ankit_sharma

Southwest Airlines is known for its operational efficiency and for understanding the VOC. Attributable to its practices, South-West Airlines was able to beat the recession and emerge as a leader among low-cost carriers. How did South-West Airlines achieve this while most of the other airlines incurred significant losses? Follow the link to know more and feel free to ventilate your views!!! http://sreahm.blogspot.in/2012/07/southwest-airlines-lean-six-sigma.html

In my opinion, a leader is also a follower... The only difference is in the intensity with and the extent to which one follows... Its true that a follower follows the leader but a leader also follows a philosophy.. During times of independence, a large part of the Indian population followed the foot-steps of Mahatma Gandhi and he himself followed the principle of satyagrah and non-violence... And followers are as important as the leader.... If a leader cant motivate people to follow, he does not even qualify to be a leader

The recession is indeed the time when a company's focus shifts towards going LEAN both in terms of people and processes... To survive, the company needs to identify the value chain and then make it efficient and lean by eliminating the NVA... However, if an organization adopts the LEAN approach as its philosophy, it will not only enable the company to survive the tough times but also ensure better profitability in the good times...

In today's times, cross functional expertise is a must to climb the organizational ladder. The 3 main dimensions of Six Sigma namely Problem Solving, Data Driven Decision Making and Process Improvement find applicability in all business domains. This makes it easy for an individual to switch to different domains and deliver his best to each one of it.

This is in fact one of the most pertinent examples of 80/ 20 rule that also shows the power of a Brand. Apple is known for groundbreaking innovations and this entitles it to earn a brand premium. Apple has time and again surprised people with its offerings. And all this took shape under the leadership of Steve Jobs... a true manager and visionary!!

It is a general tendency for most of us to associate Quality with Brand and vice versa. And probably this is the reason why companies divert exorbitant part of their resources towards the branding efforts. No doubt it works. Consider the case of apparels. As a child, I don't remember myself being fascinated by Brands but as I grew up, the media ingrained this concept into my conscience. The stores that I used to visit as a child no more fit into my itinerary. They have now been replaced by the branded outlets. Is it logical to take quality as an intrinsic attribute of a Brand? Or shall we look further and make an informed decision? Think and express!!

Corruption, no doubt, is the first word that comes to our mind when we think of Indian politics. The next attribute that most of us experience during our interaction with the government offices is inefficiency. Every document and file has to go through an uncountable number of tables and offices to get the final seal. And on most of the occasions an under-table transaction becomes inevitable part of the process Can Six Sigma bring about a change? Can Six Sigma come to the rescue of an ordinary Indian citizen as he tries to get his work done in the government offices?. Now a days, when most of the corporate organizations have made Six Sigma expertise necessary for leadership roles, don't you think that our representatives at the State and Center need Six Sigma knowledge? Should there be a compulsory program for the Indian politicians? Views and suggestions are invited!

Totally agree with both the points of view. Although the customer does not pay for Inspection on most occasions, inspection does add value in terms of correctness of the deliverable. In that sense, can we treat INSPECTION as an Essential NVA?

Over the years, Indian education system has evolved in terms of content and pedagogy but can we say the same regarding the various processes that operate there... There are institutions that have embraced the best practices when it comes to admissions, recruitment drives, account management, logistics management etc. But this does not hold good for a good number of institutes. Even reputed and well known institutes do not have the best practices in place. They suffer from a lot of inefficiencies that not only harms them but at the same time, cause a lot of inconveniences to the various stakeholders. The aim of Lean Six Sigma is to eliminate the Non-Value-Add activities and generate an efficient Value Chain that not only eliminates inefficiencies but also simplifies the life of the stakeholders. From your prior experience, please ventilate your suggestions for improving the various processes at educational institutions.... Also feel free to share the best practices!!

Motorola did develop the Six Sigma process and applied it exceptionally well to its production processes.. GE, on the other hand ensured that Six Sigma becomes an inevitable pillar for all the processes... The major reason why Motorola lost touch is its inability to address the VOC GE on the other hand ensures that the Six Sigma techniques enable them to address the VOC

The aim of six sigma is to improve processes and facilitate data driven decision making. When Lean gets added to Six Sigma, it incorporates the dimension of waste reduction as well... For reducing wastage and rework cost, Inspection is important. What do you classify inspection as A Value Adding Activity or a Non-Value Add task? Justify what you express...!!

This is synonymous with the great Indian mythological debate: Who is more important- the live giver or the care taker? Here the Child in question is not Shri Krishna but a concept called Six Sigma... And the war is between Motorola and GE. While Motorola developed the concept of Six Sigma, GE adopted it as a core philosophy. Who is more important and why??

Very rightly said!! In the present times, most of the organizations have huge amount of data and analyzing that data requires a proper understanding of the various tools and frameworks... + it is a fact that decisions based on data have long term sustainability.... All the successful companies employ one or the other way to analyze the data... Benchmark Six Sigma gives you an edge here... It brings in its modules the best practices and also gives a hands on experience on the various softwares that assist in Data Driven Decision Making !

The Leadership roles these days require a cross functional expertise and Group activities are a very effective way to acquire a preliminary understanding of the various domains... Once aware of the various functions, it becomes very convenient to develop synergies and eliminate wastage... For instance, a proper co-ordination between Finance and Production is a must to prevent stock-outs or inventory pile-ups... All trainings and to an extent, the academic curriculum must give a lot of stress on cross-functional team exercises...

Six Sigma has been applied to almost all domains and has yielded results as well... Can you think of ways in which data driven decisions can impact Sales...? Can Six Sigma help you in orchestrating the right product for the right target audience...? Put on your thinking caps and come up with ideas that can help the Sales force in meeting their targets!

In one form or the other, the principles of Six Sigma have been employed by most of the organizations... Incidentally, the only company that has retained its position consistently on the Du-Pont index is GE which has made six sigma a part of everything they do... Call it anything, Six Sigma has always been around and is here to stay!!

Excellent read! Innovation, in my opinion is fueled by an innate desire of an individual or organization to evolve. This desire in turn is catalyzed by external agents... Competition, no doubt promotes innovation and complacency invariably leads to decline. The classical case is that of Nokia. It reached the peak but failed to sustain due to an absence of innovation. While Nokia stuck to its core products and offerings, Samsung capitalized on the growing android mania and took away the entire market share. Samsung's might in the domain of innovation has reached such a level that it is giving tough fight to Apple, the innovation leaders of the past decade!!! Whatever be the fuel, innovation is the key not only to succeed but also to beat the successful out of competition!!!!

The king does have an influence on the masses... But if masses imbibe all the virtues and lose their individuality then the Great Indian Elections will cease to exist... There are certain core values that are specific to individuals... These core values always remain and differentiate an individual from others... The Leadership style may influence the behavioral patterns but that is ephemeral... The core traits always remain intact!!! These core traits keep the government responsible and mobilize people when the King deviates from the purpose for which he holds his position!!