lean & six-sigma - Latest Comments in Battle of the improvement systems

Re: Battle of the improvement systems

robert — Thu, 23 Nov 2006 11:08:18 -0000

@meikah: Just a point of clarification, what I meant was that if an organisation has an ISO9001 compliant management system installed then there is a requirement for continuous improvement to be demonstrated within this framework. For me six sigma provides a means of evaluating how the ISO9001 system is improving business processes; if an ISO9001 system completely assured quality within a company then there would be no need for six sigma. Clearly it does not so there is a need for the six sigma process. Does this make sense?

Re: Battle of the improvement systems

Meikah Delid — Thu, 23 Nov 2006 10:57:06 -0000

Robert, good discussion you got going here. It's clear and succinct. Just a clarification:

Six Sigma does not provide a template for evaluating an organization’s overall quality management efforts whereas ISO9001 does. I wonder what you mean by template here. Because I think the project charter or TMAP of Six Sigma can handle this.

At any rate, I believe that all quality management strategies complement each other. In fact,sometimes, an organization's structure tell us which strategy or combination of strategies will work.