Six Sigma Continuous Improvement

Continental Access helps corporate management to drive its operations to world class status by applying the six sigma continuous improvement methodology to its business processes. 

Six Sigma continuous improvement methodology can be applied to all business processes, be they production based or transactional (non-production based) using a method which is applied and controlled by the business's own trained employees.

The method involves two steps:

project choice; 

project management. 

Project choice is the domain of the business management team, which uses the methodology to translate the corporate strategic plan and operating plan into a number of projects which will have a high impact/effort ratio. During a six sigma deployment, the management team receives up to a week of training to permit this. This allows the senior manager to benefit from a first level of certification, called Yellow Belt level, in addition to learning the tools necessary to allow him to implement a corporate wide six sigma deployment within his own business unit.

Project management is deployed to employees in middle management, who are trained and certified to conduct individual initiatives to the point where earnings accretion begins. Two levels of certification are commonly found:

Black Belt level: qualified candidates (typically university trained engineer level) are trained to run projects on a full time basis and earn from €750,000 to €1,000,000 annually in project benefits. Black Belts receive 5 weeks of full time training run concurrently with certification projects.

Green Belt level: qualified candidates (at least qualified technicians or management accountant level) are trained to run projects during 20% of their time and earn up to €250,000 annually in project benefits. Green Belts receive 2 weeks of full time training run concurrently with a certification project.

Training of Belts implies learning the use of:

the six sigma problem solving approach, called DMAIC, where the steps taken by the project team during the life of the project pass in order through the 5 steps of: Define; Measure; Analyse; Improve; Control; with gate controls at the end of each step, where the team requests the permission of the project sponsor, generally the operational owner of the problem, to proceed onto the next step;

the choice of tools, which can currently be categorised into three groups:

Lean tools, which are used to reduce process cycle times, and are rooted in the work of Toyota since the 1950's;

Six Sigma tools, which are designed to evaluate and to reduce process variation, and were largely developed by Motorola and then by General Electric Corp (including DMAIC,) from the mid 1980's;

DFSS, or Design for Six Sigma, which are complementary tools to the Lean Six Sigma suite necesary to develop new processes: the Lean Six Sigma suite of tools is best adapted to the imporvement of existing processes.

Continental Access, as a firm, is purely specialised in the application of Lean Six Sigma methodology and in its deployment within major corporations; it is focused purely on continuous performance improvement of operations; the firm undertakes no missions in the areas of strategy or of organisation. The firm strives to leave a legacy of cultural change within its client businesses with fully trained continuous improvement leaders at senior and middle management level. The firm searches to transfer the tools quickly and to leave a lasting impact both for senior managers and for middle managers who are chosen to be trained as Black Belts and Green Belts.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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