Maple Leaf Foods: Leading Six Sigma Change

The driving factors for a success or failure of implementing Six Sigma is largely dependent on the inputs set forth at the conception and duration of the integration. This whitepaper will compare and contrast these critical inputs for a successful deployment. In order to accomplish this five various companies: GE Electric, W.R. Grace, Royal Chemicals, Diversified Paper and Lemforder. Some of these organizations had very successful results while others failed to reach their full potential. What is clear is the similarities of those that succeed and those that failed.

In this document we have done a detailed study of Six Sigma and Lean Six Sigma and how they help Business Analysts to maximize their skill sets to attain maximum process improvements in their activities. We introduce the topic, provide a historical timeline and disucuss its relevance to the topic. After that, we analyze current state and use the information to provide results in Analysis and Synthesis section.

Six Sigma focuses on defect prevention; improving quality, cost savings, and reducing waste by helping

The other commonly used process to transform healthcare is Six Sigma. Six Sigma is a statistically-based method to reduce variation in processes, work flow and policies. It was originally created in 1986 by engineer Bill Smith for the company Motorola (Nicoletti, 2013). Six Sigma is a management strategy with the goal of reducing the amount of defects in production, offering error-free products 99.9997% of the

• This coursework is worth 70% of the overall module marks. • The assignment questions are based on the main case. Supplements A and B provide useful insights into previous Six Sigma initiatives in the organization. • Preferably your write-up may not exceed 5000 ± 10% words. • This coursework should adopt academic conventions in terms of writing style, be supported by research, with proper attribution of sources and be fully referenced. • Do not submit an

Six Sigma was first introduced in the 1980’s by none other than Motorola. It was not however necessarily a novel concept at the time so much as it drew from a conglomerate of proven manufacturing principles. It is strikingly similar to the scientific method in design. Six Sigma approaches areas that may not necessarily be viewed as problematic with an open mind. It seeks to analyze problems or questions with a stepwise, statistical, and quantitative focus in order to discover, fix, or disprove problems that may or may not exist within a process. By doing this Six Sigma can improve efficiency and therefore improve positive outcomes for whatever the endpoint may be (Mast, Bisgaard, & others, 2007).

The concept of Six Sigma is completely consistent with the aims and objective of many healthcare organizations. At times it is very challenging to attain an excellent Six Sigma accomplishment level in real life. A good example is, a health organization that has 100,000 surgeries annually, apparently it would be allowed only one undesirable occurrence for every three years, which is not very sensible. Nevertheless, the concept behind it is still beneficial and significant, and in

Additionally, MLF embraced Six Sigma as the essential discipline to achieve and maintain what was known internally as the "Leadership Edge": which signified a competitive edge through leadership and the competitive edge of its leaders. MLF used these processes to aim the spotlight on values, accomplishments, potential and goals. Thus, senior management worked with employees to plan specific development actions to ensure the employees' continued growth and progression as business leaders. CEO McCain explained that "our values and principles define the type of people and the culture in which they work. And Six Sigma defines the way they work – having a tight linkage between leadership and culture." Moreover, at MLF, the Six Sigma philosophy – doing the right things right – meant quantitatively understanding and consistently meeting critical customer needs with minimal waste throughout the entire value chain.

Critical review of the above mentioned IT case using Thomas Bertels and Arne Buthman 's 10 Criteria for Evaluating Six Sigma Project, using Low, Medium and High are enumerated

• Six Sigma affords the avoidance of a “hit and miss” approach by breaking into measurable bites an entire chain of events leading to a problem, and then coming up with a corrective action (Roff, 2005, p. 1). According to Bateman and Snell (2009, p. 582), the acceptable failure rate is “99.99966 percent level of accuracy.” Although Six Sigma is a powerful control mechanism, it takes about 2-3 years from the time of implementation until its development is fully realized. It is a method that is most useful to a company when it is tailored specifically to a company’s processes.

As a management system six sigma permeates all aspects of an organization. Many of those who have had the opportunity to participate in six sigma projects have experienced the transformation of six sigma principle and concepts into the fabric of the management system of the companies in which they are employed by witnessing improvements that will have continuous, long term influences within the company. This is accomplished by creating alignment within the company leadership. Six sigma offers a way of thinking that facilitates improvement by reducing the amount of variation in each process. Statistical tools are used to provide insight so that management can predetermine process outcomes. It also provide a method to analyze a process to determine areas of possible improvement.

Breyfogle III, F.W., Cupello, J.M. and Meadows, B. (2001), “Managing Six Sigma”, John Wiley and Sons, New York.

Six Sigma is a household name in the world of industry. Six Sigma is a union of of methods and instruments that are created for one sole purpose—process improvement. An engineer named Bill Smith, who worked at the cellphone company, Motorola, in 1986, first initiated this principle. 9 years later, Jack Welch from General Electric made Six Sigma central to his business strategy.

Looking at the success of Motorola, many companies like Texas Instruments, Allied Signal etc started using Six Sigma methodology to bring organization-wide improvements.

The case deals with the evolution of Six Sigma, talks of its implementation and gives an understanding of Consultancy in Six Sigma at Wipro.