When Six Sigma Delivers Sub-optimal Performance
According to American Society for Quality (ASQ), 80% of Fortune 100 companies and 50% of Fortune 500 companies have six sigma programs in place to some extent.
The Greek letter σ is a statistical term denoting standard deviation. The standard deviation of a set of data denotes how far away the individual data points are from the mean, typically. Thus, if the mean is the specification, then, the larger the standard deviation and the farther the mean is from the specification, the worse is the performance.
Six sigma is a disciplined, data-driven statistical methodology for reducing the defect levels in all work processes where a work process is defined as any repetitive activity. Since virtually all human activities are repetitive, the applicability of six sigma is global and vast. Reducing defect levels translates into moving the mean closer to the target and reducing the standard deviation as much as possible.
Six sigma was pioneered at Motorola in the seventies by the late Bill Smith and the late Mikel J. Harry, PhD. Motorola received the inaugural Malcom Baldrige National Quality Award from President Reagan in 1988.
Six sigma (6σ) also refers to the distance between the mean and the user specification on a bell curve. If the process has a single-sided specification, then, that specification will be 6 standard deviations away from the mean. If the process has a double-sided specification, then the distance between the two specifications and the mean will be 12 standard deviations.
According to standard six sigma practice, machine wear and tear and operator fatigue are taken to diminish the long-term performance over the short-term performance by an amount equal to 1.5σ. Thus, if the short-term performance is at 6σ, then the long-term performance is expected to be 4.5σ for a process with a single-sided specification, equivalent to 3.45 defects per million opportunities, and 9.0σ for process with a double-sided specification, equivalent to 6.9 defects per million opportunities.
Four natural laws can elegantly explain the six sigma strategy:
1. Law of Cause and Effect. All that we do has causes and effects. The effect of one cause is in turn a cause for another effect. In Sanskrit, the endless chain of causes and effects goes by the name, karma. The effects are the outcomes of work processes that we are interested in keeping within specs.
2. The Law of Natural Variability. The outcomes of all work processes exhibit a certain amount of inherent variation no matter how well they are designed and operated due to causes that are unknown and/or uncontrollable. Statisticians refer to these types of causes as common causes. This variability often follows the Gaussian (normal) probability distribution.
3. The Law of Measurement Error. Measurement error introduces an unwanted variation in the process outcomes. Therefore, measurement errors must be minimized during six sigma implementation before any data is acquired.
4. The Law of Assignable Causes. Variation in the outcomes over and above that due to common causes occurs due to causes that are discoverable. Such causes are termed as special or assignable causes. Discovering and then eliminating the assignable causes or setting them at the correct values as appropriate returns the process outcome to its natural state. This is the best possible state for the process outcome, and it is referred to as “minimum variance” state. Minimum variance is a theoretical upper limit to achievable performance. No operating strategy, short of a design changes can ever improve the performance beyond minimum variance.
Armed with these natural laws, six sigma is implemented in five phases and eleven steps. They are:
Phase I. Scope: (1) Formulate the problem statement, (2) Define the response variable(s) — process outcome (s), (3) State the project goals.
Phase II. Measure: (4) Draw the process map, (5) Validate the measurement systems, (6) Collect data on the response variable(s), (7) Establish the baseline — starting defect levels.
Phase III. Analyze: (8) Collect data on the independent variables together with response variables, (9) Identify major impact factors.
Phase IV. Improve. (10) Set major factors at their optimal values.
Phase V. Control. (11): Monitor outcomes so that the problems once faxed stay fixed and the benefit of the six sigma projects are sustained.
The drudgery of repetitive calculations in six sigma projects is eliminated with software. I have had very good experience with MINITAB statistical software.
In the first decade of this century, I conducted six sigma training programs for several organizations including ONGC (Oil & natural Gas Corporation), Kuwait Ministry of Higher Education-Private Universities Council, Pidilite Industries, Ltd., and an agency of the US Department of Defense and did collaborative research with DuPont. I had begun to notice that the performance of six sigma programs across companies had considerable variation but didn’t think much about it.
In the meanwhile, I had published an article, Boost Competitiveness via Six Sigma in Chemical Engineering Progress, the flagship publication of American Institute of Chemical Engineers, and another titled, Unifying Framework for Six Sigma and Advanced Process Control in Hydrocarbon Processing, a major publication of the hydrocarbon industries.
