Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Six Sigma is not the Deming Management Method (DMM). DMM is not SS

Statistics and DMM are not one and the same. Statistics is part of DMM, but not the majority (greater than 50%), perhaps 20-30%.  (We can discuss the percentage and even do a study.) Six Sigma is an overemphasis on statistics.  If Six Sigma is implemented inside DMM I see no evidence of cooperation with leadership and the willing worker, only lip service. In fact I see isolation of the willing worker and management to a greater degree from experience. Isolation from the market, and reality. This overemphasis on statistics by it's very nature produces managing the worker by numbers and objectives. This overemphasis produces waste and inefficiencies. One step forward, and two steps back. This is exactly what US auto manufacturers did for over a generation. Instead of eliminating numerical quotas they create them ad infinitum.

Performing a quick search on "Deming" among groups on LinkedIn, the top two groups consisting of 6469 members exclusively are Black Belts and Green Belts themed. Only black belt and green belts apply here. There are 18 groups following, that are Deming-centric with 2122 members.

So what is my point? SS thinks that it is DMM, and that is the predominant thought of 75% of 8591 members of groups that use the name Deming to describe their purpose. You will find this same thought among the quality groups on LinkedIn i.e. ASQ which includes many more thousands of members. DMM has been diluted, watered down and mischaracterized.

Why should I make this point? I am of the opinion that for the largest part outside of Japan and except for isolated instances the full impact of DMM has not been experienced. I think the results of DMM were coveted and in a shallow way imitated, but the complete package not implemented. I think there were many failures in these half-hearted attempts. The response to these failures was something else was needed, and for the most part it evolved into SS, lean manufacturing, etc, etc. with no real "quality" quality system implemented. No SoPk. 

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