Rupinder N

Hello Vini, Six Sigma can, of course, be applied to Payroll Outsourcing as well. Wherever, you have a process, Six Sigma is applicable. So let us think of a few areas where you could use it in Payroll: 1) Are there defects in payroll processing every month? Is there a need to reduce this defect %age? 2) What is the Turn Around Time for resolving any errors or discrepancy in Payroll processing? Is that acceptable to the organization and the employees? 3) How accurate is your payroll information? E.g. there is an organization that has been paying incentives to all technicians rather than a certain grade within the IT team. Another example could be real time timekeeping vs filling a system at the end of the day. I hope this gives you some ideas. In case you are already are working on a project, and have a specific question, we would be glad to answer.

Dear Ari and Ram, You are right in saying that given the constraints (Std Dev cannot be reduced and will stay at 2, USL is 4min), if the TAT is reduced from 5 min to 4 min, it is going to bring about an improvement. Ari, it was a good idea to look at the sigma level and the defect probability. Hence, you can conclude that setting the goal at 4 min, with nothing else changing will get you an improvement but you still have significant defects. The goal should be lower than 4 min,as Dr Jayaram has already pointed out one of the solutions with this SD could be a mean of 2min. Another thought, you should be watching out for a secondary metric like quality or CSAT if you are setting too low a mean, without changing the SD.

Dear Yunus, You have certainly taken a step in the right direction by beginning to collect data. Your question is very open ended and open to interpretation. Pankaj has suggested one of the routes that could be taken - collect data and test the hypothesis that the upload and download time is a function of shift. (keep in mind that the shift may just be a symptom while the actual X may be concurrent users or the internet bandwidth). Similarly, you could get other possible Xs that could be impacting the upload and download time, perhaps size of the file, number of concurrent users etc. Each of the Xs could be tested to check if they are critical or not by collecting data. Depending on what are your critical Xs, you would then want to think of what solutions than fix these factors.

Dear Kiran Attribute Gage Study (Analytic Method) (pulldown menu Stat->Quality Tools-> Gage Study->Attribute Gage Study) is for continuous data. Here the reference values are provided in the form of continuous data and the outcome is binary (go/no-go). This method should not be used for quality evaluation. For quality evaluation, you will need to use Attribute Agreement Analysis (pull down menu Stat-> Quality Tools-> Attribute Agreement Analysis)

Dear Shalini, I would agree with Arvind. It seems that the best idea will be to have two different metrics or name the metric as Sales Conversion. Connecting sales to the term productivity may be a misnomer for some and may lead to confusion. Productivity may be defined as (if this metric really matters) = No of Outbound Calls per logged in hour Sales Conversion = No of successful Sales/Total Number of Outbound Calls dialed successfully

Hello, I am sure that you have already read what VK posted before your question,but still quoting it here: Retail industry has material movement from manufacturing to distribution to consumers, there could be projects around making these processes Lean. The processes listed above will have very clear CTQs and are good candidates for projects depending on where the business challenge lies.

Dear Ajith, it really depends on what your objective is. A lot of tools can be used for transactional quality in BPO - you may find out the capability (using DPMO, DPU or Defectives method), you could do a Pareto on the defects, you could do a Pareto for defects at team level, you could do mistake proofing to avoid some of the defects (e.g. removing access for frontliners for anything they aren't authorized to give e.g credits), C&E for low quality, Brainstorming for better transactional quality etc. You could really take your pick based on the intent of using the Six Sigma tools.

