The purpose of this case is to expose students to the issues

The purpose of this case is to expose students to the issues involved in implementing Six Sigma in 3M, a large multinational corporation. The case tells us that the new 3M CEO and Board of Directors have already decided to implement Six Sigma. It is just a question of how the program will be rolled out, what challenges are being faced, and what benefits will be achieved. The case describes some of the key features of the 3M Six Sigma program, since it is assumed that most students are not familiar with Six Sigma. The discussion questions then focus on understanding the potential benefits and costs to 3M, the relationship of Six Sigma to corporate strategy, the impact on the human resources and its effect on innovation. Students should come away with not only an understanding of what Six Sigma is, but also an awareness of the pitfalls and the implementation problems that might be encountered. At the end of the teaching note, we raise the question whether Six Sigma is enough and does it interfere with innovation? Questions: 1.What will be the benefits, costs and risks of the Six Sigma Program and how will they be tracked and reported? 2.How should various functional areas in the organization be included in the Six Sigma initiative and What role should senior and middle management play in the change initiative? 3.What role should Six Sigma play in corporate strategy? What are the human resource implications for deploying Six Sigma (e.g. employee selection, roles, organizational structure, reward systems)? 4.How will Six Sigma affect the innovative culture of 3M and is Six Sigma enough? Provide references please.

Solution

1. What will be the benefits, costs, and risks of the Six Sigma program, and how will they be tracked and reported?

3M forecasted that the Six Sigma program would bring greater returns than the $1 billion spent on research and development. The benefits of Six Sigma for 3M are increased customer satisfaction, energizing the organization, improving product quality, services, and processes. 3M will be able to benefit from use of advanced technology and electronic media. In addition, 3M will be able to benefit from increased sales revenues, as well as better educated, well-developed and stronger managers. All projects are approved by management. Each project is tracked and the savings are tracked by the financial department. The tracking systems calculate savings and reduction in defects. The team leader and manager are ultimately responsible for the project. The risks of the program are the costs, the complexity of the program, and difficulty in measuring results for service processes and transaction-based processes.

2. How should the various functional areas in the organization be included in the Six Sigma initiative, and what role should senior and middle management play in this change initiative?

Various Functional areas in the organization would be included in the six sigma initiatives with a different approach which is focusing more on quality of a product.  With six sigma being included in a company it strengthens all aspects in the company. These initiatives are focused towards long term and short term competitiveness . In this initiative senior and middle managers would take the role of trainers in training their employees on the new approach six sigma approach on the job

3.  What role should Six Sigma play in corporate strategy?

Six Sigma is all about business change. Corporations employ Six Sigma as a business methodology to refine their business and for the company to have greater value. It has a great concept of improving existing processes by having better customer satisfaction and savings costs. They used the \"DMAIC\" Improvement model which stood for define, measure, analyze, improve and control. For new product development they used the DFSS model which started off with identifying customer\'s requirements then translated them into product specifications

4 How will Six Sigma affect the innovative culture at 3M, and is Six Sigma enough?
Six Sigma affects the innovating culture at 3M in that it tends to block innovation, creativity, and the development of new products. The strong restrictions on errors restrain from taking risks that are required to make something new. Six Sigma is not enough. There needs to be a balance between six sigma and creativity.