Lean Six Sigma Yellow Belt – Systems and Methods that assist in managing quality

1. Six Sigma Opportunities

Depending on what sort of business you work in or have experience with, or even the industry that you’re a part of, the nature of quality will be different from one industry to the other industry. The general assumption across all businesses is that quality products are meeting the needs and the expectations of the customer. In effect, quality is not about what I produce or even if I produce it accurately, but rather that the customer sees it as being produced to their needs accurately. The customer is the person receiving the output produced from the product. Remember, it’s the why in the equation we discussed in the previous model. Now keep in mind there are internal customers and external customers in general.

Six Sigma focuses on reducing variations within a process. That is the Sigma concept that we talked about earlier on. Most opportunities that you identify for a Six Sigma project will be in relationship to the variation or output quality level of a process. Many workplaces use different methods of achieving and examining quality through various philosophies and practices. Six Sigma is only one of those strategies. Let’s look at two other QMS or Quality Management systems that are very effective in the next few lectures. Those systems are Is and Total Quality Management, which is also known as PQM.

2. ISO Overview

ISO 9000 is one certification that’s governed by the International Standards Organization. The ISO 9000 document is continuously improved and evolving from year to year. They cover a range of methods for documenting quality standards and best practice approaches within a workplace. However, the ISO certification only confirms correct, checked and proper documentation is maintained, kept accessible, and held by a business a lot like a food. Certification must be placed in a restaurant to show that they are qualified to produce that food. The ISO certification must be kept in your business to show that you’re conforming to the standards held therein. ISO by itself, really does not improve quality simply by being certified. However, the ISO certification provides clear evidence of your intention to utilize ISO as a quality management system.

An organization can become certified by providing the proper evidence that the organization is in fact, complying to the ISO standards. ISO is a well respected and acknowledged business benchmark that shows organizations your acknowledgment and compliance of a quality management system. ISO provides a system of managing quality that if organizations not only comply to but act on, they will see a strengthened organization that will become well respected by their customers. Like we talked about earlier on, the ISO standard is continuously evolving and changing with times. In a dynamic environment like supply chains, production and manufacturing, it’s consistently being reviewed and updated to meet new standards. The latest version of ISO is 9001 2015. The ISO standard is updated frequently to match industries across the world and has proven to be a very effective system of managing quality. In fact, many companies won’t even do business with another company unless they adhere to the standards of ISO.

3. TQM Overview

Total Quality Management is a management approach that started in about the 1950s. The name Total Quality describes the culture, attitude and organization of a company that strives to provide customers with products and services that meet their needs. The focus is on meeting the quality of the customers. Total Quality Management, or TQM, is one of the most popular quality strategies around. Next to Six Sigma, it is probably one of the most tool driven methods, but does not have the mathematical or statistical relations found often in Six Sigma strategies.

It bases its efforts on seven basic quality tools. Those tools are the control chart flowchart, the cause and effect diagram, also known as ishikawa diagram check sheets, histograms pareto charts and scatter plots or scatter diagrams. TQM relies on examining problems and proposing solutions that need to be accepted by the populace. In effect, a democratized solution process. It identifies good ideas but does not necessarily identify the best fit. That said, it will normally make improvements in quality as part of its process or further reviews. Its cause and effect analysis ensures that better than existing process are put forward at all times.

One issue is that its lack of measurement doesn’t indicate how much better the new processes are. However, Total Quality Management has proven to be an effective strategy for almost all organizations who embrace total Quality Management. Similar to the other strategies that we’ve talked about focused on quality improvement. Total Quality Management is a team effort and requires changes in culture and the behaviors of an organization. Everyone must support the direction of the strategy for it to be successful.