Foreword

Six Sigma was established in 1987 by Motorola. It lay in limbo with sporadic deployment among relatively few companies. Then, in 1994, the tsunami began. AlliedSignal, a $14 Billion company lead by Larry Bossidy, applied Six Sigma to his mediocre company with a vengeance. With the help of a former Motorola quality expert, Rich Schroeder, Larry established Six Sigma to be clearly a business process and quite effective. He was able to track Six Sigma project activities directly to earnings per share for 1995.

When Larry convinced his friend, Jack Welsh, Six Sigma would work in GE, the rest is history. Since 1996, Six Sigma has spread like wildfire throughout every industry. Then companies realized that when Six Sigma was integrated with Lean Enterprise methods (Lean Sigma), the results were magnificent.

So, why have Six Sigma and Lean Sigma not gone the way of TQM, Business Process Re-engineering and other programs of the month? There are several reasons explaining the endurance of Six Sigma and Lean Sigma:

1. Lean Six Sigma moved from a quality function to a business function

2. Lean Six Sigma is roadmap based

3. Training innovation resulted from Lean Six Sigma

   1. Learning, accountability, execution, results

4. Lean Six Sigma dovetails effectively with other initiatives (Lean)

5. Precise Level of Accountability

6. Lean Six Sigma is expandable to any business process

7. Lean Six Sigma gets results

Of the above differentiators, the third addressing training innovations was probably a revolutionary feature. Companies had not previously considered sending students away for four weeks of training around a high impact project. Companies normally did not treat training as a business process where training was linked to strategic goals and performance criteria.

Nor was training directly accountable to attain significant business results and achieve a return-on-investment. In fact, the Chief Learning Officer of GM, Donnee Ramelli, has linked all the training from GM University to the business turnaround GM is currently attempting. In doing so with innovative training methods, he has saved GM millions of dollars in training funds and produced new capabilities in GM employees. It's no wonder that Donnee learned this approach while driving Six Sigma in AlliedSignal's Engineered Materials Sector.

The second differentiator, the process improvement roadmaps, is the second most profound difference between Lean Sigma and previous improvement methods. As Ian Wedgwood points out in this fine book that the number improvement tools required to integrate Lean and Six Sigma is vast but the tools are not new. Ian should know, as he is an expert in both Lean and Six Sigma tools as well as the statistics. And he learned the nuances of the Lean Six Sigma roadmaps by actually using them in a long series of process improvement projects. The complexity of many of the statistical tools is intimidating. The irony is that these tools have been around a long time, some since the 1920's. The integration and linking of these tools have been the keys to the success of Lean and Six Sigma.

To provide a student a set of proven process improvement tools and a clear order in which to provide them (the roadmap) had never been done effectively in other quality initiatives. Over the years, thousands of students have achieved success using the roadmap approach and aggressive results oriented training. A critical success factor for the best Black Belts is whether they receive mentoring from a Master Black Belt at critical times during the project. Because of the complexity of the roadmaps, having access to a roadmap navigator has paid dividends.

The goal is to make Black Belts and Green Belts self sustaining in their improvement efforts. Ian's book is the first step in that evolution from beginner to expert. While numerous books have been written on Six Sigma, Lean, and Lean Sigma, all pay lip service to the roadmaps and hand wave around the tools. A large set of technical books cover the statistical tools in egregious detail but never links those tools to other tools and methods or to a process improvement roadmap. I know as a Ph.D. statistician, I was an expert in statistical tools but not an expert problem solver. When I built the MAIC roadmap for Six Sigma, I finally became an expert problem solver.

So, it's not about the tool set (TQM has a similar toolset) but about project execution. By using the right tools at the right time, in the right order, and in the right place, dramatic improvement occurs. This book fills an important gap in the literature. This book facilitates a student moving smoothly and swiftly from project definition to project completion. And, uniquely, Ian has laid out roadmaps for different classes of problems such as accuracy, capacity, lead-time downtime and inventory. His roadmaps work in manufacturing and transactional processes. The Black Belts coach and mentor will always be by his or her side at the bookshelf. And the book itself will be seen as an integral part of any Black Belt's or Green Belt's training.

Welcome to the wonderful and rich world of roadmap-based process improvement. Your capable navigator will be Ian Wedgwood. Ian, at the Ph.D. level, has paid his dues in the corporate world by leading both Lean and Six Sigma deployments in a very large company. Through his consulting efforts with a large number of companies, he has also learned what always works and where the barriers are to project success. He has taken everything he has learned over the last 10 years and distilled the knowledge to a set of step-by-step improvement roadmaps that really work. With the requisite Black Belt or Green Belt training and this book, you will be ready to lead a team to solve some of the most complex problems in your business. My advice is to do great things, be safe, and have fun. For the next few years of your professional career will be some of the most rewarding you'll ever have. Welcome aboard!

Dr. Stephen Zinkgraf
CEO Sigma Breakthrough Technologies, Inc.