[KnowItAll]

A lot of the consultant I know ... well, they're used for "CYA - Cover your arse" type exercises .... company A management has a hypothesis, hires a consultant to prove it and then pays them off. That way, the blame goes on the consultant.

I used to know some Six Sigmas at a very high level (whatever the highest belt thingy is) in GE, at their call center in India. Top notch folks who had spent a lot of time understanding processes and knew their stuff - would have been an asset to any company.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Sigma

[taihunggao]

Sorry it's not a joke (love climber's tho :-)

in 2000 I met a bunch of engineers (not consultants, these were working engineers with slide rules and invisibly clean grease on their hands) in Greenville, SC, who were the early pioneers of Six Sigma for GE at its turbine factory. And it wasn't just a BS consultancy exercise there, these guys were really working hard to get defects in turbine blades down, Six Sigma was their measure and target, first time they'd had a serious quality challenge for some time and they loved it.
Well that was seven years ago, I guess enough leechers have since got involved, engineers in those same positions are probably now sending around climber's joke.

Oh go on then: how many six sigma practitioners does it take to change a lightbulb?

[freeier]

jack welch made the term popular, but if you really go back time, the japanese were the one that started all the QC and process control to limit defects.

i remembered spending 6mths of my after work free time translating thick stack of hitachi manufacturing procedures into english for the local hitachi manufacturers. the way they put it was really maticulous... can be simple but i guess shld be quite effective

[aloc]

um...i am process improvement engineer, my job look for error in the production line for efficiency improvement.

to be honest, most of the problem is not the process or operation method, but the responsible deparmtment or manager working attitude.

take an example, fire safety...we hav written rule saying that the operator is reponsible for taking the equipment for safety testing before use, but when we hav urgent shippment, no one cares.

so..the process is easy, it is the point of how to execute.