Businesses that do not have enough money and time to use for six-sigma will not benefit from it. In addition, six-sigma requires full commitment from all employees in the business. Six-sigma can be beneficial for companies looking for a long-term investment.

six sigma implementation is a movement.

In early stage of six sigma implementation, we need to work on Gemba Kaizen and collect fruits which are obvious.

Once we generate savings, we need to look for implementation of 7 QC tools and get fruits which are within our reach.

and so on.

The real hard core six sigma projects with application of statistics would benefit once any change is to be implemented by proactive way either in product or service processes.

The companies caring for custmers and their requirement will certainly benefits from implementing six sigma projects.

Small scale companies can take advantage of Govt. institution like Indian statistical institute or a consultant and implement atleast one project.

In absence of statistical knowledge implementing six sigma project is difficult.

Six Sigma shall not work untill & unless you have

• Sr. management commitment
• availibility of resource & environment( human, machine...etc.)
• Realistic goal
• Process
• motivation 
• Awareness among the practitioners.

Due to the following reason six sigma can fail:-

1) From top to bottom level each team should be educated and given training.

2) Awareness and standardisation is a must.

3) Follow up every level

4) Continously & regulary done team work for reaching up to six sigma.

5) Study root cause with the operator or with the low level.

6) Brain storm  and a regular meating.

7) Motivation

8) Continous given impact of six sigma by advertisement or sign board.

Hi,

Six Sigma won´t work when:

The project is not leaded by the high direction

Lack of interest

Lack of budged to carry out the implementations

Personal no trained

The companies are in a hurry, anxious to see the results.

Regards,

FR

Keeping in mind the main objective of six sigma is to make customer happy and raise your profits. However there are certain factors that can result to failure of six sigma projects. Theses factors are :

1-    lack of proper communication: top management may well understand the important of six sigma projects, however, this message does not communicate well with other employees

2-    Lack of Professional Support

3-    Wrong implementation

4-    Failure of making a six sigma team before analyzing data

5-    Wrong process

Best Regards

Six sigma works for every business.  I believe the only time six sigma does not work is when management and staff apply six sigma incorrectly.  Of course, time and commitment are essential for six sigma success. 

Zong

If a project is viable and eligible enough to be put for 6sigma and if the theory is applied correctly then it has to work, but if a wrong project is selected where it will not be applicable then it will fail. But its not the systems fault but the wrong selction who brings the failure.

Due to the following reasons Six sigma will not work

Lack of monitoring from Sr.Management

When company failed to conduct regular trainings

When review meetings fails

Motivation

implementation of wrong process

Failure of Team work

When the six sigma not work

1) When The Team member is not Supports

2) Proper Training

3) Proper monitoring

4) Proper Coching

5) Proper Implementing

inthis causes six sigms is not working

Sixsigma will not work in the company due to following reasons

Lack of training

Poor monitoring from Sr.Management

When regular reviews are not conducted

When wrong process is adopted

when there is no motivation from the management

When there is no team work

• Not understanding the Six Sigma.
• Lack of monitoring from Management.
• Lack of Communication.
• Lack of Knowledge to Staff's.

There is no limitation of six sigma for any organization. It cannot work only with the organization where commitment and descipline is not practiced or followed.

when dont follow in religiously

The program of six sigma doesn't apply to any organizational problems, because over the long term a program will not work.

six sigma will work always it never fails

Six Sigma will not work when it is not practically followed by all the employee of the company.

• when there is no proper commitment.
• lack of knowledge about six sigma.
• not following the procedures properly.
• not finishing the work under the given timelines.
• when the quality is low.
• when here is no customer satisfaction.
• no team work.

Six sigma will not work on the following instances :-

1.If six sigma is aplied to a certain process but not having proper focus on the monitoring and on the implimentation stage for long and medium run processes cannot be produce the result that it supposed to be.Also it needs to be analysed and improvements needs to added on based on the feedback from the end users and on gorund staffs of the organization.

1.Lack of interest.

2.If there is no proper taining

3.If there is no motivation

4.Lack of process.

