HR Scorecard And Lean Six Sigma

Many people have heard of Six Sigma and know that it deals with reducing defects, improving quality and eliminating variation. Lean is a discipline focused on improving process speed and eliminating waste. Lean Six Sigma is the synergistic union between the two, as quality improves speed and speed improves quality. By integrating Lean speed and Six Sigma quality, the rate of improvement in quality, cost and speed increases much faster and goes much further than either discipline could achieve separately.

Lean Six Sigma is the combination of two tool kits around process improvement that are essential to success in a company. Lean deals with improving the speed of a process by reducing waste and eliminating non-value added steps. Six Sigma improves performance by focusing on those aspects of a process that are critical to quality from the customer perspective and eliminating variation in that process.

Lean utilizes "Kaizen events" -- intensive, typically week-long improvement sessions -- to quickly identify improvement opportunities and goes one step further than a tradition process map in its use of value stream mapping. Six Sigma uses a formal project methodology known as DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control) to allow project efforts to bring measurable and repeatable results. Whereas, Lean Six Sigma uses the combination of these two. HR Scorecard and Lean Six Sigma are closely related to each other and it won’t be an exaggeration if we say they can’t survive without each other in the highly competitive and high paced quality conscious world. They both supplement each other. Let’s see subsequent paragraphs to understand this concept of HR Scorecard and Lean Six Sigma better.

Six Sigma, Total Quality Management (TQM) and its variants are now widespread in American business. Yet many executives raise serious questions about their value. Fortune magazine, The Wall Street Journal and Business Week have all presented examples of serious failures. Several recognized Six Sigma companies have experienced financial troubles. On a more personal level, almost every senior executive knows a horror story of quality programs that failed. Yet there are also examples of striking success.

What Makes The Difference?

Management commitment is certainly a key success factor. Commitment is time, funding, priorities and interest from the CEO. HR Scorecard and Lean Six Sigma requires as much from top management as it does from line workers, perhaps even more.

Coaching, encouragement and support from all levels of management are necessary and here is exactly where HR Scorecard and Lean Six Sigma come into play. This is often the most difficult part of Six Sigma. It requires all managers (especially the HR department) to discover, for themselves, the new paradigm. Some never do. Sometimes a single well-placed and shrewd holdout can destroy a major Six Sigma or TQM effort.

We know in HR Scorecard and Lean Six Sigma, training is an issue. Training is more than sending a few supervisors off to a 3-day seminar or having the plant's engineer give a lecture. Only knowledgeable and experienced people can create effective adult training. The classes we took in high school and college are poor models for adult learning in an industrial environment. Training also requires coaching and follow-up. The most difficult and critical step is transferring "book-learning" to the daily job.

Traditional organizations work against TQM programs. Hierarchy and privilege inhibit those who often have critical information. Functional work structures promote managerial tunnel vision. Six Sigma and TQM threaten each individual's interest in the current power structure. Even those with little power often take comfort from their familiar place.

In one such instance, a manufacturer of aircraft engine components attempted a cultural transformation. They hired Human Resource (HR) consultants and increased the influence, and capabilities of the HR department and finally the implementation of HR Scorecard and Lean Six Sigma for overall growth of the organization.

Key managers were shipped off to various "charm schools" and behavior modification programs. Everyone attended workshops on teamwork. The HR staff and the HR consultants spent untold hours in coaching and personal team building.

After five years this cultural change effort proved highly effective. Morale was high. Interpersonal and interdepartmental relations throughout the division were cordial and cooperative rather than offensive and confrontational. Turnover and absenteeism were low. The plant had a reputation as the best employer in the area. The firm had first choice for the most desirable people in the labor market.

But, on another level, success was not evident. Scrap and rework levels did not change significantly. The plant could not document even one successful improvement project. Financial improvements were infinitesimal. Sales and marketing realized no competitive advantage from the efforts.

Lack Of Six Sigma Strategy?

"Do you know how many companies have failed deploying Six Sigma due to the lack of strategy? And, do you know the financial impact of doing so? Definition of lack of strategy:

• Train Black Belts before Champions.
• Train Black Belts without projects.
• Do not select/train Process Owners, Data Owners, Subject Matter Experts, Green/Yellow Belts, Financial Representatives.
• Launch Six Sigma without a pipeline of well-defined projects.
• Launch Six Sigma without valid data and measurement systems.
• Launch Six Sigma without: performance management process, career path, leadership development, compensation strategy for Black Belts, communications and change management strategies.
• Launch Six Sigma without a robust 'financial' management and reporting system for Six Sigma.
• Follow the 1% rule because everyone does it."