Dear Dhawal, I am sure you have made great inroads into the sales and distribution market in India from the time you posted here. Lean Six Sigma helps you look at the overall business (any industry) as a group of processes which lead to a certain outcome that is tied to an organization's business goal. If you improve the process, you improve the outcome and hence contribute to the organization's goal. What is more, it helps you zoom out of the nuances such as geography and industry and look at the business problem, which can be solved using a set of tools which are a part of the Lean and Six Sigma methodologies. And lastly, this is an area, if mastered,can help you move across industries smoothly. If you would want to hear from some experts, please visit https://www.benchmarksixsigma.com/why-six-sigma/

Dear Manoj, If you envision marketing as an end to end process that starts with lead generation (or perhaps even upstream of that) and ends at sales closure or acquisition, you may use Lean Six Sigma in several ways some of which could be collapsing the time from lead generation to sales closure (Turn Around Time) by eliminating non value adds and cutting down on cycle time, reducing defects at each sub-stage etc. You could choose to run experiments in a structured fashion to see what gives you the best results. You could use Six Sigma to know how to "design" campaigns and the list is endless. If you have a question about a project that you may specifically be interested in, we would love to hear about it.

Hello Mahesh, It was a pleasure to get to know you in the LSSBB workshop in Bangalore. You have already thought of one critical next step - which is going for the highest certification in this domain - Master Black Belt. We do have an upcoming MBB session at the end of this year, which you should enroll for. This will help you learn other competencies which make your problem solving abilities robust. The other aspect that I cannot over emphasize is taking up projects, the more you practice, the better your problem solving abilities would become. And the only way to practice is picking up areas that need attention and making improvements. Good luck!

Hello Mahendra, I hope that since you made this post, you have been able to reduce the invoicing errors. Calling your attention to deciding whether you can use DMAIC as a methodology, VK mentioned that your project is a good fit, if: In your reply, you have mentioned this - and hence the DMAIC screen is not passed because you already know the causes. If you know where the issue is (or what the cause is), you must simply fix that area rather than running a project. Hope this is helpful.

I would say that the Oligopolistic firms may get a leeway depending on the type of product they are providing. For example, if we talk about telecom providers forming an Oligopoly, the customers may have to live with it because it is a service that is a "MUST HAVE" even if they are not satisfied with it. But if the product is not a must have, the customer may just choose not to have the service at all. By textbook definition, Monopolistic competition is a type of imperfect competition where the products are differentiated by branding or quality such as restaurants, clothing etc. Even if the competition is imperfect, a consumer could choose a product where the level of satisfaction is higher and forego some of their requirements. So in my view, not always can oligopolistic and monopolistic firms can overlook customer satisfaction.

Dear Nageshwar, When you use these values : USL 4.63, LSL 4.36, Std Dev 0.19, Process Mean 4.54, and assuming that this is long term data, Sigma Level Calculator takes into account the defects that are happening both when you get the process output more than USL and also when the process output is less than USL. whereas if you use only Z=USL-Mean/Std Dev,you are accounting for the defects happening because of the USL being exceeded. The latter ignores the defects occurring on the LSL side, hence is only half of the picture.

Dear Nagaraj, This means that the hypothesis "Data is Normal" is being tested at a significance of 5%. Here is how one would state the hypothesis for testing data normality. Ho: Data is normal Ha: Data is not normal When you perform the test at a significance level (or alpha) of 5%, you can use the below to get the inference about data normality: - If p>alpha (0.05), Fail to Reject Null - which means "Data is Normal" - If p < alpha (or 0.05), Reject Null, Accept alternate - which means "Data is not normal"

Hello Neville, You may add your two cents to any post no matter how new or old. This is everyone's forum! VK summarized that his question was about whether Mumbai Dabbahwallahs can be considered as a good example of Six Sigma "application". Keep in mind that they never set out to implement Six Sigma, however, they have perfected their "process" over a period of time and have attained capability higher than 6 Sigma. It could be debated why do we then need to learn Six Sigma when school dropouts can create such a robust process - as mentioned by some of the participants on this discussion thread. The answer is that we do not have the luxury of time. We cannot say we will improve our process over the next 120yrs. Hence, if we learn a structured way of problem solving, we can move very fast and not have to use trial and error to improve our processes.

Dear Malik, I am certain that you have progressed in your Lean Six Sigma journey since you posted this. Please keep your questions coming and we will be glad to help. You are more than wlecome to share your learning and experiences as well and have your own discussions.

Dear Anup, You have mentioned a couple of things - training effectiveness and VOC. Which process in specific within training are you aiming to improve? I would be able to provide better inputs if I have some more detail.

