SigmaSix is the “successor” to ISO 9000 and its kin in the sense that it’s another meta-level management tool pretty much only respected by those who are tasked with implementing it. Extensive arguments that they’re completely different are unnecessary and misguided - I wasn’t saying they were the same thing.
I’ve worked in many companies with management styles from “fifty years of procedure manuals” to “try to learn to fly while you’re falling.” There’s no question that complex companies need complex management systems. There’s no question that companies grow out of simpler methods and can quickly find themselves in deep, mismanaged doo-doo because you can’t maneuver 1,000 employees and $2B in sales by swivel chair dancing.
But the hyper-formalized meta-processes are of more use at the meta level than anywhere else. It’s a recursion in management strategies, eventually disappearing up the assholes of the assholes who see hyperanalysis and megadocumentation as an industry in itself… never mind those ball bearings, microcontrollers, hydraulics, software or other clutter.
But if it’s what serves up your paycheck, sure, you betcha, it’s an Extremely Important Modern Management Asset. Of course.
To suggest it has value because you’ve never been off the 14th Floor says a great deal about yours.
My McJobs list, by the way, includes two VPs, one large corporation ownership and four or five Director/Department Manager slots. Along with ink and grease stains, soldering burns and a few calluses.
Obviously, neither of these things can be true. Six Sigma isn’t a “successor” to ISO 9001 (a business would be registered to ISO 9001, not “ISO 9000”) in any sense that the word “successor” is used. As to the idea it’s respected only by those tasked to implement it, that is obviously logically impossible. If it were true, why would anyone have been tasked with implementing it? That makes no sense at all. I can have enormous respect for my new business idea of painting every factory pink, but nobody’s going to pay me to do it unless they see some value in it.
Management fads do come and go, but bear in mind ISO 9001 as a standard is now 27 years old and shows no sign of going anywhere. It’s grown continuously since its introduction. That’s a really, really long time for a fad. I’ve seen a lot of business fads come and go - anyone remember the obsession over Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, or the time everyone used the word “paradigm” in every sentence? Those things flared up and vanished in two, three, maybe five years. Fads don’t last for three decades.
If you are of the impression ISO 9001 requires “megadocumentation” you don’t know much about it, or aren’t very up to speed on how this stuff is done in 2014. The fact that you think it’s a documentation chase suggest you haven’t dealt with this stuff since the 90s. Maybe you got a bad taste of this stuff back in 1993 or something, I don’t know.
Saying “Six Sigma replaced ISO 9001” is kind of like saying “the Samsung Galaxy S4 replaced Verizon” - they’re vaguely connected things but it doesn’t make a lick of sense.
[QUOTE=Stranger on a Train]
ISO 9001 is a quality management system.
[/QUOTE]
I have to correct you here; it is not. ISO 9001 is a standard. That might sound picky but “system” and “standard” are very distinct terms of art.
Stupid fads can last for decades. And to prove this, I know that you will happily give me your shoes, your belt, your wallet, your bottle of water, and let me frisk you–Because we’re talking about the “fad” at the airports.
The TSA security procedure is almost 27 years old, just like ISO 9001. And it has grown continuously, and sure as hell shows no sign of going anywhere–just like ISO 9001.
Despite the obvous fact that it’s a total farce, and everybody knows it, but senior management is too embarrassed (or incompetent) to admit it.
Which defines the entire problem with ISO 9001. ( In fact, that is its entire raison d’etre.)
The Transportation Security Authority has only existed since 2001, and no one using commercial air travel has any choice as to being subjected to security screening.
yeah, I know; And it will continue to exist until the heat death of the universe–just like IS09001.
yeah, I know; And most businesses don’t have any choice as to being subjected to ISO9001 screening.
You usually can’t even bid for a project unless you first show that you have ISO certification. Even though the ISO cert is totally meaningless, and has nothing to do with whether your company is capable of carrying out the project.
The TSA security procedure actually does serve a number of purposes, irritating though you might find it. Some of those purposes might be for the sake of PR, but, hey, I’m not saying I agree with all the purposes.
I don’t think “Raison d’etre” means what you think it means, or else you didn’t express yourself very well. Are you saying it was deliberately created to be a farce, or deliberately created to embarrass senior management? Because I can assure you neither is true. I could explain the history of quality management systems if you wanted; it’s very, very boring, but it is not, to be sure, a deliberate attempt to embarrass anyone. After all, the International Organization for Standardization is based in Switzerland, a place not know for its comedy.
Again, I’m not seeing a lot of evidence being presented here except that “it sucks.” I love Dilbert too, but it’s not necessarily a guide to reality. I don’t see any objections from anyone who seems to actually know anything about Six Sigma or ISO 9001.
I assume you are too young to remember planes getting hijacked to Cuba every week or so.
Yes getting on planes was easier back before screening. But I was never on a hijacked plane.
At least in electrical utilities, actual field work is so regulated, and so heavily controlled through qualification and technical certificates, that there’s little room for improvement. The problems they do have (and to be honest, they’re well run companies, from what I’ve seen) are usually on the administrative side.
A fun part of visiting utility companies is when they accidentally find weed grow ops, which in a medium sized town is pretty much a monthly occurrence. They always take pictures, and the basement grow ops people set up can be awesome, in an electrically dangerous way.
