fix an existing process" and does not help in "coming up with new products or disruptive technologies." Advocates of Six Sigma have argued that many of these claims are in error or ill-informed.[76][77] A more direct criticism is the "rigid" nature of Six Sigma with its over-reliance on methods and tools. In most cases, more attention is paid to reducing variation and searching for any significant factors and less attention is paid to developing robustness in the first place (which can altogether eliminate the need for reducing variation). [78] The extensive reliance on significance testing and use of multiple regression techniques increases the risk of making commonly-unknown types of statistical errors or mistakes. Another serious consequence of Six Sigma's array of Pvalue misconceptions is the false belief that the probability of a conclusion being in error can be calculated from the data in a single experiment without reference to external evidence or the plausibility of the underlying

mechanism.[79] Since significance tests were first popularized many objections have been voiced by prominent and respected statisticians. The volume of criticism and rebuttal has filled books with language seldom used in the scholarly debate of a dry subject.[80][81][82][83] Much of the first criticism was already published more than 40 years ago. Refer to: Statistical hypothesis testing#Criticism for details. Articles featuring critics have appeared in the November –December 2006 issue of USA Army Logistician regarding Six-Sigma: "The dangers of a single paradigmatic orientation (in this case, that of technical rationality) can blind us to values associated with double-loop learning and the learning organization, organization adaptability, workforce creativity and development, humanizing the workplace, cultural awareness, and strategy making."[84] A BusinessWeek article says that James McNerney's introduction of Six Sigma at 3M had the effect of stifling creativity and reports its removal from the research function. It cites two Wharton School professors who say that Six Sigma leads to incremental innovation at the expense of blue skies research.[85] This phenomenon is further explored in the book Going Lean, which describes a related approach known as lean dynamics and provides data to show that Ford's "6 Sigma" program did little to change its fortunes.[86]

[edit] Lack of systematic documentation
One criticism voiced by Yasar Jarrar and Andy Neely from the Cranfield School of Management's Centre for Business Performance is that while Six Sigma is a powerful approach, it can also unduly dominate an organization's culture; and they add that much of the Six Sigma literature lacks academic rigor: One final criticism, probably more to the Six Sigma literature than concepts, relates to the evidence for Six Sigma’s success. So far, documented case studies using the Six Sigma methods are presented as the strongest evidence for its success. However, looking at these documented cases, and apart from a few that are detailed from the experience of leading organizations like GE and Motorola, most cases are not documented in a systemic or academic manner. In fact, the majority are case studies illustrated on websites, and are, at best, sketchy. They provide no mention of any specific Six Sigma methods that were used to resolve the problems. It has been argued that by relying on the Six Sigma criteria, management is lulled into the idea that something is being done about quality, whereas any resulting improvement is accidental (Latzko 1995). Thus, when looking at the evidence put forward for Six Sigma success, mostly by consultants and people with vested interests, the question that begs to be asked is: are we making a true improvement with Six Sigma methods or just getting skilled at telling stories? Everyone seems to believe that we are making true improvements, but there is some way to go to document these empirically and clarify the causal relations.[78]

[edit] Based on arbitrary standards
While 3.4 defects per million opportunities might work well for certain products/processes, it might not operate optimally or cost effectively for others. A pacemaker process might need higher standards, for example, whereas a direct mail advertising campaign might need lower standards. The basis and justification for choosing six (as opposed to five or seven, for example) as the number of standard deviations, together with the 1.5 sigma shift is not clearly explained. In addition, the Six Sigma model assumes that the process data always conform to the normal distribution. The calculation of defect rates for situations where the normal distribution model does not apply is not

properly addressed in the current Six Sigma literature. This particularly counts for reliability-related defects and other problems that are not time invariant. The IEC, ARP, EN-ISO, DIN and other (inter)national standardization organizations have not created standards for the Six Sigma process. This might be the reason that it became a dominant domain of consultants (see critics above).[5]

[edit] Criticism of the 1.5 sigma shift
The statistician Donald J. Wheeler has dismissed the 1.5 sigma shift as "goofy" because of its arbitrary nature. [87] Its universal applicability is seen as doubtful.[5] The 1.5 sigma shift has also become contentious because it results in stated "sigma levels" that reflect short-term rather than long-term performance: a process that has long-term defect levels corresponding to 4.5 sigma performance is, by Six Sigma convention, described as a "six sigma process." [36][88] The accepted Six Sigma scoring system thus cannot be equated to actual normal distribution probabilities for the stated number of standard deviations, and this has been a key bone of contention over how Six Sigma measures are defined. [88] The fact that it is rarely explained that a "6 sigma" process will have long-term defect rates corresponding to 4.5 sigma performance rather than actual 6 sigma performance has led several commentators to express the opinion that Six Sigma is a confidence trick.[36] Kaizen (改善?), Japanese for "improvement", or "change for the better" refers to philosophy or practices that focus upon continuous improvement of processes in manufacturing, engineering, and business management. It has been applied in healthcare,[1] psychotherapy,[2] life-coaching, government, banking, and other industries. When used in the business sense and applied to the workplace, kaizen refers to activities that continually improve all functions, and involves all employees from the CEO to the assembly line workers. It also applies to processes, such as purchasing and logistics, that cross organizational boundaries into the supply chain.[3] By improving standardized activities and processes, kaizen aims to eliminate waste (see lean manufacturing). Kaizen was first implemented in several Japanese businesses after the Second World War, influenced in part by American business and quality management teachers who visited the country. It has since spread throughout the world [4] and is now being implemented in many other venues besides just business and productivity.

