Dear All,

Many people think Six Sigma works for repetitive processes and has no application for project situations. When I say project situations, I mean industries that work primarily with projects. Project situations are common in companies and functions that carry out construction, commissioning and installations, software development, plant and machinery development and manufacture, research & development etc.

Although these sectors have significant differences in challenges that they face, the common element is that they carry out projects and each project is unique in itself.

To understand the applications of Six Sigma in companies that carry out projects, let us take example of construction industry (as most people have some familiarity with this sector)

In construction industry, Six Sigma usage can be understood with following points.

• Recurring problems exist at each stage of construction. When I say recurring, it means recurring for the company (may not be recurring for individual projects)
  
• If you study a construction project, it comprises of large number of individual processes ranging from soil testing to landscaping to structural designs to foundations, superstructure, interiors and exteriors. There are a whole lot of purchase and logistic processes as well.
  
• A good number of these processes are common to all projects. If processes and their linkages were robust many of the individual problems would not occur at the first place. The remaining can be reduced.
  
• The idea in Six Sigma is about making the processes robust ( so that the results are right the first time, every time)
  
• Not all processes are equally important. Processes that matter are those that relate closely to pain areas (for customers/ management). These processes need improvement.
  
• In each project, individual project managers, site engineers face a whole lot of problems that they solve. These problems do get solved in the project (after they have caused a delay or cost in the specific project). Normally there is no mechanism to aggregate learning from the experiences of these managers and use it for process improvement. Also companies do not have structured mechanism to use tried and tested techniques to eliminate or reduce such issues in future projects.
  
• To be able to study and improve management systems one needs a structured improvement approach provided by Six Sigma
  
• Six Sigma provides tried and tested techniques for a team based approach which converts each problem area into an individual "improvement project"
  
• When processes improve, there is a reduction in problems and defects.
  
• Primary defects in construction industry (and most of the project driven industries) are DELAY, REWORK and COST OVERRUNS and Six Sigma can be used to reduce any of these defects.
  

This is not all. In addition to usage in improvements in existing processes (as explained above), Six Sigma is also used to design new processes (or redesign existing processes that contribute to project success (with better predictability than ever before).

Any comments?

Hi

Can you help us?We are a construction company and want to implement six sigma

Thanks,

MOHAMMED FAROOQ,

Mr. Mohammed,

You may contact us on our TOLL FREE number 1800-102-3003 or alternatively provide us with your contact number, so that we can reach you and serve you in a better way.

Regards,

Ruchi

 

Sir,

Really it is great to note that refinement of processes is very useful in projects too.

Not only delay,rework & cost overrun can be reduced but also the structural safety & effectiveness/value addition/Architectural & Environmentally efficiency of the structures may be optimized for the construction projects if the problem solving is dealt with six sigma approach.

Dilip Paliwal

Kindly enlighten about Six Sigma effectiveness in Roads Construction projects.Are civil engineers really interested in the six sigma ? Can you take awareness session on this topic with particular refrence to Reducing time cycle of Road Projects and also reduce variation between Toll collection planned and actuals. Thanks.

Welcome to the forum, Mr. Kishan Vasekar.

I feel all people at responsible positions can understand and appreciate Six Sigma, especially if we present in their language and un-complicate the subject.

Best Regards,

VK

If you are trying to relate this with IT projects - Many of the SaaS (software as a service platforms) have shown that if individual elements and their integrations are perfected, the projects that integrate them shall be successful too.

Important points for this example are

• Integration of elements follows a process.
  
• Troubleshooting is a process.
  
• Creation of each element is a process.
  

Regards,

VK

We had the following discussion recently at another platform. I am posting the sequence here for the benefit of forum members.

VK - People in IT, KPO's, EPC (Engg, Projects and Construction) and the like tend to move away from Six Sigma saying - "Our processes

are not repetitive. Process focus does not make sense here". Your views?

Mamoon Md., Head of Enterprise IT Projects, BRAC Bank Ltd - This is not appropriate in saying that processes of IT, KPO, EPC are not repetitive. Could be more appropriate to say that Scope of Works (SOWs) or intended output differs in new assignments/projects. There are standard processes or process groups that every developments or works will eventually have to go through. For example, activities to achieve the deliverables of inception stage or delivery stage of any projects; say it IT or construction, are the same irrespective of the overall SOWs of the project.

Srikanth Srinivas, A.G.M. - WAREHOUSE at Nagarjuna, Oil Corporation limited - Well Sir, I can very vehemently put it that kind of approach is wrong. For the simple fact that larger are the projects (like the one refinary project i am currently in) everything is driven by clearcut well charted processes and process ownership. The margin of error are zero, particularly plant, equipment and machinery, to say the least. All engineering and project management functions follow a well laid out and agreed processes with clear ownership otherwise everything including project goals gets compromised. Thus project deliverables, whether hard or soft, may vary but project management process and practice remains the same. Six sigma and lean can be helpful in identifying non-value added activities in the processes and in eliminating them.

Manas Dandekar, Student at Welingkar - Agree to the points mentioned however the question here is that when there is less standardization and more element of customization can six sigma be still implemented. Since the approaches are project based and not product based, the parameters for evaluation of the project will constantly keep on changing. The challenge here is to change either the evaluation parameters or to comply to the standards, both of which are difficult and time consuming and non value added items, which would increase the cost of the projects. Hence they tend to move away from six sigma.

However if we breakdown the entire project into the most basic processes we would be able to arrive at a level where are all the projects would be similar. Implementation of six sigma would then be possible.

Even if at the macro level it may seem that the processes are not repetitive if we look deep at the micro level it would all boil down to the same set of processes.