5.If there is no followup and montoring from Sr. management

6.If failed to conduct Regular reviews

             Six Sigma Will Not Work When it is Practiially not follwed by the Employer,

• Six Sigma will work always it never fails but when there is not proper management force as well as hard effort so its gose down,
• NO Proper team work .

IN COMPANY SATFF NOT WORKING PROPERLY

MOTIVATION

LACK OF PROFESSIONAL SUPORT

WRONG PROCESS

LACK OF INTEREST

The fact that 6 sigma not work in an organization has many reasons.  That may be the implementation is wrong; short of professional support; improper judgment or lack of interest and motivation.  These however are all related with the training and education of individuals.

So when will six sigma not works?  Firstly we have to determine why 6 sigma.

An operation that is 6 sigma must:

a). to make customer happy,

b). to increase profit

c). to reduce defect to/under 3.4 DPMO

Only an operation that fulfills all three of it, we can say that has been 6 sigma successful.

Scenario 1 - Profit increased and defects less than 3.4 DPMO but customer are not happy.

This trends to happen in sectors/industrial that is monopoly.  A provider may increase its profit when defects are reduced, however customer may never been happy because they are lack of choice or comparison.

Scenario 2 - Defects less than 3.4 DPMO and customer are happy, but no profit increases.

The prime objective of some organizations is customer satisfactory and without any defects.  Usually they are non-profit organization and keen to keep to their budget.  However a good budget control does not necessary to be profit increase.  i.e. public sectors and charity.

Scenario 3 - Customers are happy and the organization’s profit has increased but defect still over 3.4 DPMO.

To further reduce the defects, the organization might need to invest more and this could lead to profit decrease.  Such profit decrease may be short term but experience shown many company has achieved 5 sigma were found it difficult to break through to 6 sigma (or no more initiative that they are happy enough when achieved 5 sigma).

Hence when an organization tries to adopt 6 sigma, they must first consider how it may benefit.  These 3 scenario show how possibly 6 sigma that does not work.

Six Sigma will not work in companies where there some of following points.

•   when there is financial crisis in the company.
• when they cannot invest to buy proper raw materials.
• when the employees fail to follow the rules of sixsigma  

Hi Kevin,

             Six sigma should work at any circumstances. Becasue all type of companies wants to grow fastly among the customers with tough competitors.

Ayyappan. P

As you aware that without sig sigma things will met with incident/accidents.

1. It will not work when process & procedures are not in place.
2. lack of awareness on stadrdisation
3. When continues improvement and control on the same is fails.
4. Motivation and brain strom session with team fails.
5. When monitoring and end to end communication fails.

Six sigma will not work because of the following problems

• Lack of proper planning
• Lack of approach
• Lack of process power
• Lack of control
• Disinterest in work

There is no failure or success for Six Sigma, it’s a level of achievement towards quality.  Six Sigma is a long term project with continues improvement and complete focus towards customers needs and satisfaction. The work cycle of any company or organization is designed to earn profits and being competitive in the market.

Moreover it can be applied in any Organization, Companies, Social Service, Non-Profitable organization, Education, Life Science, Development, Medical Science, Government, Defence. The only thing we need is data.  

Regards,

Sudhir Biswal

When will six sigma fails or not work,

Six sigma may fails, if the project or any analysis made by using wrong & non applicable techniques.

 For Eg: We can imagine if any Civil engineer attempt an heart surgery,     

              Or any Doctor built a house.

Both will reflect the final result as Failure, because a civil engineer can give first aid for a patient not a surgery.

The same with a doctor can plan and imagine a house but he my not suitable to execute the construction.

May company’s fails due to the requirement of non- capable persons.

Company is not a separate entity a group of person brains and physic work to gather is a company, if the person fails automatically the company will fail.

Which will applicable for six sigma Too?

