Why do we teach Lean Six Sigma?

Six Sigma specifically was created to solve manufacturing quality problems. Since the beginning a few companies started using Six Sigma to solve problems outside of manufacturing, such as General Electric and us, Optness.

What you will be learning in this 2-day course is this Scientific Methodology that has proven itself in Optness and also in other companies. It will increase your probabilities to achieve your goals, to solve problems in your personal life, in your family, in your career, in companies you may assist and in any sort of company that you will be working on. 

It's not the classic approach of Six Sigma that is very mathematical, very rigid. It's something towards management, leadership and unbiased decision making that can be used everywhere and in any kind of situation. 

How did Six Sigma start?

Six Sigma was created in 1987 because Motorola in the US was suffering a lot from the competition from Japan. Japan was producing cheaper and better products than the US, and even with higher manufacturing costs, like shipping, taxes, customs, etc, the Japanese were selling their products in the US with a higher quality and at lower price.

Watching this scenario, the CEO of Motorola at that time, Bob Galvin, asked engineer Bill Smith to develop something to compete with the Japanese companies. And that is how Smith created the first Six Sigma approach to reduce defects in the production and increase the products quality.

Since the beginning, Six Sigma was something very strategic and given Motorola’s success, other companies started using it. But the real turning point came when General Electric got amazing results with this methodology.

General Electric Six Sigma Approach

Jack Welch, GE CEO at that time, noticed the applicability of Six Sigma not only on operations, but in any process in HR, finance, marketing, sales, customer services, and so on. With this in mind he created a Six Sigma Program at GE.

In the first year it was all losses, GE, invested $200 millions and got a ROI of $170m. So, a minus $30m in the first year. However, the people they trained, Green Belts and Black Belts, started doing projects in the following years. And in 5 years, the total Return on Investment of Jack Welch Six Sigma Program, was 400%.

After that was a turning point, many companies started adopting Six Sigma. But most of them did not get the success of GE because they applied the wrong approach, a very rigid and mathematical one.

An example is a company that I worked for before J&J, called Votorantim. A huge industrial conglomerate with more than a hundred thousand employees. Almost a hundred years, in the family third generation and a very successful.

At first, they tried to implement Six Sigma, looking to get the 400% GE ROI and failed. They failed because they adopted a wrong approach to Six Sigma, a very rigid, mathematical and academic one.

I did my first Green belt with this approach at this company in 2002, and I hated it because it was very academic. It seems like my years in school.

After the first attempt and failure, Votorantim tried over for 3 years without any good result. Before giving up they invited General Electric to help and fix it.

They rethought the Six Sigma and I did the Green Belt again with the General Electric approach and changed it totally. I still remember the first few phrases that the GE guy said to us. He said to us that Six Sigma is not about statistics, Six Sigma is about money, Return on Investment and achieving goals.

Optness adopted this approach from General Electric with further improvements, and this is the approach we're going to learn here. 

Six Sigma can be applied in any project or assignment. You can pick any project and apply the 13 Six Sigma Steps. It's a scientifically proven method. If you apply Six Sigma step-by-step you will have a higher probability to be successful on any of your projects.