Managing knowledge for business excellence: Knowledge Focused Six Sigma (KFSS)

Abstract

Fierce competition forces organisations to implement various improvement methodologies at a time. However, each of these methodologies proposes their own approach or philosophy. The situation may be confusing for the decision makers as they may confront different roadmaps for similar objectives. In order to make best use of scarce resources, strategies should be formulated for aligning these methodologies. Leadership must give careful thought as to how the various overlapping activities can best be organised to optimise their impact on performance. It is observed that many organisations pursuing a methodology for designing and improving their processes decide to apply Six Sigma. Six Sigma enables organisations improve their processes and produce value added, low-cost products and services by using statistical tools within a structured roadmap. Statistically, six sigma means 3.4 defects per million opportunities, whereas in management terms, Six Sigma is an improvement methodology, which aims to reduce the cost of poor quality and increase profitability by exceeding customer expectations through focusing on the effectiveness and efficiency of the processes. Six Sigma leads to a cultural transition, as it underpins solving problems by means of data driven scientific tools. Naturally, organisations, deciding to start a Six Sigma program, need to acquire the essential knowledge about the tools and create a suitable environment for the cultural transition. Organisations initiating an intensive program like Six Sigma usually have to buy the knowledge and make costly consultancy investments while deploying the program all through the organisation. They need to define new roles and responsibilities and try to manage projects systematically in order to increase the efficiency of methodology. The need for an infrastructure to maximise the benefits and to internalise the methodology emerges eventually. Practitioners have pursued a systematic approach in order to align the program with the corporate culture; accordingly, researchers have made various publications, listing the critical success factors of a successful Six Sigma deployment, or the reasons of a failing Six Sigma program. Unfortunately, most of these valuable studies neither enlighten the practitioners about the relations or the sequence of the factors nor introduce an approach, which is systematically designed, for instance, by using a methodology adopted also by Six Sigma. As a result, to design the new methodology, it is decided to use axiomatic design, a design methodology, which is also one of the tools mentioned in Design For Six Sigma (DFSS), so that the relations among critical success factors, the requirements from the Six Sigma infrastructure, the components of the Six Sigma infrastructure and knowledge processes can be elucidated for the practitioners. The methodology, designed using axiomatic design, is called Knowledge Focused Six Sigma(KFSS). The criteria of KFSS are defined in accordance with the components of the design. The criterion for “creating Six Sigma deployment knowledge” by using “upper management support” for “deploying the Six Sigma program” is called the “Initiate” criterion. How “Six Sigma knowledge, created within ‘Six Sigma projects’, is applied” for “improving processes”, is studied within the “Improve” criterion. The “Internalise” criterion focuses on “utilising Six Sigma deployment and training knowledge” within “an accepted and customised Six Sigma program” for “internalising the methodology”. KFSS methodology comprises two parts for assessing Six Sigma Intellectual Capital: Approaches and Results. For assessing the approaches, how questions are asked. The questions are designed to explore the implementation level of relevant knowledge process in order to achieve requirements from the Six Sigma infrastructure. Answers for how questions are scored by using the scoring guidelines provided for three dimensions: quality, systematic approach and deployment. For assessing results, a set of predefined indicators is used. The indicators are grouped as effect, activity and resource indicators. Effect indicators focus on “what happens”, whereas activities indicators focus on “what is done” and resources indicators focus on “what is created”. All indicators are arranged in order to make 100 the best performance. Result scores are granted in line with the performance of the organisation for these indicators. By using approach and result scores and the weights calculated through relationship matrices, Six Sigma Innovation Capital, Six Sigma Process Capital, Six Sigma Human and Relationship Capital are calculated. Six Sigma Intellectual Capital is calculated In line with the defined importance for Six Sigma Innovation Capital, Six Sigma Process Capital and Six Sigma Human and Relationship Capital.

Özet

Altı Sigma programını hayata geçirmeye karar veren kuruluşlar, programın başarısı için gerekli bilgiyi elde etme ve içselleştirme ihtiyacı duyarlar. Altı Sigma için belirlenen kritik başarı faktörlerinin yanı sıra bilgi yönetimi prensiplerinin göz önünde bulundurulduğu sistematik bir uygulama, programın başarısına katkıda bulunacaktır. Bu amaçla, müşterinin sesinden başlayarak süreçlerde yapılacak düzenlemelere kadar, tasarım öğeleri arasındaki ilişkilerin incelenmesine ve böylece sorunsuz tasarımlar yapılmasına destek veren Aksiyomlarla Tasarım yönteminin kullanılması kararlaştırılmıştır. Aksiyomlarla Tasarım yöntemi kullanılarak, Altı Sigma Altyapısının isterleri, bileşenleri ve bilgi süreçleri arasında ilişkiler matrisler yardımıyla incelenmiş ve tasarım öğeleri Aksiyomlarla Tasarım prensiplerine uygun şekilde düzenlenmiştir. Bu düzenleme ile Yayılım, İyileştirme ve İçselleştirme kriterlerini içeren Bilgi Odaklı Altı Sigma (BOAS) metodolojisi ortaya çıkmıştır. BOAS metodolojisi ile Altı Sigma programı kritik başarı faktörlerinin göz önünde bulundurularak Altı Sigma altyapısının isterlerinin hayata geçirilmesi için odaklanılması gereken bilgi süreçleri ile iyileştirmeye açık alanlar ve olası etkileri görülebilmektedir. Kuruluşların Altı Sigma programlarını değerlendirmelerine imkân veren BOAS metodolojisi, Yayılım, İyileştirme ve İçselleştirme kriterleri için yaklaşımların değerlendirilmesine yönelik nasıl soruları ve sonuçların değerlendirilmesine yönelik göstergeleri içermektedir. Yaklaşım ve sonuçlar için elde edilen puanlar, aksiyomlarla tasarım yöntemi ile ilişkilerin incelenmesi sırasında kullanılan matrislerden elde edilen ağırlıklarla çarpılarak toplanmakta ve kuruluş için Altı Sigma Entelektüel Sermayesi hesaplanmaktadır.