Hi,

I belive that no matter if the company has money or not, the success of six sigma depends on the totally committed and decipline of the  management and also itstaff

Six sigma will not work in the following circumstances:-

1. Lack of understanding six sigma

2. The project is too large

3. The project is not properly selected

4. Lack of management support

5. Gathering improper and wrong data

6. Unfamiliar six sigma team

7. Lack of commitment of leadership

8. Misunderstanding the process

9. miss-define the project objectives

10. misunderstand costumer requirements

11. Concentrating on quantities instead of quality

Hi Kevin

The only time six sigma will not work is :-if the company and it's employees are not committed to six sigma,most companies today have all the necessary

resource to implement sigma,the problem is people are not to happy to make all the change required to make six sigma a success

I know of a small company that implemented the philosphy of sigma and

they are not doing to badly and " That is to delight there CUSTOMER "

I believe Six Sigma could be applied in any company where relating with customers exists.

However, one fundamental hindrance to the operation of Six Sigma is Management's commitment to it. I discover that there is nothing any employee can do to implement Six Sigma, good as it is, above a company's Management understanding of the scheme.

With Management's understanding, the clear vision and the drive to turn the vision into accomplished mission become obvious. At this rate, every other factors would likely fall in place.

Regards

Six Sigma will not work if there is no full commitment and one of the reason employees are not committed to work is if there are no enough motivation from the part of the Sr. Management or everyone is allowed to do anything they like. An example is most especially among Government staff when some directors of ministries here in Nigeria are not really monitoring productivity but the dues from the government that comes at the end of the month and so staffs are not properly studied or monitored for quality or performance. Some staffs get to office by 10am when they are suppose to get to their duty post at most 8am and some close by 12 or 3pm because there is no proper check. Six Sigma will fail in this regards if introduced.

Typically the organisation where six sigma wont work or will not be applicable are these workplaces where the following factors are observed:

1. organisations with faulty data monitoring systems which generate faulty or wrong data for interpretation
2. Improper quality plans: these actually point out to non conformance of datasets and the end products vary substantially from the actal desired result
3. Lack of motivational training processes within the organisation: these processes are responsible for the boost in employee morale and help the employer to maintain lower attrition rates within the organisation. because whenever there is a loss of an employee and a new employee is inducted within the organisational process, he/ she is bound to undergo training and orientation which is an expenditure towards quality in the organisation.
4. lack of support for Quality improvement program from management: the management is responsible for continous improvemnt in product and service quality. in case the management does not improvise and support the continous quality improvement program, then six sigma ( OR ANY OTHER QUALITY IMPROVEMENT PROTOCOL)  is bound to undergo failure

It is true that to implement Six Sigma up to best level, special budget to be worked out.

But beside that if Six sigma is considered as an helping tool to improve the customer satisfaction in all aspects at least people / corportae people who have understood the basic of the same can use in their areas, later management can be convienced on the larger benefits.

Managers have to break the ice before management is made involved. Top level look at the profit generated from the investments, it is always middle management who have to run the show and work  to maintain good customer satisfaction level and top management content.At operational level people know the real cause of dissatisfaction, midle management present ways to improve on the same.once you have proper analysis and improvement plan ( DMAIC) the dta pojected with solution  should be accepted to do some investments for improvement.

When will Six Sigma not work?

With the key purpose of Six Sigma being... customer happiness

Six Sigma is for customer’s satisfaction, once achieved and to be able to maintain their requirements companies have received great success from the quality of products sold.

When major companies.. monopolies an industry of manufacturing products,  to a standard that meets their requirements and not that of the customers.

 With few suppliers, companies dictate the price per unit to obtain greater profit with maximal output.

With cheap low grade raw materials used in the manufacturing process to achieve a greater profit, the standard of quality achieved is ...  just a means to its purpose.   

