Hi All,

I am about to start my Green Belt Project and I also prepared a documentation about the process running in my company at present. I am working with a local search engine at Hyderabad and at present handling 2 departments in the company. I am planning to start my project with the Customer Service department initially as the issues that are being raised at this department have to be resolved on higher priority so that the company's reputation wouldn't be damaged. Can you suggest me if I am correct or as to how to start my Green Belt Project to get better outputs for a developing company

Regards,

SwapnaParisha

 

Dear Swapna,

The Customer Service Department as a focus area seems relevant. You may want to consider one of the following areas.

• Improving Turnaround time of complaints.
  
• Reducing Resolution time of complaints.
  

You may also consider a project that involves customer care and technical team with the following goal

• Reducing number of critical complaints to 50%
  

Best Regards,

VK

Hi,

The  work on customer complaints has already been started and I hope it would be resolved very shortly. As of now the inbound team has very few customer complaints. Can you suggest me as to how can I support the inbound team and also maintain a track of individual performance when compared to the past. How can I motivate the team in a better way and make their work more interesting? How do I represent or show an improvement in the process to the management?

 

Thanks & Regards,

SwapnaParisha

Hi Swapna,

Congratulations on getting close to resolving your opportunities on customer complaints. Just do FMEA/mistake proofing to ensure that these issues don't recur and that would an icing on the cake to your project.

In addition to comparing individual performances with their past performances to see if they have improved after implementation of your project, you should also compare their performances with the benchmark. You may need to first determine the areas/items you want to track to gauge the performance. In addition to number goals like calls handled per week, calls escalated to supervisor, calls resolved during first call itself, average handling time, etc., you may like to tabulate the performance in terms of soft skills as well, like compassion, language usage, issue comprehension ability, accent, etc. You may spread these items over a spreadsheet and populate the fields daily/weekly for each indivdual as per your evaluation. At the end of the month, you would be able to compare the current performances with past performances and benchmarking standards.

As for your other questions regarding supporting your team, motivating them, and making work more interesting, I suggest you read the book "The Secret" by Ken Blanchard & Mark Miller. I am giving below a brief of it:

Become a good listener and SERVE your team.

Regarding your last question: Management understands the language of profits and/or cost reduction. I suggest you to prepare a .ppt presentation and show them the past figures and current figures and draw comparison to show how much the process has improved. Be ready with all the facts & figures & include some charts & graphs as well.

I hope I could be of some help.

Praveen Gupta

Hello

I have finished my greenbelt certificate exam and also got the certificate. Now I want to do a Green Belt Project. Am doing internship in a small scale manufacturing company here in Chennai. How can I apply all GB six sigma techniques and concepts and complete the project?

Dear VK..

I did my Green Belt and Lean. But I could not apply any tools as my organization is not data driven. I want to do project before going with Black Belt. I am handling Design, Marketing, Purchase. Can you please advise what area should I choose and from where should I start. 

Best Regards: Sanyogita

Hi Sanyogita, 

You can identify an area that relates to a chronic business pain o a customer pain. Ideally a problem, whose causes and solutions are unknown can be chosen. 

Once you have identified such an area, you can create a project charter - business case, project CTQ, project goal, team members, time line. If you wish, you can share this with me and plan ahead. 

Best Regards, 

VK

Dear VK

In my company I'm the only employee to undergo training in SSGB & I don't have any project exposure. Can I start a GB project on my own? I've found the problem areas in Marketing & HR.  As I don't have a BB, MBB , who should be considered as mentor or Champion? and how I've to start my project?

With regards,

Sankar

 

I have a question related to the Sigma Level in different type of industries.

Is there a global Sigma Level for automotive industry, aerospace industry?

My question is related to the Food Industry,

where I can find information related to this question?

regards Miguel Mendoza

Dear VK

One of the pain area is maintaining delivery schedules. We executes most of the Orders after scheduled delivery dates. Company is losing lot of money in LD. There  are various processes involving order processing, raw material purchasing, QC checks for raw materials, approval of drawings, manufacturing, etc. What is your advise on this.

Best Regards:

SS

 

Dear Sanyogita,

My suggestion will be to do a high level value stream map on a product family that is most value to the company. (Value can be defined based on a lot of things, so be careful to select a product family). Product is a generic term which can be replaced by service also.

FMEA is also good tool also, but my first preference is VSM. FMEA does not identify waste, but does identify failure modes which typically drives improvement efforts in certain areas of the system.

You will find a lot of waste when you validate the current VSM when you walk the process backwards.

It will give you a good start on your project and help you to focus in specific scope which should be in your area of work, unless you are a full time resource to work on projects.

Best of luck

Dear Miguel,

Good question!. I have heard the same also that sigma levels for industries exist, but in my humble opinion, knowing the same does not help.

Industry is a very broad term and comprises of multitude of attributes.

If you wish to use the same to benchmark, I suggest to look at competitors who produce the same product or provide service and then ask for values of specific performance indicators.

I have not been able to help you in your specific question, but hope it gives you a direction.

Best of Luck

 

Dear Sankar,

Answer by Vishwadeep on Mar 25, 2011 10:57PM should help answer part of your question.

Now I strongly suggest that you definitely find a champion in your company who will be able to help you if roadblocks have to be removed, unless you the the top honcho who sits in the corner office with windows and has the final say.

Mentoring can be provided by your trainer (probably, not sure) or through this network, which is not the best option, but is one to consider.

Best of luck in your journey.

Feel free to reach out to me, if I can I will help you out.