1、The Six Sigma Journey from Art to Science A Business Novelvii Table of Contents List of Characters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi Chapter 1 Its an Art, Not a Science . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Chapt
2、er 2 Decision Making . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Chapter 3 Career Progression . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Chapter 4 Economics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Chapter 5 The Visionary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 Chapter 6 Problems, Problems, Proble
3、ms . . . . . . . . . . . 27 Chapter 7 Cleveland Bound . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 Chapter 8 Six Sigma in Action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 Chapter 9 The Big Sell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 Chapter 10 The Leader . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71 C
4、hapter 11 Step Up to the Plate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79 Chapter 12 The Plan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83 Chapter 13 Executive Training Begins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87 Chapter 14 Executive Training: Dene and Measure . . . . . . 97 Chapter 15 Executive Training:An
5、alyze . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105 Chapter 16 Executive Training: Improve . . . . . . . . . . . . 111viii Table of Contents Chapter 17 Executive Training: Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125 Chapter 18 The Decision . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129 Chapter 19 Setting the Stage . . . .
6、 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133 Chapter 20 Our Event . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141 Chapter 21 The Big Rumor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147 Chapter 22 People Really Do Care . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151 Chapter 23 The Blackbelts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
7、. . . 153 Chapter 24 The Auction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159 Chapter 25 Blackbelt Training: Dene and Measure . . . . . . 163 Chapter 26 Blackbelt Training:Analyze . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169 Chapter 27 Blackbelt Training: Improve . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175 Chapter 28 Blackbelt
8、 Training: Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183 Chapter 29 The Results Roll In . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187 Chapter 30 Certication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193 Chapter 31 Three Months Later . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199List of Characters A lthough this book is reas
9、onably brief, the list of charac- ters is long. This is because a good Six Sigma imple- mentation involves a lot of people. To help the reader keep track of the characters, a summary of the major characters is included here for easy reference. Barry WatsonHead of the quality department at HPZ Chemic
10、als and a member of the management team. Responsible for the Six Sigma implementation at HPZ Chemicals. Bob JonesNew division president of HPZ Chemicals parent company, HPZ Holdings, and true leader. CharliePlant manager for HPZ Chemicals. DaveMaster Blackbelt from Six Sigma Enterprises. EdSix Sigma
11、 Blackbelt working for Maintenance. HenryVP of nance at HPZ Chemicals. HowardEngineering manager at HPZ Chemicals. JackPresident of HPZ Chemicals. JamesSix Sigma Blackbelt working for Howard in Engineering. JimmyVP of sales at HPZ Chemicals. JulieSix Sigma Blackbelt working for Mark in R dont give u
12、p. For some companies though, implementing Six Sigma, with their current set of problems, might be exactly the wrong thing to do. Or, the wrong time to do it. Six Sigma is really one of those things you have to do right the rst time there wont be a second time. I have attempted to keep the book brie
13、f so that the readers valuable time is not wasted. Although many of the examples and the setting are manufacturing-based, most readers will realize that all types of businesses and work processes can ben- et from Six Sigma. To try and include some example from every type of work practice would creat
14、e the opposite of the intention of the book, which is a simple and easy-to-read intro- duction to Six Sigma. The people and events of this book are ctional. I think many people will recognize traits of someone they know, but this is coincidental. I sincerely hope that your Six Sigma Journey from Art
15、 to Science will be a successful and satisfying one. xii Preface1 Its an Art, Not a Science I t was 1985. The U.S. economy was doing well and compa- nies were making money. HPZ Chemicals had made me a nice offer and I went straight from school to work without missing a beat. My rst month as an engin
16、eer consisted of training, trying to look busy, and meeting people who werent too excited to be working at HPZ. HPZ Chemicals Inc. was a medium sized chemical plant that produced catalysts, dyes, and pigments. It was a part of HPZ Holdings, which made a lot of products. Our plant was one was the lar
17、gest in the corporation and had been in business a lot longer than I had been alive. So far I had found little that my education had prepared me to do in the real world. Some of the people who were training me didnt seem to know much more than I did. I guess I expected a big company to be better org
18、anized. So I was nervous, but excited, when my boss called me to his ofce. Maybe I would get to do something other than learn how to ll out the proper paperwork.As I approached the door, I looked in the window of Mr. Raymond Jebsons ofce. He was poring intently over a pile of papers on his desk. I k
19、nocked on the door. 1“Come in,” said Raymond. He looked up from the papers and motioned for me to enter. Raymond looked like a science teacher I had in high school. But everyone looked like that with the safety glasses we had to wear. “Pull up a chair,” he smiled and motioned to a chair in front of
20、his desk. As I sat down, he said, “Ive got a special job for you, if you think you are ready.” He emphasized the word “you”. “I think Im ready,” I replied trying to sound condent. “We have a test scheduled in Plant One over the next few days starting tomorrow and we need to cover it around the clock
