Six Sigma: how it works in Motorola and what it can do for the U.S. Army: how can the Army increase efficiency across its command structure? Put Six Sigma to work.

The Six Sigma methodology was created by Motorola, which proudly claims one of the most established business improvement procedures in the industry. Motorola has built upon this experience and has continued to focus its efforts on developing the Six Sigma methodology. For almost two decades, Motorola has been using Six Sigma throughout its organization, implementing the practice into various facets of the company besides manufacturing. "As a result, we have documented over $17 billion in savings to our own organization!" (1)

Motorola has been working with its customers and suppliers for some time to deliver the benefits of Six Sigma. The company has helped customers not only in the manufacturing arena but also in the service sectors as well, including financial service companies. The company's global reach affords a large source of experience and guidance, as well as the qualifications to further develop Six Sigma.

What Is Six Sigma?

People ask, What is Six Sigma? As an improvement methodology, Six Sigma helps businesses to perform better by taking into consideration the requirements of customers. Next, the necessary processes to attain those requirements are collected and analyzed by using various data. This information then is used to improve those processes.

Six Sigma uses a common set of tools, training, and sharing of best practices. Representatives from across the company's sectors (including corporate and Motorola University) have collaborated to deliver the best of the best. There are three forms of the Design for Six Sigma (DFSS) process:

* DMAIC--Define opportunities, Measure performance, Analyze opportunity, Improve performance, and Control performance

* DMADDD--Define, Measure, Analyze, Design, Digitize, and Draw Down

* DMADV--Define requirement, Measure performance, Analyze relationships, Design solution, and Verify functionality

However, the focus will be on DMAIC.

The DMAIC Process

When a project is first started, the Define, Measure, and Analyze phases are used since they are the foundation of information to determine the direction of the Six Sigma project. The other two types of Six Sigma improvement models that are used by Motorola are the DMADDD and DMADV. The scope of this article is insufficient to get into details of the differences among the three processes; the purpose here merely is to advise the reader that there are two other processes.

The Define phase is the most important. This stage determines the customer's requirements, along with the objectives that are to be validated, or defines the business opportunities using their business processes. These are documented through development of a team charter, project plan, process maps, and "quick-win" opportunities.

The Measure phase employs a number of quality tools to determine specific parts of the process on which to concentrate. The measurements are important since data accuracy and precision will determine project outcome.

The Analyze phase is the most statistically intense part of the DMAIC process. Data that were collected in the Measure phase are reviewed. Statistical tools, such as a Pareto Chart (which shows the frequency of defects) and a Fishbone Diagram (which shows cause and effect), are used to determine the amount of variation in the current process, along with the amount of variation that is acceptable by the customer.

In the Improve phase, team members observe ways of solving problems by having the stakeholders both externally and internally review the recommendations.

In the Control phase, the team reviews changes and plans to achieve the desired consequences. The team outlines future processes by monitoring mechanisms, process targets, and audit plans. The Control phase is a way to monitor and correct problems arising after implementation.

In summary, the DMAIC process is important for Motorola's business success strategy in that it facilitates focus on the following questions:

Define--What are we doing, and why? What is the pain? What does the process look like? What are the customer's requirements?

Measure--What are the facts? How is the process performing currently?

Analyze--What are the vital few and validated root causes of our pain?

Improve--What can be done to permanently eliminate those root causes?

Control--How can we implement the best possible solution in such a way that the change is lasting? How does the new, improved process need to be managed in the future?

By using the Six Sigma process, Motorola is able to avoid costly oversight and save the company resources. In this article, I compare the Pledge Process and the Acquisition Service Coalition Agreement (ASCA) process. The reader can see how improvements were produced; however, when Six Sigma is used, the impact and benefits are more significant.

Motorola uses the Pledge Process to determine the cost of bringing a product to market. As an example, one may say that 99.5 percent is a pretty good result. One might even ask, why isn't 95 percent good enough? or 99 percent? It's important for customers of many services to understand the significance of the numbers. The following two examples (from other industries not in Motorola's technology sphere) show 99 percent quality yields:

* At least 200,000 wrong drug prescriptions are prescribed each year.

* More than 30,000 newborn babies are accidentally dropped by doctors and nurses each year.

Scary, right?

The use of Six Sigma can better the performance in those products and services--and many others. Motorola stated that "our customers will not tolerate only 99 percent performance in the future." (2) Six Sigma is heading toward "no defeat," that is, 100 percent.

Are you still not convinced of the need for Six Sigma performance? Let me provide you with a statement made in 1970 by Masaharu Matsushita, president of the Matsushita Electric Industrial Company, Ltd., and one of Motorola's most capable competitors:

"The goal is zero defects.... It's difficult. But we have to get rid of the idea that we can permit some leeway simply because total elimination of defects is so difficult. For instance, if a customer comes across a defective product, which happens to be 0.01 percent of all the goods produced at the factory, as far as that customer is concerned, there is a 100 percent defeat record." (3)

In the Motorola Pledge Process, data are obtained related to bringing a new product to market. There are several moving pieces in this method, such as general product information, market region, product detail, building location, and financial data. It entails a lot of resources to bring a product to the market. If you take a look at the ASCA program, you will note similarities in that there also are a lot of moving pieces such as coalition country military forces, logistics, finances, and multiple governments. In the following section, you will see how Six Sigma can have an immediate impact on how business is done in the military.

