Agreed with Mr. I - I've seen Six Sigma work *beautifully*, but I've also seen managers totally overwhelmed with "tools" (think warehosue manager filling out a DMIAC with no instruction) and employees straight up revolt. At the big boy factory I was at, we made the transition, I was also trained to yellow belt. It was nice that "Quality" and "Safety" had a daily 3 things to focus on, and it was VERY nice to get corrective actions communicated to the team. But the amount of resistance and push back, extra work hours and graphs really took a huge toll. It was close to a year before we really started getting things working the right way.
The best application of this I've seen was a plant manager who had the experience, but rolled it out to the floor without any terminology. He was also very big on Project Management, and sent me off with a PMBOK to those classes. The Project Management stuff really helped. That got things done. The KPI meetings there were awful and bitter, but we attended them and it made our team discuss corrective actions in a serious way.
It might help you highlight issues, and your KPIs will probably be the same as your trending reports. More than the tools, I think the valuable part is when you ask the floor employees to try and solve their own problems. Basically, I think of these the same way I think of Employee-Lead Safety Teams. They can go very wrong very quickly, or they can be a saving grace.
Edited by magenta_majors, 17 February 2015 - 05:28 PM.