Six Sigma

GE Six Sigma

GE is spoken of in the same breath as Motorola for the initiatives that it took on reengineering business processes by Six Sigma approach. GE is a well known brand which positions itself as a Service and Technology conglomerate offering Commercial Finance, Infrastructure, Consumer Finance, Healthcare and Entertainment as their line of businesses. With its services spanning from the services to the manufacturing sectors, GE realized that the only way how they could achieve business excellence in what they were doing was by standardizing processes to minimize variations. It is this Six Sigma approach that has led to retention of old customers and acquisition of new ones to the GE's ever-growing list of customers.

What is GE Six Sigma all about?

GE realized that the only way they could project their bottom-lines in black all times is by adopting a Six Sigma approach which could optimize customer impact. The focus towards customer expectation and data driven model to manage performance has been accepted by a cross section of employees. The fact that GE Six Sigma imbibes the basic concepts of Six Sigma so well in its Standard Operating Manual that if one gets a chance to work with Six Sigma as an employee, he would need not ever need to attend a Six Sigma training course, literally speaking.

One of the major change in perceptions which GE bought to itself was the thought that the customers would not look at a company's historical record for the products they provide. In fact, customers would rate the company's services or products on defects on that particular product or service provided. This instantaneous quality rating objective has always been one of the compelling factors behind each of GE Six Sigma initiatives.

Key fundamentals of Six Sigma like DFSS(Design For Six Sigma), Process Capability and Variations along with the standard DMAIC model are accepted and employed as a performance improvement tool for different processes. Cases where the need of new processes arise, design of such processes happen with the DMADV model.

Needless to say, for a company where every process is implemented with the Six Sigma approach, customer satisfaction would be at the optimum levels at all times. That does not tell you that GE Six Sigma was all a rosy story. When the concept of Six Sigma approach was first introduced at the helm of GE, there was perceptible confusion and resistance to the change. As is critical to implementation of any Six Sigma plan, the business managers and the management team communicated the benefits of Six Sigma approach to the team members. More than that, enough endeavors were taken to successfully implement each and every Six Sigma project.

What we see today is a brand which is leading the way for other companies in terms of process management. It has gone on to show to the industry that Six Sigma is not just a white paper theory, but if effectively put on practice, can achieve some amazing results for you.