Executive summary:
Six Sigma has focused on the reduction of errors in the processes whether it is manufacturing, marketing, inventory management or even in services management. The main idea of Six Sigma is to analyze and find out the cause of the errors or variations that occur in the end product or the process. Effectively the process of Six Sigma is important in completing the task at hand with quality rather than completing it quickly. It focuses on continuous improvements made to the process of production, and it makes use of statistical concepts like standard deviation (is referred to as Sigma) and applying it to the collection of production and managerial data. As it uses the statistical methods, Six Sigma has become a scientific and practical method of attaining improvements in the production process of manufacturing industries. It is also applicable in other industries like the financial services industry, hospitality industry; as the concept of Six Sigma are being applied to various processes across any business unit. This paper analyses the implementation of Lean Six Sigma at 3M organization and how it has improved its bottom line, but at the cost of innovation and creativity.

Introduction:

There are many quality improvement tools that are taken up by both manufacturing industries and service industries. Total quality management and methods such as Six Sigma have been adopted by many companies to reduce waste, cut down cost, bring down the variations in quality, etc. This paper analyses application of Six Sigma in 3M Company and whether it has killed the innovation and whether it applies to All the departments and branches of the company across countries.
The first section discusses the concept of Six Sigma, its disadvantages and advantages in general. The second section will discuss the action plan to carry out the successful implementation of the Six Sigma across all the business units of 3M and the third question will discuss the questions given in the case of the 3M
1. Six Sigma: Its Advantages and Disadvantages
What is Six Sigma?

Six Sigma process was introduced by the Motorola company, and the credit goes to bill Smith and Michael Harry. Six Sigma process is a statistical approach in analyzing and detecting the variations in the quality of products and attributing them to specific processes which can be improved upon such that it achieves a rate of 3.4 defects for every million and output. Initially the Six Sigma approach used the DMAIC process where define- measure- analyze- improve- control steps are involved to critically improve the processes and control the system effectively(3M, 2007).

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