Contents
[hide]
      

1 Introduction 2 History 3 Implementation o 3.1 The five main elements of kaizen 4 See also 5 References 6 Further reading 7 External links

[edit] Introduction
The Japanese word "kaizen" simply means "good change", with no inherent meaning of either "continuous" or "philosophy" in Japanese dictionaries or in everyday use. The word refers to any improvement, one-time or continuous, large or small, in the same sense as the English word "improvement".[5] However, given the common practice in Japan of labeling industrial or business improvement techniques with the word "kaizen" (for lack of a specific Japanese word meaning "continuous improvement" or "philosophy of improvement"), especially in the case of oft-emulated practices spearheaded by Toyota, the word Kaizen in English is typically applied to measures for implementing continuous improvement, or even taken to mean a "Japanese philosophy" thereof. The discussion below focuses on such interpretations of the word, as frequently used in the context of modern management discussions. Kaizen is a daily process, the purpose of which goes beyond simple productivity improvement. It is also a process that, when done correctly, humanizes the workplace, eliminates overly hard work ("muri"), and teaches people how to perform experiments on their work using the scientific method and how to learn to spot and eliminate waste in business processes. In all, the process suggests a humanized approach to workers and to increasing productivity: "The idea is to nurture the company's human resources as much as it is to praise and encourage participation in kaizen activities."[6] Successful implementation requires "the participation of workers in the improvement." [7] People at all levels of an organization participate in kaizen, from the CEO down to janitorial staff, as well as external stakeholders when applicable. The format for kaizen can be individual, suggestion system, small group, or large group. At Toyota, it is usually a local improvement within a workstation or local area and involves a small group in improving their own work environment and productivity. This group is often guided through the kaizen process by a line supervisor; sometimes this is the line supervisor's key role. Kaizen on a broad, cross-departmental scale in companies, generates total quality management, and frees human efforts through improving productivity using machines and computing power.[citation needed] While kaizen (at Toyota) usually delivers small improvements, the culture of continual aligned small improvements and standardization yields large results in the form of compound productivity improvement. This philosophy differs from the "command and control" improvement programs of the mid-twentieth century. Kaizen methodology includes making changes and monitoring results, then adjusting. Large-scale pre-planning and extensive project scheduling are replaced by smaller experiments, which can be rapidly adapted as new improvements are suggested.[citation needed] In modern usage, it is designed to address a particular issue over the course of a week and is referred to as a "kaizen blitz" or "kaizen event". These are limited in scope, and issues that arise from them are typically used in later blitzes.[citation needed]

[edit] History
After WWII, to help restore Japan, American occupation forces brought in American experts to help with the rebuilding of Japanese industry while The Civil Communications Section (CCS) developed a Management Training Program that taught statistical control methods as part of the overall material. This course was developed and taught

by Homer Sarasohn and Charles Protzman in 1949-50. Sarasohn recommended W. Edwards Deming for further training in Statistical Methods. The Economic and Scientific Section (ESS) group was also tasked with improving Japanese management skills and Edgar McVoy was instrumental in bringing Lowell Mellen to Japan to properly install the Training Within Industry (TWI) programs in 1951. Prior to the arrival of Mellen in 1951, the ESS group had a training film to introduce the three TWI "J" programs (Job Instruction, Job Methods and Job Relations)---the film was titled "Improvement in 4 Steps" (Kaizen eno Yon Dankai). Thus the original introduction of "Kaizen" to Japan. For the pioneering, introduction, and implementation of Kaizen in Japan, the Emperor of Japan awarded the 2nd Order Medal of the Sacred Treasure to Dr. Deming in 1960. Consequently, the Union of Japanese Science and Engineering (JUSE) instituted the annual Deming Prizes for achievement in quality and dependability of products. On October 18, 1989, JUSE awarded the Deming Prize to Florida Power & Light Co. (FPL), based in the US, for its exceptional accomplishments in process and quality control management. FPL was the first company outside Japan to win the Deming Prize.
[8]

[edit] Implementation
The Toyota Production System is known for kaizen, where all line personnel are expected to stop their moving production line in case of any abnormality and, along with their supervisor, suggest an improvement to resolve the abnormality which may initiate a kaizen.

The PDCA cycles[9]
The cycle of kaizen activity can be defined as:  

Standardize an operation and activities. Measure the operation (find cycle time and amount of in-process inventory)

   

Gauge measurements against requirements Innovate to meet requirements and increase productivity Standardize the new, improved operations Continue cycle ad infinitum

This is also known as the Shewhart cycle, Deming cycle, or PDCA. Other techniques used in conjunction with PDCA include 5 Whys, which is a form of root cause analysis in which the user asks "why" to a problem and finds an answer five successive times. There are normally a series of root causes stemming from one problem, [10] and they can be visualized using fishbone diagrams or tables. Masaaki Imai made the term famous in his book Kaizen: The Key to Japan's Competitive Success.[11] Apart from business applications of the method, both Anthony Robbins[citation needed] and Robert Maurer have popularized the kaizen principles into personal development principles. In the book One Small Step Can Change Your life: The Kaizen Way, and CD set The Kaizen Way to Success, Maurer looks at how individuals can take a kaizen approach in both their personal and professional lives. [12][13] In the Toyota Way Fieldbook, Liker and Meier discuss the kaizen blitz and kaizen burst (or kaizen event) approaches to continuous improvement. A kaizen blitz, or rapid improvement, is a focused activity on a particular process or activity. The basic concept is to identify and quickly remove waste. Another approach is that of the kaizen burst, a specific kaizen activity on a particular process in the value stream.[14]

[edit] The five main elements of kaizen This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.
(April 2010)

    

Management teamwork Increased labor responsibilities Increased management morale Quality circles Management suggestions for labor improvement

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