I contacted Honda and they confirmed they do not use Six Sigma nor have they ever heard of so called “Black Belts.”
Toyota has stated the same in the “Toyota Way.”
Home Depot, Ford and Motorola do use Six Sigma and it shows in their stock performance.
What gives six sigma guys?
3 responses so far ↓
1 rjrmpk
Six sigma is a another management toy. They’d be better off firing folks for poor performance than adopting another toy that comes with expensive consultants.
2 m_c_m_a_n
How does it show in their stock performance?
Six sigma is merely a standard for the assembly line (IMO) and has no real correlation to true quality of product. In other words it’s allot of BS for the customer and isn’t that what’s supposed to drive programs like ISO and Six Sigma, giving the customer a quality product?
3 Supasuc
Although Honda and Toyota do not utilize the term Six Sigma, they utilize the same concept and statistical tools within their quality management program, with minor variations of course, to control and improve their processes.
You could call it whatever you want but it is in reality still the same thing. PS: I have worked for both Honda and GE as an Engineer.
Six sigma is just a new name/face of an evolving quality management tool that is based on process understanding and controlling the variations through actual statistical understanding. Most companies nowadays do not just use one quality management tool anymore anyway, they’ll add in some lean management, kaisen, etc etc and call it the “Company Name” way.
The term six sigma and green/black belt is just popular in the US because the US like to standardize things (ASQ, ASTM, etc).