Also fun are the incredibly ridiculous ways people will try to cheat the power company, though with smart meters it’s getting harder. On one occasion I was shown a meter of the old style that had been attached to a dentists’ office. The dentist has used his dentrl drill to put a tiny hole in the bottom of the meter’s glass casing and had threaded a wire into it to slow down the meter. He was charged with a crime in an effort to save, I dunno, twenty bucks a month. God, some people are greedy.
One thing ISO9001 compliance helps with is attributing responsibility, making sure it’s clearly documented which types of job roles are responsible for what, and in any specific instance, which employee was responsible for a particular work item or process. That is, if properly implemented, if something screws up, you have a better chance of finding out WHO screwed up. Now, believe it or not, this really does help improve quality, but it’s certainly not the end of the story.
Bingo.
I’ve been doing work that requires ISO-9001 accreditation since the 90’s. It’s always a royal PITA. The first time through, we (in a very small company) were delighted to find that our internally designed procedures already met most of the criteri. We had to make only a few adjustments to our processes, and those adjustments made perfect sense.
How about this from just an employee? My experience in a FDA-regulated GMP environment means that I understand the need to document everything. Maxims like “If it isn’t documented you didn’t do it” and “First I’m going to tell you what I’m going to do, then I’m going to do it, then I’m going to tell you what I did.” And that quality management systems of all kinds work well and are needed on large-scale processes, even if the details of what is done varies. But I’ve also seen and heard of plenty of companies that latch onto something like Lean or Six Sigma and try to use it inappropriately or when it’s not really what they need.
So you’d never hear anyone complain (other than in a general grumbly way at times) about the need for procedures in a regulated manufacturing environment. But in my experience if you try to push metrics on your bench scientists (especially if they don’t see the need or value) you’re going to get a lot of pushback. If you figure out how to Lean your lab so that needed supplies aren’t out of stock, needed equipment is easily found, and so on the scientists will see the value and happily cooperate. Similarly, it’s good to be able to look at an SOP if you have a question about how to do something, especially if it’s rarely performed. If you try to measure everything they do (number of reactions run in a week, number of compounds put into testing, etc.) you get a lot of unhappy scientists who both feel that their time is being wasted and that these metrics will eventually be used against them. They also want input on changes to procedures that affect them. This is especially true if the changes are something the scientists have to deal with all the time but that doesn’t affect the people making the change at all.
Don’t get me started on this kind of Dilbertism. I’ve seen this happen with respect to CMMI, which is very popular with software development concerns. I was at one company where there one set of “real” forms, procedures, standards, and practices that were actually used, and there was a separate “show” system that was used to show how oh-so-CMMI the company was. There was a fairly nicely done website with logos, grandiose statements about how that site was your one-stop-shop for business process information and How It’s Done ™ at the company, and a lot of meaningless verbiage copied straight out of a CMMI textbook with little thought. It had change control board approval forms that you were theoretically supposed to fill out and submit to management before you would be allowed to check in a change to source control. Nobody ever filled one out unless auditors were in range.
Of course, there was an out. There were clauses in the policy documents that managers could waive or alter procedures based on business needs. EVERY SINGLE THING that we did was “exempt”.
Six Sigma Improvement Specialist: “Aha, I see that when you go up onto a utility pole, you leave the truck running and one of you always just stands there with a pair of binoculars. You could save gas by turning the truck off and improve productivity by having the guy on the ground do some real work like filling out expense reports or checking the oil on the truck.”
Foreman: “I know what you’re saying, but according to the National Lineman’s Code, we have to have an open spotter at all times when someone is on the pole. They must direct their attention to watching the line activity so they can call for help at a moment’s notice. Also, under State law, turning a service truck off during a service call is considered Negligent Activity - if someone got hurt or something got damaged, whoever turned the truck off can be held responsible for the injury and can be convicted of a Misdemeanor offense if they knew that what they were doing was unethical.”
Oh, and if you ever pointed out the policy to your supervisor and mentioned needing to check with the Change Control Board before you could check in that change that your supervisor’s been riding your back to finish - and ask oh, by the way, who is on the Change Control Board nowadays, you would be told that…
I am the change control board, this project is “exempt” from the CCB forms, get back to your desk and check in the change NOW!
At one point, they even lost the administrator’s password for our source control system, so some stuff couldn’t be updated even if you filled out a dozen forms and had the CEO sign it in blood. Your supervisor would tell you to Deal With It.
Using the term Black Belt in Six Sigma is really annoying to those of us who have genuinely earned Black Belt in a martial arts discipline.
Having said that…way back when, one of the companies I worked for in the past brought in a Six Sigma specialist to pitch the concept. He started off by asking “Do we have any Black Belts in the room?”
Needless to say, I raised my hand. Hilarity then ensued as he started asking Six Sigma questions and I answered them from a martial arts perspective.
I remember when you posted about this before. I have been trying to recall your post through this entire thread.
If I recall the post correctly you described in detail what you did to earn a black belt and asked the speaker what he did.
Penis ensued.
You sir are my hero.
A well done audit is something you should look forward to.