When customers are restricted by , purchase locations and lack of competitors, quality of product and price fixing then Six Sigma has not worked for its key purpose ....the customer.

six sigma methodology will give good results when the company is big under good leadership(super balck belt person) and under strict  quality management .Though the results may take some time,but on long run it will have  good impact,like workers get trained to solve the problems and they reach upto expert level(black belt).ofcourse in six sigma methodology applied company will take only experts (black belts)

Six Sigma does not work under the following few circumstance

a) - Lack of management support & commitment

b) - Lack of Available resources to deploy

c) - Usage of incorrect / bad / improved data

d) - Lack of process knowledge

e) - incorrect methodology followed

f) - Too wide project scope & time period

g) - Failing to use corrective action

h) - Incorrect or incomplete CTQ's taken

i) - Project Selection non financially based

j) - Project solution not implemented or sustained

k) Six Sigma project too small for DMAIC rigor

l) Training & awareness was poor or not up to the mark

k) Others

Regards

Muktesh

i am working with printing industries we are printing the materila for flexibale packaging in this type industires it is diffcult to implement to siz sigma bacause

all customer have different choice ther quality requirement.very diffcult to define a standard if you can not define standart not procced further always try for trial and error method.

Six sigma will not work in the following circumstances:-

1. Lack of understanding six sigma

2. The project is too large

3. The project is not properly selected

4. Lack of management support

5. Gathering improper and wrong data

6. Unfamiliar six sigma team

7. Lack of commitment of leadership

8. Misunderstanding the process

9. miss-define the project objectives

10. misunderstand costumer requirements

11. Concentrating on quantities instead of quality

Moreover as per the experience in pharmaceutical industry the six sigma can not be used for Active ingredients but it can be used for packaging materilas sampling activity.

I believe if you think long enough and plan accordingly the implementation Six Sigma can produce positive results in most all circumstances. However, since Six Sigma has not worked in every company, the root problems of this must be explored. I do not believe there is a sure fire indication that Six Sigma will fail, and I believe looking for such a sign is counterproductive to the Six Sigma process. Six Sigma is a very positive process designed to improve and streamline an existing process to benefit a company as a whole. Looking at the GE example, the implementation of Six Sigma quickly produced costs that exceeded the benefits. If GE was looking for an indication of failure, then it would have quickly been seen. However, GE knew that the costs would only initially outweigh the benefits, and stuck with Six Sigma to see the benefits outweigh the costs over time.

Characteristic for Six sigma project as below:

1. People: all pepole participated on and supported this project should be trained for six sigma. including below people:

a. Top management- Champion

b. Specialist, project leader- Black Belt 

c. Generic pepole-Green Belt, Yellow Belt

2. Major approach:

D-M-A-I-C

So based on description as above, lack of any above element will cause the six sigma doesn't work.

six sigma requires proper money, full employees committment, time and proper planning. Businesses that do not have these things six-sigma will not benefit from it.  Six-sigma can be beneficial for only the companies looking for a long-term investment.

 I believe that six sigma will work under any situation coz its a journey every company can take the six sigma road but not every company can  be done with the end of the road.

I believe six sigma will not work when -

- there is no proper support from the management side

- there are no proper champions, black belt to give direction to the project

- lack of involvement from the project members

- no basic understanding of the tools required to the analysis

- lack of communication between the champion, black belt and team members.

- When the management fail in the final phase i.e. Control phase to bring improvement and consistency in the project result.

For success of any organisation both six sigma as well as resource is needed. Proper management of the available resources is the key to an organisation.

Six sigma may not work in many circumstances

1) Inadequate finances

2) Inadequate human resources

3) Lack of proper trainers that may help in implementation of six sigma

4) Mismanagement in the organisation.

5) Lack of motivation among the trainees or the employees

6) Wrong implementation of six sigma

six sigma would not work in a project involving small and unstructured teams. There would be no dedicated resource for the same and it will not work.

On the other hand if the "Customer is always right" is the moto of the organisation then the management might be reluctant to change the way work is being done. In this circumstances even if the cause of the problem is known - no corrective actions will be taken to improve.

And I personally feel that six sigma should not be used in software industry where there is on an average 30% diveation (no official records of the figures) from the required product and end product.

Thanks & Regadrs,

Nimish Nagpal

There are many reasons because six-sigma don’t work like:

Not understanding of the concept of six sigma etc.

But in my opinion all the reasons can be simplify in one the company believe or not in the six-sigma application?

The application of the six-sigma methodologies involves the change of the all company mind.

If the company, the management not believe completely in this system, they don´t support the six-sigma implementation, and we have inadequate training for the employee, inadequate software support etc..