Participant Interview: Liju Varghese (Green Belt)- Sr. Manager – Ma Foi Management Consultants.

Liju Varghese of Mafoi Consultants, who did his Green Belt with Benchmark Six Sigma, here talks about the real time application of Six Sigma and its importance in increasing Revenue and removing bottlenecks. Read on...

Q1) Tell me briefly about your career Journey so far.

A) Starting my professional carrier in 1998, I worked with 3 different companies in Hospitality & Service Industry before joining Ma Foi. I have joined Ma Foi as Consultant - HRD way back in 2003 and then moved on to become a Sr Consultant (TL) managing few members in the staffing business, that when I was nominated by the company to do my six sigma certification. Currently I hold the title as Sr Manager - Specialist Staffing, handling multiple regions for IT Temp & permanent staffing.

Q2) Has Six Sigma impacted your career? Have you reaped any benefits from it in your personal life?

A) It has helped me to look at the business from a qualitative way and I have been able to train my team on similar lines. I am confident this tool can help me look at any situation differently and it has changed the way I look at things.

Q3) How precisely do you apply Six Sigma skills in your current job at Mafoi? What were the pain areas? Were the targets/goals of the project met? Please elaborate.

A) At Ma Foi I have follow DMAIC approach and I have used tools like Brainstorming, Control chart, Pareto, Correlation & Regression analysis, Process mapping etc. The pain points were largely aligning critical business needs to customer needs & identifying the scope of project. There were multiple stake holders who contributed the revenue leakages in payroll processing and I was assigned to identity the critical points and find ways to eliminate such errors.

Q4) Which Six Sigma methodologies do you use most often?

A) DMAIC

Q5) How conducive was your Green Belt experience at Benchmark Six Sigma?

A) I feel the delivery of the program & material shared was excellent.

Q6) What sort of SS Projects have you working on in past? Kindly mention some.

A) I had done a project in 2006 on "Reducing revenue leakage in payroll processing". The project was able to bring down the errors in payroll processing at various stages. I felt the biggest six sigma challenge lies in the control phase, but we have been able to sustain the benefits in this project. I had involvement of senior leadership team from Ma Foi at every phase of this project including a Black belt trainer from the company who has helped me in executing this project.

Q7) Do you think anybody if willing, can learn Six Sigma? Or it is only meant for academically brilliant people?

A) It's a myth that only academically brilliant people can attend such program, I feel anybody if willing to learn can attend such program.

Q8) Would you like to give any suggestions to us for improving our program?

A) Keep up the good work, I have enjoyed & learned from this program. I felt it was quite informative and content & examples presented were excellent.

Q9) Would you like to tell us about your future plans? How will your Six Sigma learning benefit you?

A) I was part of People Capability Development Program in developing our senior members in the company for handling leadership role and my knowledge on Six Sigma has helped me in the detailing behaviors of members in various phases very well and I was rated the best among all other mangers. I would be doing more such project using Six Sigma methodologies within and outside my company.

Q 10) Would you like to give any message for readers.

A) I feel this is a wonderful program can give you concept, tool & methodology which can be used in day to day work which can benefit you professionally and personally. Wishing you luck for your future.