I introduced a graduate elective in Six Sigma in the Chemical Engineering Department at the University of Louisville and taught it for several years always to oversubscribed enrollment. Then, I was given an opportunity to introduce a mandatory Six Sigma Greenbelt Certification program in the newly revamped MBA curriculum of the Gatton College of Business & Economics at the University of Kentucky in Lexington, KY and taught the Six Sigma course in their MBA program in Athens, Greece for twelve years.
In November 2003, King Charles visited Mumbai to personally witness the performance of Mumbai’s renowned Dabbawalas. The 5,000 semiliterate lunchbox delivery boys pick up 200,000 lunch boxes from customers’ homes and deliver them to their offices in the city center 6 days a week, 12 months a year producing 1 defect in 6 million deliveries (wrongful delivery, late delivery) according to Forbes and they have been at it since 1890. That night I was invited by BBC Radio in London to explain to their listeners how six sigma made such an incredible performance possible.
Students from reputed academic institutions such as Harvard and Columbia have interacted with the Dabbawalas to learn how the semiliterate Dabbawalas are able to achieve such outstanding performance with a view to replicating it. Media organizations such as CBS and BBC have covered the Dabbawalas operations.
On October 4, 2004, Business World published my interview, Six Sigma Enlightenment with Dr. Ashok V. Desai, Consultant Editor of The Telegraph. On September 18, 2009, The Economic Times published by interview with Arati Carroll Menon, Six Sigma Could Change the World.
Much of the world, including the Dabbawalas themselves and I had convinced ourselves that six sigma was sufficient to achieve minimum variance. Then something incredible happened.
Six Sigma and Internal/emotional Excellence
After teaching my two-week six sigma class in Athens, Greece, I was on my way back to America on Sunday March 3, 2013. Sitting in the Business Class lounge of British Airways Terminal 5, C Gates, at London’s Heathrow airport, having my favorite breakfast of tea and toast, awaiting my return flight to the United States, my attention was drawn to an article in the weekend edition of the Financial Times, Kumbh Mela’s Pop-up Megacity is a Lesson in Logistics for India. I wondered why a reporter from a financial newspaper like the Financial Times should be interested in a religious gathering like the Kumbh mela, but the title was intriguing enough that I read the article.
The article was telling the reader, the defect levels in such things as roads, electricity, water supply, food, health services, etc., in the Kumbh Mela’s tent city erected to house the tens of millions of pilgrims were very low like the tent city was in a developed nation, but the defect levels in the surrounding city of Allahabad, now called Prayagraj, were astonishingly high. The former Chief of the World bank apparently took a dip in the Ganges himself! The reporter wondered, if they could produce such low defect levels in the tent city, why couldn’t replicate such performance in the city of Allahabad, or for that matter throughout India. India would transform into a developed nation in no time.
This article hit me like a ton of bricks. It was an Aha moment. The tent city was constructed by 100,000 workers for the pilgrims to be torn down after the six weeks festival. The workers knew that they were building the tent city for the pilgrims. And the millions of pilgrims who visited the Kumbh Mela were themselves highly devotional.
Thus, the Kumbh Mela story led to a new discovery. Exemplary performance becomes possible when the processes are designed well and operated in the best possible manner and the emotional excellence of everyone associated with the project is high.
Emotional excellence refers to the capacity of a person to remain centered in the face of extenuating circumstances that are part of life. The pursuit of higher levels of emotional excellence translates into cultivating positive emotions (love, kindness, empathy, compassion) at the exclusion of negative emotions (anger, hatred, hostility, resentment, frustration, fear, sorrow and the like) and it is not an academic exercise. The required positive changes must come about from within. The pilgrims and the workers who cared for them clearly had a high level of emotional excellence.
Armed with this understanding, I paid a visit to the Offices of Dabbawalas in Dadar, a suburb of Mumbai, on January 11, 2019, and met with their senior management personnel. I wanted to convince myself that the emotional excellence of Dabbawalas too was high. In the meeting, it became clear to me that it was. I was informed that the Dabbawalas were all Varkaris (pilgrims) who walk 200 km on foot every year from one temple town to another!
During my meeting with the Dabbawalas, I also measured the pranic energy, stress, and chakra alignments of seven of their top management personnel. Not surprisingly, the chakra alignments of six of seven individuals were in the range of 92% to 96% but their pranic energy levels were too low (below 50 Jx10–2); they ought to be 60+ and the stress levels were too high. When I told them that their stress levels were too high and energy levels too low, they were not terribly surprised. Neither were they surprised that their chakra alignments were as good as they were.
