But, what about a simple problem that really needs to be fixed on the fly? Often, there is gulf between perceived day-to-day small issues and the biggies that you know need the techniques of Six Sigma applied.No Problem is Too Small for Six SigmaFor example, in most industries, documentation to the customer and internal documents are vital for understanding the product and keeping up with the workings of the company. Unless you are a new startup company, you have a documentation system in place. It may be a very simple process; your manager needs a memo, he jots down the ideas and puts it in your inbox.What if you have a change you need to make to that system?What if you hire some new employees and several people will now be writing emails and letters? The letters must be linked to specific accounts and they must be completed in a specific order. You need to make an adjustment, but you don’t need an intense round of analysis and complex flow charts to adjust the system. You might mistakenly think you don’t need Six Sigma methodologies to address the issue.Without Six Sigma TrainingYou may quickly decide to separate the work among the new staff and think the issue is resolved. A week later, you learn that some letters were missed and the employees are busy pointing fingers at each other. So, you try to patch the problem again and then a week later it’s still not resolved.Do You Call In the Black Belts?Traditional Six Sigma training provides valuable methodologies, but rounds of analysis probably aren’t necessary to adjust a workflow issue like mentioned above. However, having no training may cause a mis-step or even cause a process with too many checks and balances to be efficient.A person trained in Six Sigma can apply the process methodology as required based on the complexity of the problem. Chances are that with this simple documentation issue above, you don’t have to set up a series of meetings and have everyone walk through wearing different hats to deal with the emotional aspect of the problem. You don’t need numerous rounds of testing to ensure success.But, you do need Six Sigma training to ensure the problem has a good solution that is not haphazard. Using your training, you may call a meeting and briefly discuss ideas on how to address the issue. You may draw out a simple flow chart to make sure everyone sees each step as you jot down the current process and then pull in ideas to layout the changes. You may even decide to “try” the changes for a few days and then regroup and see if the process needs to be tweaked. You just applied Six Sigma methodologies in a fifteen minute meeting.Don’t think a problem is ever too small to use the skills you have obtained with Six Sigma training. But, more importantly, don’t ever think Six Sigma is too complex for a simple problem.Author: Tony JacowskiArticle Source: EzineArticles.comDuty tariff
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