Features of the six sigma plus and its variations

Innovation is critical in today's business market. New technologies, new products, and new systems must be constantly developed, improved and maintained in order to remain competitive. At POSCO, an international manufacturing company, they designed Quick Six Sigma Plus (QSS +) to ensure the smooth operation of their machines, systems and production lines. The QSS + movement worked to optimize its plants, helping it provide some of the industry's most advanced steel products.

The first step was the SS - Six Sigma - a production management concept developed at Motorola in 1986 and popularized in the mid-1990s after Jack Welch applied it as a key strategy in General Electric. The essence of the concept is reduced to the need to improve the quality of the outputs of each of the processes, minimize defects and statistical deviations in operational activities. The concept uses quality management methods, including statistical methods, requires the use of measurable goals and results, and also involves the creation of special working groups at the enterprise implementing projects to eliminate problems and improve processes (“black belts”, “green belts”).

Although Six Sigma has been widely known for over two decades, only in the recent past has the advanced Six Sigma Plus become popular with quality professionals.

Six Sigma Plus is more than Six Sigma, and Plus is used to mean “synergy,” which is achieved by integrating people, processes, and strategies.

For example, Six Sigma aims to reduce the number of defects per million parts. Similarly, Six Sigma plus uses the same metrics to prevent defects. Thus, someone might ask: what is so special about Six Sigma Plus? The answer is to consider the scope of a typical Six Sigma Plus implementation compared to the Six Sigma implementation.

The Six Sigma Plus initiative seeks to “integrate” the three cornerstones of an organization, that is, systems, processes, and people, and integrate them with a basic business strategy.

This means that unlike Six Sigma, which focuses on processes and defect reduction, Six Sigma Plus goes beyond statistics and instead focuses on a “holistic” approach that takes into account customer orientation and customer-oriented strategy.

In addition, Six Sigma Plus is a “proactive” approach that anticipates future trends and acts in the present to capitalize on them when they become standard. Thus, Six Sigma Plus hopes to go beyond Six Sigma in its scope.

Now that we’ve identified what Six Sigma Plus is, it’s useful to take a look at the areas covered by the typical Six Sigma Plus implementation. Traditionally, Six Sigma implementations have covered manufacturing processes and have been aimed at reducing and preventing defects in these processes.

However, Six Sigma Plus implementations typically cover all departments, including functional areas and product development functions. This provides comprehensive coverage of all processes in the organization, and not just production processes.

In addition, Six Sigma Plus implementations are typically customer-oriented, which means that these implementations anticipate customer trends and act decisively to integrate customer needs and expectations with the implementation.

TQM ( Total Quality Management ) is a quality-oriented approach to managing an organization, based on the participation of all its members and aimed at achieving long-term success by satisfying consumer needs and benefits for all members of the organization and society. The foundations of this system theory of quality management were laid in the middle of the 20th century. Edwards Deming, a long time foreman who left in Japan. They include:

• ·    knowledge of systems, systems approach, and optimization;

• ·    fundamentals of statistical theory and knowledge of variability;

• ·    foundations of the theory of knowledge;

• ·    the basics of psychology

Six Sigma Plus is a holistic approach compared to standard quality management approaches such as TQM or Total Quality Management. The “plus” in Six Sigma is the alignment of quality initiatives with business goals, and this is what distinguishes Six Sigma Plus from TQM.

While TQM takes a narrow approach to defect prevention and quality control with the ultimate goal of customer satisfaction, Six Sigma Plus takes the whole concept of quality management to a new level, starting with the client and then aligning the business strategy with the quality strategy processes.

The fact is that TQM is rather an internally oriented measure, which is aimed at reducing the number of defects and, consequently, at customer satisfaction, while Six Sigma Plus takes the client as a starting point and works with quality processes from this point of view.

Other differences between TQM and Six Sigma Plus include the “change” aspect of Six Sigma Plus, where the goal of the latter is to actively seek quality improvement measures, as opposed to the TQM methodology, which focuses on the same process for the Quality Standards prescribed for the process.

In addition, Six Sigma Plus focuses on advancing organizational change by identifying areas in the processes that can be improved and customer-oriented, as well as extending the improvement process to all functional areas. In short, Six Sigma Plus covers the entire organization, while standard quality management methodologies, such as TQM, are limited to quality control and quality management of production processes.

As mentioned earlier, Six Sigma Plus goes beyond the usual Six Sigma implementation and has the added benefit of customer focus, process improvement, and increased productivity as the cornerstones of its implementation.

Although at first glance the differences between Six Sigma Plus and Six Sigma seem superficial, there are indeed significant differences in the way these methodologies are implemented.

The Six Sigma structure allows for the acceptance of two defects per billion tested samples. Although this may seem impossible, especially in the manufacturing sector, where quality slippage is common, in fact, several companies such as GE, Dow Chemical, TATA group and banking institutions such as JPMC, Citigroup and Bank of America have successfully adopted Six Sigma framework.

The adoption of Six Sigma by these companies resulted from a focus on quality, which was both top to bottom and bottom to top, and the joint efforts of all stakeholders ensured the success of this work.

However, it should be noted that adopting a structure is the first step in the process of achieving high quality, as companies must adhere to this structure in their daily work in order to claim that they truly meet the requirements of Six Sigma.

According to many experts, Six Sigma Plus uses the Six Sigma methodology and adds aspects of leading change to the strategy, coaching leaders in human development, a practical approach to theory, implementing customer-oriented projects in training, advanced tools using components (as discussed in the section, associated with Six Sigma Plus ) and the use of a combination of soft skills and sophisticated skills to make the company more competitive than its competitors.

As seen from the previous discussion, aligning people, processes, and systems with the integrity of a business strategy and achieving synergies in the interaction of components is a hallmark of Six Sigma Plus implementation.

In addition, Six Sigma Plus aims to drive change and focus on leadership, not just educate people on methodology. The key term here is the ability to think differently when it comes to quality, and therefore Six Sigma Plus can be considered as a philosophy of quality, and not as an implementation of statistical quality indicators.

In conclusion, Six Sigma Plus is a new quality model that goes beyond traditional quality concepts and gives a whole new meaning to the concept of quality control. It remains to be seen how many companies apply the Six Sigma Plus methodology and how successful this addition to the existing pantheon of quality initiatives will be.

Resources used:

• 1.    What is Six Sigma Plus // managementstudyguide [электронный ресурс]. Режим доступа https://www.managementstudyguide.com/six-sigma-plus.htm (Дата обращения: 27.08.2019)

• 2.    Innovation in Production Systems with POSCO’s QSS+ // newsroom.posco [электронный ресурс]. Режим доступа https://newsroom.posco.com/en/qss-transforms-posco-production/ (Дата обращения: 02.09.2019)

• 3.    Quick, Quality Decision-Making Using Six Sigma Tools// [электронный ресурс]. Режим доступа https://www.isixsigma.com/methodology/voc-customer-focus/quick-quality-decision-making-using-six-sigma-tools/ (Дата обращения: 11.09.2019)