They now understood that the Dabbawalas’ exemplary performance was due to two factors: Their processes were designed and operated in the best possible manner -the six sigma way — and the emotional excellence of the 5,000 Dabbawalas was high.
The feelings of Shraddha (faith), Bhakti (devotion), Vishwas (trust) and Samarpan (surrender) come naturally to them.
The Dabbawalas distribute free food to the hungry once a week on suburban railway platforms. This is remarkable given that they themselves are poor. Bollywood has even made a movie, Lunch Box, in their honor. Clearly, the emotional excellence of the Dabbawalas was high.
For many others, the feelings of bhakti do not come naturally, it is fortunate that the pursuit of higher levels of emotional excellence is a well-posed scientific problem. Meditation is the pathway to progress and since emotions can be measured, progress can be audited.
Soon after my visit, I signed an MOU with the Dabbawalas to explain to the world how exemplary performance becomes possible and how it can be achieved. By now, Ritesh Andre, their external liaison, has made a presentation in many Indian cities to tens of thousands of participants which now includes how six sigma is linked to spirituality. See this article, Disruptive Innovation on their website. I was touched by the letter from their spokesperson I received in 2019.
February 5 2019
Dear Dr. Pradeep deshpande sir.
Hope you are doing well, We all dabbawalas would like to say thank to you for your research. Because we are doing very hard work in mumbai but how we are doing it? We was totally unknown about it. After your research on internal excellence of mumbai dabbawalas. Now We all have a good knowledge about aur internal excellence. how it’s help in our day to day life.
You prove that, our community and our godly devotion is a big part of our success. Your presentation is very incredible for us. It would be very helpful for our next generation and to the society to understand the power behind success if mumbai dabbawala.
Thank and Best regards,
Ritesh Andre, External Liaison Officer
Mumbai Dabbawala Association
I interacted with Dr. Mikel Harry many years ago to seek his opinion on my work on a unifying framework of six sigma and advanced controls and the link of emotional excellence and performance in the external world. He really liked the framework that established the link between emotional excellence and performance in the external world, especially the societal implications. He once wrote to me, your papers are thoughtful, intellectual, well-researched, highly credible, science-based and data-driven. In short, they are professionally notable, and solution focused. He also published my article, Profound Implications of Minimum Variance on his website, Business Improvement Times. That website was taken down following his demise in 2017.
In the six sigma world, several certifications are common. They include Greenbelt, Blackbelt Master Blackbelt and Champion.
We are now able to take the six sigma certifications a notch higher. I have introduced a new certification called, Six Sigma Grandmaster Certification which includes traditional six sigma training, and emotional excellence, how the two are linked and how to take advantage of the link.
Thus, was born a scientific framework for internal and external excellence towards a better and a more peaceful world. Two books explain the framework in detail: (1) Six Sigma for External Excellence (amazon, 2015) -Scientific Framework for External Excellence and (2) The Nature of Ultimate Reality and How It can Transform our World, with James P. Kowall, MD, PhD (amazon, 2015) — Framework for Internal Excellence.
Significance of the Discovery
Nations are characterized by the levels of defect in their products and services. Emerging nations are characterized by high defect levels while developed nations are characterized by low defect levels. Emerging nations must bring down the defect levels in their products and services to the levels comparable in developed nations if their vision to emerge as developed nations is to become a reality. Developed nations too must begin to pay attention to emotional excellence or else the defect levels will begin to rise.
This means the scientific framework for external and internal/emotional excellence and its practices must be introduced in all educational institutions and companies.
About the Author
Pradeep B. Deshpande is Professor Emeritus in and former Chairman of the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Louisville. He is also President of Six Sigma and Advanced Controls based in Louisville, Kentucky. Pradeep has published several articles on six sigma in reputed journals like Chemical Engineering Progress and Hydrocarbon Processing and newspapers and magazines like The Economic Times, Business World, and The Hindu Business Line. With the help of a reputed B-School in Pune, Pradeep helped establish National Six Sigma Excellence Awards for Indian corporations. Airtel received the inaugural award. Pradeep is a recipient of several international awards including the Donald P. Eckman Award in Process Control Education given by the International Society for Automation (ISA) and is a Fellow of ISA. Prof. Deshpande has been nominated for a Padma Award, one of the four highest civilian awards given by the Government of India. pradeep@sixsigmaquality.com.
