As one year ends and another begins, its time to look back at the news, events, debates and topics that took place over the last twelve months, from Nardelli to Blitz Sigma.
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The year began inauspiciously, with news that Robert Nardelli had been ousted as CEO of Home Depot, the world’s largest home improvement retailer with 2200 stores across North America. As a graduate of GE under Jack Welch (where he had acquired the nickname ‘Little Jack’), Nardelli’s demise was continuously linked with his resolute application of and belief in Six Sigma. The methodology had been introduced at Home Depot during Nardelli’s reign and was the subject of several articles, usually with a heavy implication that it had contributed significantly to Home Depot’s downturn in fortune.
The facts, of course, were different. Nardelli had been in conflict with the Home Depot shareholders for some time, and his refusal to cut back on some of his own extravagant personal perks whilst the company was being forced to lay people off was the final straw. Indeed, Nardelli’s successor was Frank Blake, previously Nardelli’s associate and another GE alumni, and a year on Home Depot’s Six Sigma programme is still very much in place. Furthermore, in August, Nardelli was named CEO of struggling Chrysler .
Bob Nardelli
Six Sigma was also under the cosh in 2007 with accusations that it was ‘stifling’ the innovative culture at 3M, although others claimed that the damage had been done before Six Sigma was rolled out at the company. This led to a lot of debate about whether Six Sigma and Innovation were mutually exclusive, although the fact that Six Sigma was invented by Motorola, consistently one of the most innovative companies in the world, was hardly ever mentioned.
It was once again left to Toyota to place a positive spin on process improvement, as in April they were named the biggest car manufacturer in the world. Although they had been the most profitable car manufacturer for some time, the title of the “biggest” had been held by General Motors since 1931, making it a significant moment in the history of car manufacture and leading to reams of column inches devoted to the Toyota Production System.
This reflected favourably on Lean, which was receiving good notices in its own right from its association with Boeing, and in particular the successful launch of its 787 “Dreamliner” plane.
As its main competitor, Airbus, struggled with numerous production delays on the A380, Boeing (applied Lean and Six Sigma) techniques in its production system, dramatically reducing the time required for both manufacture and testing.
The Boeing Dreamliner
Boeing also used Lean thinking to create an innovative supplier interface system, based around the theory of Communities of Practice; they collaborated with their parts suppliers at every point in the production process, from the design to the manufacturing processes, and ultimately contributing significantly to the most successful airplane launch in aviation history. In addition to record orders, the 787 was unveiled ahead of schedule and ahead of its competitor, despite starting two years later.[NB: onesixsigma.com will be looking into Communities of Practice in the coming months. If you would like to know more, or contribute, get in touch using the form at the top of the page.]
Six Sigma and Lean’s introduction into industries outside the traditional manufacturing base continued, with successful application in retail services, information technology, the food and drink sector (where industry-giant Tesco have been applying principles that are similar to Lean to their supply chain for many years), as well as continuing to prove hugely beneficial in Healthcare .
This cross-pollination has also, directly and indirectly, led to the evolution of improvement thinking, with new methodologies such as Blitz Sigma and Office Kaizen taking the tools and applying them in new ways and areas.
The UK’s National Health Service is looking to business improvement
Within the business improvement industry, debate continued to be focused on combining methodologies, with Six Sigma and Lean now firmly established as being mutually compatible (although there were dissenters), but also with other methodologies such as BPM and Kaizen. This combination theory extended not only to improvement programmes, but
also the skillsets of quality professionals.
Indeed, it is now quite difficult to find anywhere which claims to be purely Six Sigma, be it a particular programme, a consultant’s toolset, or even a conference previously dedicated to just Six Sigma.
The message from 2007 then, was quite clearly use the “right tool for right job”. Not that this is a new message to the quality professional, but now this thinking is extending beyond individual toolsets. The “right tool” could involve Six Sigma, Lean, or any other method of effective process improvement. This is true whether you are improving a process, your business, or driving innovation.
Below is a selection of some of our favourite articles and white papers published in the last twelve months.
Last but not least, on a lighter note Dilbert was at it again. After ruthlessly running the rule over Six Sigma in 2006…
…he did it again with combining Lean and Six Sigma.
Happy New Year, and here’s to a successful 2008.
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