Operation and Supply Management - Six Sigma Roles and Responsibilities - Essay Example

Six Sigma Roles and Responsibilities:  Six sigma is a management approach that enables achieving excellence. It is the measure of quality that enables meeting the deadlines and demands and living up to the customers’ satisfaction. In modern day, six sigma practices are quite common in practice and nearly all top enterprises have implemented them. Six sigma is another name for continuous improvement that enables highlighting all those areas where improvements are possible. The main objective behind six sigma approach is to increase efficiency, and maintain highest level of customer satisfaction. Six Sigma is a systematic approach that enables working in an organized manner. Six sigma is a path way to implementing Total Quality Management in the organization. Definition of roles and responsibilities is an important feature of six sigma; the definition helps in a great way approaching various tasks. The roles are defined in a specialized manner according to the need of every organization, and it ensures assigning the right job to the right person. The roles are named after martial art ranking namely black belt, green belt and yellow belt along with champions and team leads. Based on the level of achievement these three categories are placed in a chronological order. As would the ranking imply, black belts are the leaders in the front tier who are directly associated with process definition and improvement initiatives .Green belts provide support and assistance to the black belts .Yellow belts are relatively novice and help facilitating the green belts and black belts. The definition of roles and responsibilities help in dividing the task and channelizing it according to the need. Leaders at the top level provide guidelines and help providing direction. Champions constitute the middle management and other concerned officials who are directly involved in taking on an endeavor (Pries, 2006). Team members are essential part of six sigma roles, and they make up for the backbone of any process performed under the considerations of six sigma approach. Six sigma puts equal onus on all of the above mentioned and in such an environment each of the individual is expected to work to their capabilities. A simple solution to obtaining productive results is simply sticking to the basic principles of quality management system which are coherent with six sigma approach. An important characteristic of six sigma approach is the encouragement to participate .Participation allows introduction of new ideas in the organization which in return provides options for alternative solutions. Defining of roles by six sigma helps using resources in a transparent way. It creates a standardized check and balance system for all activities. ISO 9000 and ISO 14000  ISO is acronym for International Organization of Standardization, an International entity that is specialized in providing guidelines in the discipline of quality initiatives and quality management systems. It aims at providing expertise in the field of business, education, government projects and various other social projects.ISO is a non governmental entity that has its chains spread across 150 plus countries all over the world.ISO defines certain prerequisites which if adopted can yield maximum growth and customer satisfaction. These rules apply equally to almost all organizations that are customer response related. ISO is an extensive entity and therefore has large bench of standards specified based on respective fields and requirements. Two of those standards are ISO 9000 and ISO 14000. ISO 9000 is based on improvements in the daily activities in an organization with focus on customer satisfaction. It is a known fact that customer satisfaction is vital for the survival of any organization. ISO 9000 standard is manifested in manner that fulfills the customers’ demands. This system allows a non defective setup where priority is given to prevention rather than correction. Its working principle is based on continuous improvement and quality management system that will make the living standards better in many ways. A quality management system takes into consideration all the necessary variables that can affect the organization in a direct manner (Hoyle, 2003). There are certain markets that only allow ISO 9000 certified organizations to invest and perform activities. A pass to all those markets is the registration process, and that process is not just the permit or certificate, rather it’s a complete system that is build up as a result of improvement targeted processes. A consideration attached to its implementation is the costs incurred during the entire process. However it still provides the procedures and guidelines that are necessary for a successful organization. ISO 14000: ISO 14000 in contrast to ISO 9000(based on organizational improvement efforts) is based on considerations for the organizations impact on the environment. It sets the guidelines for an organization to follow keeping in account the environment and hazards pertaining to it. It has been in action since 1947.Due to its generic nature of existence, it is implementable on variable scaled organizations. Environment Management System (E.M.S) is a vital tool used under ISO 14000 which enables the organizations to balance their activities in consideration of environmental issues. These tools provide information about the level of emissions, and various activities that adds unwanted material to the already endangered environment. The scope of ISO 14000 is not only limited to environmental impact only, rather it helps identifying various other wastes that might be counterproductive. It provides rules and suggestions for reduction in energy consumption, and costs incurred on the energy wastes. Implementation of ISO 14000 becomes possible through the use of frame work specified under the rules of standardized body. The frame work once adopted obliges the top management and other decision makers in the organization to create policies and encourage processes that are environment friendly. Certain organizations implement ISO 9000 and ISO 14000 in combination to achieve the complete package that focuses both on quality initiatives and environmental considerations. The entire structure of ISO as a whole is created in such a flexible way that different standards can be converted into each other or both can work together in a single setup. Hence ISO along with its standards is another name for quality and success (I.S.O Secreteriat, 2009). Bibliography: 1-Hoyle, D. (2003). ISO 9000:2000: An A-Z Guide. Boston: Butterworth-Heinemann. 2-Pries, K. H. (2006). Six Sigma for the Next Millennium: A Cssbb Guidebook. Milwaukee: ASQ Quality Press. 3-Secreteriat, I. (2009, April 18th). Selection and use of the ISO 9000 family of standards. Retrieved from ISO and international Standardization: http://www.iso.org/BB342826-DCBA-4477-9F15-2ADDC05D2F4A/FinalDownload/DownloadId-BFFCF2542D49C052AD58B897CFC7EA47/BB342826-DCBA-4477-9F15-2ADDC05D2F4A/iso/iso_9000_selection_and_use-2009.pdf Read More