For example if we look at innovation, one may say that it is all about creating chaos and disturbance there is no fixed straight path to it hence no repetitive activity and hence no six sigma. But if we look at the basic way one innovates is, firstly he ideates, then converts the idea into invention, commercializes it using his creativity and that is innovation. But this after all is a process, and six sigma will definitely help in improving the process.

Vishwadeep Khatri - Good points by Mamoon and Srikanth. Manas has raised an important point here. Some people agree that processes do exist at micro level, but a project manager is busy handling bigger execution challenges specific to the situation (unique to the project).

This leads to an understanding that Six Sigma shall be extremely time consuming as each individual element has a relatively small contribution to overall project success.

While a project manager (say, Jacob) understands the logic but does not find it practical to focus on small elements as they sometime appear in a project and sometimes are absent. Jacob feels that

on-the-spot-at-the-moment management works well as it is planned and executed as per the situation.

What are your views?

Mamoon Md. Abdullah Al, Head of Enterprise IT Projects, BRAC Bank Ltd - Ideally project should be monitored (in respect of project triple constraints costs, schedule & scope) at the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) level and a Project Manager has to have the control and accountability at that level without any choice. If there are established processes (where six sigma can effectively contribute) to monitor and control any project at WBS level, I guess the biggest real life challenge in project management; i.e. managing the

triple constraints of a project become manageable within tolerable limit.

Yes, as mentioned by Manas, it is a fact that time allotted to a WBS is very short to have the assessment/control/evaluation system in place for six sigma to work effectively but again we can take care about that by redefining the evaluation parameters as rightly said by Manas.

However, there are exceptions even in complying with the regulations/internal control due to some unnatural causes for which we may not follow guided procedures or processes and those are 'fire fighting' rather than standard operating procedure. As such six sigma may not be applicable to those exceptions.

I am not sure whether it will be wise to frame out the process of articulating 'innovation' or 'creativity'. Hence I wouldn't recommend six sigma for any intangible/undefined outcome. Though we know the great histories of many great Inventors of the world, but I guess following their path (repititive process), may not enable someone to be an Inventor.

Srikanth Srinivas, A.G.M. - WAREHOUSE at Nagarjuna, Oil Corporation limited - I would like to address the question 'ad seriatim'.

1. Processes exist at only micro level!! - Surprising indeed. 'Whole' is sum of parts. The answer to bigger execution challenges typically lies in some micro level process being ignored, compromised

(in essence mismangaged). Many a time a particular situation ( what you call as 'unique to a project',) arises only because at the conceptual or formatory stage of the project that particular situation was not

factored into or there was lack of subject matter expertise at that point of time. That to say, overall initial design of the project has not gone thro' the steps of DFSS. Thus a process compromised somewhere in the beginning leads to more compromises on later dates and all the blame is shifted to the 'Tool' and not to the poor understanding of the 'Tool' by the individual/ company! Paradoxical!

2. Secondly, when i said a 'tool' then a 'skill' is associated with it, in handling of tool. Now this comes in only one way. 'Practice'. Like a lathe operator or welder. So a skilled person will know, from the desired application, what kind of six sigma tool and to what extent need to be employed, in order to make a decision 'errorfree'. So time is purely a matter of skill. Ofcourse, a minimum required process time is to be allotted, based on available technology, to submit the patient to various tests before one concludes on the type of disease to be treated.

3. In jacob case, 'small' or 'big' are w.r.t. impact of the activity on the whole project. What may be a very big impact in 'Logistics' scenario is very small in corporate conglomerate. The 'on the spot' judgement and execution stems out of experience gained and that is the result of step 2 mentioned above.

4. Further, i would beg to disagree with Mr. Mamoon here, as we do have SOP for 'Fire fighting' and training also.

5. Even when we talk abt innovation, 'ideation' is the random part, but perfection of ideation for commercial success is a 'methodology' which can be subjected to six sigma tools!

Karan Arora, Director - EBT at Sterling Infosystems, Inc. - What about DFSS?

Vishwadeep Khatri - Yes, Karan has brought forward an untouched area to the fore (DFSS). Would you like to use DFSS or DMADV for a one time sequence of activities? Some companies actually do it.

Any views in this context?

vishwajit joshi Manager - Continuous Improvement at Integreon Managed Solutions India Pvt Ltd --- While I agree with most of the points by all of you, I would like to bring a different perspective - Six Sigma need not always be looked as end-to-end project. It as a methodology of systematically adressing a problem - at any level. So deosn't matter

whether the process is one time activity or repatative, at macro level or micro level, existing or new - in all cases, the Six sigma "style of thinkning" is useful. Define the problem, understand the quantum of it,

analyze the impacts/causes/options and accordingly decide course of action. Further, certain Six Sigma tools can be of great help in particular situation if used in standalone also e.g. simulation in call centers of predicting wait times, FMEA for preparing test cases in application development etc

Kanchan Date, Principal Facilitator

Vishwajit Joshi's views are most practical. There are tools in the tool-kit of six sigma that can effectively address even one-of-a-kind processes. NVAs have no bias for repetitive processes. They appear in all processes, soft or hard, repetitive or non-repetitive. Only the degree varies. But, even the smaller degree may be great in value.

Dear All,

In my view Six Sigma Approach or rather New Six Sigma Approach hich focuses on Aligning , Mobilizing,Accelrating and Governing Strategic objectives is the Crux .Which tools we use will depend upon the Complexity of the project .It is interdisciplinary approach and hence a Cross Functional Team is Must to get anywhere.

As Chemical Engineer who was part of teh Project Team in 90's , I think Future of Six Sigma in Projects/Construction is very bright. Thanks