With basic Internet connections, small business owners can reap the benefits of free or low-cost services, and reduce the overhead of running an organization.

“Six Sigma Business Scorecard represents a ‘next generation’ of business scorecards, a must for the knowledge economy with global sourcing.”

Rajesh Tyagi, Ph.D.,DePaul University

It’s a must read for all small business owners.

Bill Terry

All businesses, but small businesses especially, must understand that Six Sigma is not a panacea. There are many aspects to business, and only some of them should involve Six Sigma. Business owners should not abandon their instincts, intuition, taste, feel for the market, competitive spirit, empathy with customers and employees, common sense or good judgment.

A business that wants to change must also meet three requirements:

1. Tolerance for variation and the failures that result. Change requires variation; in fact, it is defined by it.
2. “Slack,” i.e., spare resources that can be diverted to change-related activities.
3. Redundancy built into its systems, so that the areas being changed can still provide essential stakeholder services.

Six Sigma helps reduce the cycle time of production process, process steps and per-person hours. This helps increase the productivity of both the employee and the process. The cost on removal of defects is high. It helps save by eliminating non-value added activities.
The best saving is by way of improvement in quality given to the customers by reduction in defects. Productivity and efficiency is improved with the help of support activities and automation in new areas. This helps strengthen the processes and earn better revenues.
You have to decide if it is worth investing in Six Sigma. The study of the costs and savings involved for you company has to be determined by your own study and analysis of the scenario in your organization.

I’m sure many readers are trying to figure out how we came up with the “top 10” process mapping tools. …