It has been two decades since I was a manager, so my credentials are a bit dated. Nonetheless, I have been in about 1,000 plants and have seen much. Programs come and go, like fads. Many a plant worker rolls his eyes when he hears about the next “improvement” coming from above. Zero defects, quality is king, the customer is always right, lean, 5s and Six Sigma are just a few of the more recent and popular methods which always begin with—you guessed it—a meeting.

This is not to say that there are not ideas embedded in each of these structures that are incredibly valuable. There obviously are. The problem begins when a program begins to have a life of its own so that it becomes an end in itself, instead of a carefully chosen tool among many choices that is best for a very particular goal. We would do better to choose just a particular aspect that best fits our resources and needs on a very narrowly defined problem. It's also important to define this treatment very temporarily so that it has to be rejustified based on merit, results to date and needs rather than allowing it to solidify or calcify into an institution.

Take for example Six Sigma. Again, I am not picking on this program in particular; similar criticism could be leveled at any other. For those of you not familiar, this statistically based program has the worthy goal of reducing defects. At first glance, this sounds great. Defects cost money and therefore reducing them will save money. Unfortunately, this premise is not necessarily true. To explain this in detail would be too difficult in this short space. Thus, I will refer the reader to my article “Optimization by Integration of Business and Engineering Models,” available on my web site.

Even if we grant that reducing defects reduces costs, we have not shown that profits would improve. Perhaps the costs of the fix plus the costs of the program itself (which is never properly accounted for) exceeds the cost of the benefits. Consider also that a different method might be less costly and achieve even better results. These kinds of questions are seldom given the careful and deliberate thought they deserve.

So I am going to simplify the world as I am always wont to do. In any case, I will repose the question to “Which program do you favor, 5s or Six Sigma?” My favorite, by far, is Kaizen, or 5s, which stands for:

Sort: (Seiri) eliminates unnecessary items, e.g. clutter, from the workplace.

Set In Order: (Seiton) finds efficient and effective storage methods.

Shine: (Seiso) is to thoroughly clean the work area, to begin with, and then daily.

Standardize: (Seiketsu) on best practices in your work area.

Sustain: (Shitsuke) demands a new status quo and standard of workplace organization.

This is one program that does not cost much, almost always pays for itself, is simple to do (in principle) and is very hard to overdo. So we can resolve the false dilemma by saying that both programs have merit, but 5 should precede 6.

920/725-7671, drroisum@aol.com, www.roisum.com