How can Kaizen or Six Sigma impact quality?
Kaizen vs. Six Sigma … Toyota’s logic or Motorola’s habits?
Did you know that large manufacturers can never achieve perfection? There is a chance that the next time you purchase a consumer electronic product or an automobile, you will end up with a defect. To claim “good-enough” quality, mass-producers target a certain number of defects and jump for joy when they achieve those targets. That is one of the reasons why they settle for a continuous process of improvement – called Kaizen.
Kaizen means “a change for the better” in Japanese and this ideology first started to appear in the 1980s with the influx of Japanese car manufacturers. Masaaki Imai details it all in his book Kaizen – The Key To Japan’s Competitive Success (1996).
Kaizen is based on a new wave of thinking from Japan, and goes against some Western principles. The Japanese logic aims at bringing improvements internally – from within the workplace – which goes against the Western habit of getting external consultants to improve processes. How does it work? Simple. It is based on the assumption that the employer values his employees and entrust them to get together on a regular basis to look at their jobs and processes and identify changes needed to improve performance. It is a no-brainer indeed.
Take the Toyota Production System (TPS) as an example. TPS is based on a rulebook that provides guidelines for factory managers and employees to follow. It is based on five principles: a) the entire organisation should be seeking continuous improvement, b) workers should be trained to follow standardised procedures, c) any kinds of waste should be eliminated including waste of space, d) workers should be empowered to stop production if quality is threatened, and e) inventory should be minimised.
TPS has been emulated by many US and European car makers when Japanese quality was digging a gap difficult to catch up with. Eventually, Chrysler came up with its Chrysler Operating System and Ford with its Ford Production System. In addition, in 1997, DCX, Ford and GM jointly created QS-9000 (Quality Systems) which aimed at certifying all companies wishing to supply components to them. ISO-9000 served the same purpose and was based on a process manual with detailed job instructions.
Some argue that Kaizen should be part of a long-term strategy. Short-term Kaizen does not work and is often compared to Six Sigma – a quality management strategy developed by Motorola in 1981. Six Sigma takes the Kaizen logic and mixes it with Western habits. For instance, instead of directly having employees to discuss a specific issue in their dedicated areas and try to solve it, Six Sigma trains “internal consultants” known as “black belts” or “green belts”. Those experts are part of a special unit within the company trained to use a set of statistical methods to remove defects.
The term Six Sigma is associated with statistical modeling of manufacturing processes. A Sigma indicates the maturity of a manufacturing process. A six-sigma process is one in which 99.99966% of the products manufactured are free of defects, compared to a one-sigma process in which only 31% are free of defects. Motorola set a goal of six sigmas for all of its manufacturing operations.
I have personally trained on Six Sigma before and have worked under its rules, and – IMHO – it bares too many negative effects. Of course it ensures that your short-term quality goals are achieved, but it often comes with a long list of very heavy processes which, most of the time, limit creativity, change and innovation. For instance, to manufacture a new mobile phone, Motorola had to go through 15 “gates”, from M0 (concept) to M7 (testing) and M15 (launch). Unfortunately, to go from one step to another, heavy administrative paper work and politics were involved which meant that it could take up to 12 months to launch a device (or more). It was virtually impossible to shorten the product development time and it became a burden when asian manufacturers could launch a new device in 6 months. I have seen many manufacturers not being able to immediately react to competition and grab opportunities in time because their heavy processes based of Six Sigma.
In fact, I am not the only one thinking that Six Sigma is too rigid. According to Charles Holland from consulting firm Qualpro:
Of 58 large companies that have announced Six Sigma programs in 1995, 91% have trailed the S&P500 since [...] Six Sigma is narrowly designed and allows little room for new ideas. Talents were devoted to drive defects down to 3.4 per million and not to come up with new products and disruptive technologies [read full article from Fortune magazine here].
I strongly believe that this is one of the many reasons why Motorola collapsed in 2006 – and never stopped falling since then – and hopefully, whoever is looking to acquire Motorola’s handset unit will strip down its Six Sigma value to a symbolic one Dollar.
So, between long term Kaizen or short term Six Sigma, you have got to choose, but choose wisely. Would you follow Toyota’s logic or Motorola’s habits? Either way, it will not change the fact that your new mobile phone might suddenly burst into flames in your hand.