21、.” “OK,” I said apprehensively. “We need someone to cover the midnight shift. That is, if you want to?” The way he said it, I knew I was expected to cover the midnight shift. “I can do midnights,” I said trying to sound as condent as I could. “Working midnights wont bother you will it?” “Oh no,” I r
22、eplied. “I think it will be exciting.” “Well, I dont know about exciting. If you run into problems you will have a number to call.” “So, it will be just me on midnights?” It came out a little higher pitched than normal. “Unless thats a problem?” Raymond asked sounding serious. “No, not at all.” I sw
23、allowed hard and gave him my most condent look. “Great, I will have Bill come and explain what you will be doing and show you around the area. Y ou know Bill dont you?” “Yes sir, we met the other day.” “OK, well Bill will get with you this afternoon. Good luck on the midnights. Try and get some slee
24、p tomorrow before you come in.” Mr. Jebson looked back down at his papers. I got up and said, “Thanks,” as I left the ofce. 2 Chapter OneI went back to my ofce and started to study some drawings I had been given. The drawings had been rolled up for years, and I had a hard time keeping them at. Welco
25、me to the real world I told myself. “Hey, how ya doing?” I jumped at the sound of Bills voice. I had been so intent at studying the drawings on my desk, I hadnt heard him come in. “Sorry, didnt mean to spook ya.” Bill was an elderly gentleman with a slow southern drawl. “Thats OK,” I said. “I was tr
26、ying to figure out these flow sheets.” He leaned over and looked at what I was studying. “Who gave you those?” He had a frown on his face. “Training department,” I said apprehensively. “Figures,” he chuckled. “Theyre not up to date. Those things are as old as me,” he said smiling. “Ill get some up-t
27、o- date ones if we have them. We dont have current drawings on everything though.” “That would be great.” So I have been wasting my time studying the wrong stuff, I thought. “Hear youre gonna be helping us out.” “Huh?” “The test, you know the one Raymond spoke to ya about.” “Oh, the test! Yeah, sure
28、, I guess. If I know how to do what you want me to do that is.” “Dont worry about that. We dont expect you to be able to do much until youve been here a while. Itll take you ve years to understand how this place works.” Five years, I thought to myself. Wow. “Hey, you had lunch yet?” “Not yet,” I sai
29、d. “Well talk about what I need ya to do, and when we get back Ill take ya out in the plant and show you where to take the readings.” “Sounds good to me,” I said as we headed down the steps. Its an Art, Not a Science 3After lunch, we headed back to Bills office. I thought Raymonds office was messy,
30、but Bills office looked like a junkyard. It was overflowing with papers, and there were parts and valves and gauges and lab equipment everywhere. We could barely get both of us into the office. Bill moved a pile of papers from a chair to the floor and motioned for me to sit down. “Whats that?” I poi
31、nted to something that looked like an old tent. “Thats an old lter cloth. Failed early on us and Im send- ing it back to the supplier to see if they can tell us why it failed.” “Does that happen often?” “All the time.” “Oh?” I replied. “Does it cause lots of problems when it fails?” “Well, slows us
32、down a lot when we stop to replace it, but its just the nature of the stuff we make. Sometimes they last a month, sometimes three, sometimes more. Some seem to work better than others.” “Sounds like a big problem.” “Ah, its just one of those things. We got a million little things that bug us like th
33、at all the time. You cant gure out everything, not enough time or people.” “Oh?” I replied, a little surprised. Bill leaned back in his chair. It went back so far I thought he was going to tip over. He looked over his glasses at me. “OK, heres what we gotta do the next few days. I got this pro- ject
34、 to install a baghouse and save us some money on #1 mill but we need to see if shell feed OK using a baghouse, and make sure the quality doesnt deteriorate. So I piped the bag- house from #4 and got it set up on #1 mill. The thing might pressurize, I dont know, so were gonna give it a try and see wh
35、at happens.” I looked at Bill and nodded my head up and down but I didnt have a clue what he was talking about. It sure didnt sound very scientic to me though. 4 Chapter One“So youre gonna be on midnights. Ill be on days with Tony. Craig will do the afternoon shift.” “OK. What will I actually be doi
36、ng?” “Taking readings and samples and just making sure every- thing goes OK. Just be there in case production has a question. If no ones there to answer their questions, production will just do what they want to.” I thought that surely the production people knew how to do their jobs. I was not sure
37、what he meant by “they will just do what they want to.” “If you have any problems, give me a call at home. Heres my home phone number.” He handed me a slip of paper. “Sounds good to me.” At least I had the phone number of someone who knew what was going on. I stuck it in my pocket. “Now lets go out
38、in the plant and Ill show you what to do.” I followed Bill out into the plant. We had our hard hats and safety glasses on. He showed me the gages to read and showed me a log sheet to ll out. After we had gone through the area, I felt a little better. I still wasnt clear on what we were actually tryi
39、ng to accomplish with the test but I knew what I had to do. I wasnt sure why they needed an engineer to do it. It was really kind of simple. Back in the ofce, we took off our hats and wiped the sweat off our faces. It was pretty hot in the plant, and very noisy. I noticed Bill was relatively clean w
40、hile I was dirty. “So you got it?” Bill asked. “I think so, but it doesnt seem like its very scientic what we are trying to do,” I replied cautiously. “Oh, thats just because you arent used to things in the real world. Stuff you learn in school doesnt apply out here in the plant. Best way to nd thin
41、gs out is trial and error; try it, see what works. Making pigment is an art, not a science. Youll nd out what I mean after youve been here a while.” He spoke to me like a father would speak to a son. He continued, “OK, so well see you tomorrow at 11 p.m. in Craigs ofce. You will be relieving him. And Tony and I Its an Art, Not a Science 5
