Six Sigma Requirements

Succes of Six Sigma with Strategic Management and Empirical Approach
Haris Jamaluddin, Management Consultant, Malaysia, Member
Six Sigma is commonly disrupted when there is management change. Different leaders have different view and concept.
Other than top management involvement, also competent staffs and an analytical mind set will drive the success of Six Sigma.
Knowledge on statistical analysis, design of experiments and strong process knowledge are prerequisites to the success of Six Sigma implementation.

Top Management Involvement Needed in Six Sigma? Yes and No
Matthias Bittrich, Business Consultant, Germany, Member
The US-tendency is to consider 6 Sigma as a top-management-item. But (master) black belts in Europe often establish lean six sigma in the middle management.
Reason: the middle management still has a true contact to the workers, employees etc., and is carrying the ideas of Kaizen, continuous improvement etc. to the personnel where it is needed.
Never forget: top management seldom has any contact or view on the company´s basic scene!
You're absolutely right that a stakeholder analysis is really important, which is often forgotten in other kinds of project management. The outcome is sometimes shattering.
In Germany you regularly get trouble with the work council who tries to avoid any kind of measuring. By law it cannot avoid it, but it can disturb the whole project by being an "internal terrorist" producing a bad mood. For this reason we black belts often use more Ishikawa, benefit & effort matrix, FMEA, or in conclusion DAIC and no M, but improvements are still done by workshops with the employees. :).

Without Top Management Buy in you are Heading for the Wall
Georges Van Cauwenbergh, Management Consultant, Ireland, Member
Six Sigma can easily be boycotted by anyone in the organisation, but no one in the organisation can do it better than top management. Therefore, stakeholder analysis and stakeholder management is crucial to any program/project success (as we know).
If it turns out that we cannot convert the top (who are in charge of strategy anyway) we should get on with our process improvement work but call it green stick, blue heaven or whatever else you fancy.

Preparing for Six Sigma
pankaj negandhi, Consultant, India, Member
- It is important to prepare the company for Six Sigma before implementing.
- Not only that, one may see even stakeholders being prepared for Six Sigma. Specially vendors and suppliers who make difference in Six Sigma implementation. ISO 9000 for vendor may be considered as minimum requirement for critical suppliers.
- In implementation one of the areas which will need lot of attention is maintenance and specially maintenance of tools. This is normally not carried out with relevant records.
- The documentation and and corrective preventive actions should be carried out with statistical analysis and more with scientific evaluation. Design of experiment will help solve improvement related solutions easily.
- The slow progress in the initial stage is desirable. Planning activity should not be the bottleneck.
- Training activity should be focused and carried out in a systematic manner cutting across all levels and all department, preferably with inter department training.
A customer focus should be number one priority in training & development.