Hello Priya, For any training program, there are certain skills or metrics that you would want the participants to deliver on. For example, number of sales per front line employee, or resolution time, or First Time Right %age etc. If you are comparing two training programs, you could use the outcome metrics to compare which program is better. As far as C&E is concerned, it can help you zero in on other reasons than the training content itself that could be rendering it ineffective. If you are not interested in this at this time, you may skip and focus on collecting data and comparing performance based on one program vs the other. You have mentioned that data does not exist, you may run parallel training classes using the older version of training and the newer version and then compare performances. Data is a MUST whenever you want to do any analysis. If it does not exist, it needs to be collected.

Hello Jaideep, By definition, Six Sigma aims at "defect reduction" and Lean focuses on "Waste elimination". Six Sigma uses the DMAIC cycle for improvement efforts while Lean does not have any intrinsic structure but it may use DMAIC or PDCA structure. While at the surface it may seem that the two methodologies are completely different methodologies but when you look deeper there are some clear overlaps. For example, any type of rework is a "waste" in Lean but it is also a "defect" in the Six Sigma dictionary. When you combine the two methodologies for improvement efforts, it gives you the best of both worlds. Hence, at GB and BB level, Benchmark offers "Lean Six Sigma" courses. If you are interested in learning about Lean in greater detail you may also choose to go for our Lean Practitioner program. For a full range of programs, you may visit https://www.benchmarksixsigma.com/brochures/

Hello Unat, Let me start by saying that not every tool is not to be used necessarily in every project. What works well for one project may not be required at all for another project. If your project is of the kind where your solutions involved mistake proofing, for example, you would not need to use control charts. However, if mistake proofing isn't possible or is only partially possible, control charts are a good idea. Remember, control charts are used for an objective - when you need to track a variable over a period of time. Control charts help you track variation and give you an early warning sign that the process may go out of control and start producing non conformances. If you do not track stability, I.e., do not use control charts, you will not get the early warning sign and know only when defects start happening, which may be too late. If you have a specific project, you may ask a specific question to know if you can do a control charts and which one to use.

Hello Tony, The sample size is dependent on several things, one of which is what are you trying to test. If your objective is to make sure that the accuracy of each of the machines meets a certain target, you should collect applicable sample size from each of the machines. However, if you want to ascertain if you meet an overall accuracy target, you can collect a combined sample from both the machines and validate statistically. This could be a random stratified sample based on production percentage by the machine.

Hello Lalit, Lean Six Sigma GB will help you get a structure to problem solving. Lean and Six Sigma methodologies are applicable irrespective or roles and domains. While you have mentioned that your domain is training and some of the project ideas could be time to proficiency, early agent attrition, handle time, defects, abandon rate, sales rate etc., I do want to mention that this is not a competency that stays limited to a certain domain. You may do your initial projects in training but you can use the very same learning in other areas within BPO and other industries. You may like to visit our global news section which showcases application across industries. http://www.benchmarksixsigma.com/globalnews/ Needless to say, you can use use the structure Six Sigma provides to solve day to day problems too, just go the DMAIC way!

Hello Vijay, It's great to see your passion for acquiring new skills. Your apprehensions are valid. I will try my best to answer all your questions. Is it too much of a download - I am not sure which all sites have you looked at so far, however, I dare say that when you have an instructor leading you, it would seem much less daunting and far more organized and systematic. In order for you to grasp the skills and have an idea about how the tools can be used to solve business problems, we make you practice projects inside the classroom setting. What's more, you can utilize the Forum (here) or your training what's app group to get help with you post training project. Whether one is able to apply the learning or not is up to them, one would if they take up projects. We, at Benchmark Six Sigma, are committed to helping the participants succeed and hence we provide multiple methods of post training support. You could use DMAIC as the roadmap and with help on which tools to use in your projects, you are bound to succeed. I'd like to think that Problem Solving is like any other skill, the more you do it, the better you get. And then you keep excelling. Good Luck!