Comparing the Two Processes

I had the opportunity to witness firsthand an application of one facet of Motorola's Digital Six Sigma methodology during my Training with Industry assignment at that company. Motorola is one of the world's largest manufacturers of cell phones. The company's continued success is highlighted by the success of such innovative products as the RAZR, E1000, and A1000.

Motorola used Six Sigma to standardize the Pledge Process of bringing these unique products to market. In the Pledge Process, there were several moving parts consisting of Project information, Product Information, Ship Volume Financial Data, Direct Material, and Royalty Cost. As you may surmise, this is a long process, but Motorola used Six Sigma to determine areas where cycle times could be reduced and defects eliminated. By going through the DMAIC process, Motorola was able to perform faster and more effective processing, which saved resources as well as time.

The ASCA process used in the military started off with manual processes, from mailing bills to each coalition country to receiving payments. The outcome was a delay in receiving and paying bills. This meant that resources were not being deployed effectively because of the length of time it took to process paperwork. After reviewing the first couple of billing cycles in the Coalition Forces Land Component Command (CFLCC) ASCA program, the team charged with process improvement discovered defects in its operation. After identifying input and output indicators in ASCA from start to finish, there were areas in which the data analyzed identified root causes, along with potential solutions. The team decided to use the Defense Finance and Accounting Service as the finance link between the coalition partners and the military services, which freed up military resources to continue fighting the war on terrorism. This process took several months of testing and working with our coalition partners to ensure a seamless billing and collection cycle that was easier to employ.

The Army did a good job in revamping the ASCA program. However, if Six Sigma had been employed, together with automation enhancements and modeling, the efficiency rate could have increased to almost 100 percent!

Six Sigma and the U.S. Army

From a business improvement approach, the military services can perform the same steps found in corporate America. First, prepare a high-level summary of expenses or budgets to depict the major categories of expense/ budget. Each category then can be analyzed from a Pareto standpoint to identify those 20 percent of the items that may produce 80 percent of the impact. Robert Stoddard, a Master Black Belt expert within the Third Generation Cellular Technology (3G) Team stated it elegantly:

"In such a fashion, the Big Y to Vital X schematics could still be used to prioritize and align improvement actions to meet Army goals for budget, productivity, and capability per dollar spent. Six Sigma activities are the procedures, techniques, and mechanisms that enforce continuous improvement, documentation, replication, and standardization report of management directives."

Another way the Army could benefit from Six Sigma is through the management control program (MCP). This is an immediate pay-off because this is where processes and procedures can be reviewed to ensure cost cutting and efficiency. Army Regulation 112, Management Control, provides direct guidance for the implementation of MCPs within the Army. It specifies that heads of reporting organizations and assessable unit managers are responsible for understanding and applying the Comptroller General Standards for Internal Control in the Federal Government. (4) For example, one could review how automation is ordered, received, and accounted for. Six Sigma would systematically provide guidance to the different organizations and develop a comprehensive control to help managers identify those areas to attack and expunge abuses in the flow process of equipment being acquired for the area of operations.

The 1999 General Accounting Office Standards defined risk assessment as "the identification and analysis of relevant risks associated with achieving objectives ... and forming a basis for determining how risks should be managed." (5) Practitioners may use Monte Carlo simulation to reduce risk. Monte Carlo is a computer program that randomly generates values for uncertain variables over and over to simulate a model. These models may be used to remove uncertainty in budgets, expenses, schedules, attrition of troops, reenlistment rates, retirement rates, casualty rates, and supply fulfillment rates.

Summary

Having worked on several Digital Six Sigma projects, I feel that this technique can be applied to any organization seeking process improvement. Businesses are under constant pressure to do more with less and to show continual improvement. More and stronger adversaries than ever before face them, and with customers who are more discriminating and aggressive, these businesses seem to be under attack. Is not the military facing this same challenging environment?

By realizing that most of the issues facing the Armed Forces are equivalent to those faced by the commercial sector, the use of Six Sigma may produce similar breakthrough improvements. For example, costs will be lowered, effectiveness will be increased, and overall efficiency will be enhanced. (According to Marc S. Block, a Six Sigma instructor for the CFQ International LLC, the Navy already is using Six Sigma techniques to improve the float rate of its fleet).

As a quality improvement methodology, Six Sigma is nearing its twentieth birthday. It has withstood the test of time and has proven its worth across industry and even in the government sector (for example, Central Intelligence Agency, National Reconnaissance Office, Transportation Safety Administration, and the United States Postal Service).

Six Sigma is something that the Army could use to increase efficiency across its command structure. Six Sigma is the wave of the future for companies and governmental agencies to survive and thrive in this new global society. Those organizations that adapt Six Sigma will maximize their resources for the future; those that don't very well may perish.

Endnotes

(1) Motorola University, "Inventors of Six Sigma," http://www.motorola.com

(2) Motorola University, "What is Six Sigma?" p. 8

(3) Motorola University, "What is Six Sigma?" p. 2

(4) Department of the Army Regulation 11-2, Management Control (Washington, D.C.: HQDA, 1994), p. 3

(5) U.S. General Accounting (now Government Accountability) Office, Standards for Internal Control in the Federal Government (Washington, D.C.: GAO 1999), p.10

Major John W. Matthews III is assigned to the Joint United States Military Advisory Group as chief of Resource Management.