Julieta G. Manzano MM 240
Six Sigma at 3M, Inc. Brief Summary of the Case: When James McNerndy was announced the Chairman and Chief Executive of 3M, Inc. his top priority is to implement Six Sigma in the company as he envision this as the solution to the lagging profit of the company. His first step is to training hundreds of his senior executives to lead the implementation and train the middle management as well. The current Director of Six Sigma Operations, Jeanne O’Connell had mentioned four reasons in implementation of the program; with the common language to be instituted in the company from the program a common approach could be use to achieve the common goals, transferable skills is also developed and it is the most effective way
The company have to select the right employee to fill in the right position before implementing the program to the whole organization. Training these people to be accountable in the program is costly. Tracking and Reporting. To be able to monitor the progress of the program if it really benefits the company there should be a way to track its achievement. Financial results of the company through the sales and income statement from the financial statement is one of the quantitative measurements. Aside from the Financial Statement of the company, the use of analytical tools is a way to track/report certain problems, what are the process to improve, assessing and evaluate products and other things needed to be decided by the management since Six Sigma is data-driven. There are useful controls tools that 3M could use whichever may be effective to the organization. Cause-and-effect diagram. A chart that identifies potential causes of particular problem occurred in the process. Flowchart. A schematic of the sequence of steps involved in an operation or process. Checklist. A list of common defects and the number of observed occurrences of these defects. Control Chart. Charts used to evaluate whether a process is operating within set expectations. Scatter Diagram. Graphs that shows how two variables are related to each other. Pareto analysis. A technique used to identify problems based on their degree of importance. Histogram. A chart that shows