“Sigma Station” - sweat and dysfunction on the first run!
Yesterday I participated in “Sigma Station”, a simulation which is part of the current Lean Six Sigma (LSS) Green Belt training TMAC offers here at ARRI.
I volunteered to help with the execution of the interactive simulation. I lingered afterwards, while the tallies were being counted and the totals being converted into the Sigma Quality Level for the fictitious company. I enjoy watching the mathematical part of the simulation… the confirmation of the obvious dysfunction the students have just participated in.
The students act as workers at Sigma Station, a publicly owned television station. Their jobs are to process the advertising orders which arrive at the station. I won’t divulge the details of the actual simulation, but will go as far to say that the processes scream for correction and adjustment from the get-go. As an observing volunteer, it is entertaining to watch the process from “outside”… I could see the looks of complete amusement on some faces while sweat trickles down on the faces of overworked participants.
At the end of the simulation, the productivity and defects are analyzed and the Sigma Quality Level (SQL) is determined. Yesterday’s SQL for Sigma Station was 2 (about 308,000 defects per million possible defects), which is not surprising if you have witnessed the chaos leading up to the rating. A target for many businesses is a SQL of 6, which equates to 3.4 defects per million possible defects.
How can that be? The pain and frustration I witnessed cannot really exist in “real life”, can it? I am appalled, but I think I am also very naive in my optimistic thinking. Many company executives and managers allow this type of dysfunction to exist in their companies’! Do they turn a blind eye or are they simply oblivious to the facts? When they consider the bottom line – do they evaluate “wasted time and efforts” and want to rethink their processes? Where do they place “blame”?
I see one of the most priceless components of Lean/Six Sigma as the focus on the customers’ needs by using the ingenuity of team members! The successful implementation of the LSS methodology encourages all team members to think and requires management to listen. There are no better people to weigh in on process improvement than the workers engaged in the process!
That is what the “workers” of Sigma Station will figure out in the coming days as they re-enact the simulation…they will realize that they have a strong voice in directing change and that the customers’ opinions should drive the changes! Late delivery full of errors do not a successful (and profitable) company make!
The final simulation of a LSS class is equally entertaining as the first… after making customer driven changes to the processes at the station, the workers are usually “close” to achieving Six Sigma and celebrate accordingly. Then the students have in instructor-led epiphany that improvement is continuous and that processes are never “good enough”! They must keep focused - never accept that they have perfected their processes!
How would your company’s processes measure up in a “Sigma Station” type simulation?
