The dictionary provides many definitions of the word organic. Three of them will be used to explain the organic growth of Six Sigma at John Crane:
“Organic: affecting the structure of the organism forming an integral element of the whole systematic coordination of parts.”
John Crane is an 87-year-old manufacturing company. It was family-owned during its first 67 years, but in the last 18, it’s had three different parent companies. As ownership and leadership changed hands, there were a number of “flavor of the month” initiatives and programs to improve the business, including quest teams, re-engineering projects and management accountability groups. For Six Sigma to work at John Crane, it had to be more than just an add-on program. It had to be introduced and implemented in a manner that allowed it to become part of the fabric of the company.
Belt selection—One of the first decisions John Crane made was to offer in-house Black Belt training. This required an initial Black Belt class of at least 10 employees and senior staff was asked to nominate at least one person from their area. A nominee was to be a key manager who was effective working with people and who had a wide business perspective. Senior staff was assigned to coordinate with their managers and encourage allocation of 50 to 80 percent of the employee’s time to the Black Belt program. The Black Belt’s job responsibilities were to be delegated or reassigned to other people so the nominee could accept this two-year belt assignment.
Those in the program were in a safety net, because they weren’t asked to completely give up their daily routine. The nominated belts had no experience with Six Sigma and wanted assurance that if Six Sigma turned out to be like other improvement programs, they would still have a job. From a senior staff perspective, providing this assurance was important and, keeping belts in their work area guaranteed that Six Sigma was spread throughout the entire company with no single department owning it.
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Senior staff participation—Senior staff participation in Black Belt training was a second decision that ensured Six Sigma was being integrated into the company’s structure. The president requested that each member of his staff attended a five-week Black Belt training program. The human resources vice president and the vice president of operations attended and every class and did all the homework, even though they didn’t work in the project. The president and the IT vice president also attended the following training classes. Involving senior staff this way ensured a deep understanding of Six Sigma concepts, the DMAIC process and tools.
These decisions and leadership guaranteed that Six Sigma wasn’t just another project or a business fad being pushed on the company. The investment of time from top management and the reassignment of duties for belts, demonstrated a serious commitment. As the training rolled out, employees could see that Six Sigma was growing from within the company.
There are three Six Sigma components that relate to the above description of organic: Project selection, project reporting and white belt training.
Project selection—Before the training for the first set of Black Belts started, the senior staff met and identified a number of business problems they wanted solved. Belt training projects came directly from these problems. This set the precedent of connecting projects to core business issues. A comment from Joe Waltasti, manufacturing engineering supervisor and certified black belt, illustrates this. He said, “I’ve worked on a lot of projects where we thought we got good results, but no one higher up ever knew what we did. Now, when I work on a project, I know that senior staff looks at the results.”
Subsequent projects have continued to be driven by senior staff. Problems can be identified at lower levels, but senior staff always review them. The primary criterion for project selection isn’t a pre-determined amount of hard dollar savings. There is no such thing as Green Belt or Black Belt projects, they’re simply projects. Some look like traditional Six Sigma projects, where a defect is easily identified and the solution is unknown, while others are “just-do-it” projects where resources are needed to implement known solutions. Other projects are office or transactional in nature in that there isn’t much data at project onset. The common denominator is that pursuing a project ultimately improves the business. Six Sigma simply provides the thought process and problem solving tools.
Project reporting—An integral part of Black Belt training, reporting is still a key component today. Projects are reported via regularly scheduled Six Sigma review meetings and via electronic reporting. During training, senior staff and project champions attended a segment when each belt reported on their project progress, the Six Sigma tools used and what they had learned by using a specific tool. After the training ended, senior staff scheduled regular meetings every other month to review project progress. This type of meeting keeps reminding the belts that the projects they are working on are important to the business and that senior staff has an on-going interest in finding solutions.
Electronic reporting is based on an in-house adaptation of Microsoft SharePoint software. SharePoint provides a way for each belt to post his or her project, the problem statement, team members, champion, process owner, financial rep, key metrics and financial metrics. Belts use SharePoint to communicate with team members by posting team agendas and team minutes as well as data, process maps and other team materials. Final reports are posted to SharePoint and all project realization reports are posted to SharePoint. Because this reporting software was developed in-house, it has wide access and ease of use. Using the appropriate software to report the development of projects provides just enough structure to guide projects and keep a wider audience informed. Team members have access to SharePoint, so they can follow final reports from other teams.
White Belt training—From the start of the Six Sigma program, the company made a conscious decision to not offer corporatewide employee Six Sigma training. It was believed that for Six Sigma to be relevant, it had to grow from project experience. Furthermore, publicizing Six Sigma before employees worked on a project team or had witnessed the results of successful projects would make it look like mere fad. As such, belts worked projects for more than three years before the company offered white belt training to team members. Although there’s still no plan for companywide Six Sigma publicity, every person who served on a Six Sigma project is required to attend a three-day Six Sigma white belt course. In the first three years, some 155 employees participated on Six Sigma teams. And while the growth of Six Sigma is slow, it’s deliberate with the focus on completing projects and building on each success.
All of the previous elements actually have become part of a systematic coordination of parts that make up John Crane Six Sigma. However, two elements— financial representatives and in-house Black Belt mentoring — deserve further explanation.
Financial representatives—The vice president of finance assigns a financial representative to every Six Sigma team when the project is approved in the SharePoint tracking system. These reps are selected from all areas of the finance and accounting area. The purpose of assigning financial reps is twofold. First, the team gains financial expertise as they work to determine the dollar value of their project. Second, the financial rep learns Six Sigma from hands-on experience and gains in-depth exposure to company work processes. The financial rep stays with the team project during the realization year and reports on savings to senior staff. This is a systematic coordination of parts that keeps a focus on projects, which in turn keeps focus on the company’s needs. The financial connection reinforces that Six Sigma is part of the way the company does business.
Black Belt mentors—The company moved into Six Sigma without an in-house Master Black Belt. During training, the company utilized the instructor as a project mentor. When the training ended however, there was still need for mentoring. As such, a group of three Black Belts took on the responsibility for providing on-going mentoring. The Black Belt mentors met monthly with their assigned teams to provide encouragement, support and a Six Sigma process check. Today, two of these Black Belt mentors are working on their Master Black Belt certification. Developing Master Black Belts from within the company means that the project focus for Six Sigma was reinforced, while the in-house mentoring ensured that Six Sigma belonged to the company and not to outside consultants.
Most Six Sigma literature stresses that Six Sigma won’t succeed in a company without top-down support. Fortunately, John Crane’s leadership has set the example and the tone for success. Senior staff’s perspective and skills have enabled Six Sigma to grow beyond a program to an organic part of the business.
Marilyn Fischbach is the director of training and development at John Crane Inc. in Morton Grove, Illinois. She’s also a certified Master Black Belt working toward Master Black Belt certification. She has designed and implemented an in-house white belt training course for employees who are Six Sigma team members. For more information, about John Crane Inc., visit www.johncrane.com.
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