Six Sigma Certification – Suppliers and Warehousing Improvements

Shipping Departments often have many issues with incoming and outgoing shipments.  You might think you have a process that works at your company, but there are most likely issues slowing productivity down and causing problems.  Six Sigma certification can help you take a look at your overall shipping processes and procedures and find new ways to improve everything you do.  You will be able to identify problems, ways to reduce costs, and ways to perform daily functions more efficiently.  Six Sigma training can help you completely overhaul a shipping and receiving warehouse.

Inventory must be kept track of in a warehouse.  Inventory issues might include running out of products and having to wait for a supplier to send more.  There may seem like you are always playing the waiting game when you do run out.  This only creates a bad taste for a customer and there are ways you can get past this and improve the processes with your inventory.  Six Sigma certification can help with shipping operations to provide more efficient processes and reduce wait time.  Many processes can be automated to make employees free for other projects.  Six Sigma courses will show you total inventory control that will work for your business.

Customer satisfaction is vital for suppliers and warehousing companies.  If you don’t have a customer then you don’t have a business.  Working with the customer doesn’t occur face to face too often but no matter how the interaction occurs with the customer, you need to make improvements.  Six Sigma certification will teach you how to build stronger relationships with customers and even how to gain more customers.  Six Sigma courses focus on the customer, and can give staff members a new understanding of how the customer is important to everyone and the company as a whole.

Suppliers and warehouses are often forgotten when it comes to any type of training at all.  A Six Sigma certification is ideal for this type of industry.  There are processes in place that can always be improved to increase productivity and help you build stronger relationships with customers.  Six Sigma certification can motivate employees to help your business succeed.

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Six Sigma Training for IT Departments

The IT Department at a company is often the one with the highest of budgets and with good reason. The IT Department tends to replace equipment more often than they do repair it, and software goes out of date so quickly (as well as computers and other equipment). Rather than spend money to upgrade existing machines, most IT Departments find it easier and less time-consuming to just purchase the newest models.

While there is some validity in this “replace it” philosophy, Six Sigma training can help teach employees in the IT Department ways to approach this philosophy more frugally.  Rather than making what can be considered unnecessary purchases, employees will learn to make due with the resources they have available. Overhead is greatly reduced with this shift in thinking.  With savings like this, IT Departments can more easily afford those big projects that might be necessary in upcoming years.

Aside from the financial savings, Six Sigma training can also help an IT Department with job management skills. This department is never without a huge workload, and each day brings with it new requests coupled with older ones that have yet to be completed.  Job prioritization is essential with IT projects. Not fixing the correct issues right away can halt productivity throughout the entire company.  This can make for inpatient customers of all kinds; both internal and external. Learning 6 sigma philosophies will assist with job prioritization and time management. Opportunities for providing support to customers will be maximized with less downtime and wasted time on projects that don’t require immediate attention.

IT Departments generally also have issues with inventory, which consist of anything from software licensing and renewal to hardware in storage and throughout the building as well as backup tapes sent offsite. With so much inventory turnover to keep track of, it’s easy for companies to lose track of what they even have.  Learning inventory control is another benefit of Six Sigma training. Systems can be implemented to ensure that all inventory is accounted for and documented, making it easier to see what’s on hand and what’s needed for future endeavors.

IT Departments may be resistant to anything new as they fail to see how they can benefit from any type of process improvement methodology. Clearly there are several ways in which Six Sigma training can benefit the IT Department. Meeting the bottom-line as cheaply and efficiently as possible is a goal for every company and this is easier to do with Six Sigma.

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Six Sigma Tools for The Business Owner

In Six Sigma, Black and Green Belts will use several different methods in order to improve quality within the DMAIC model. They are usually incorporated into the software that is used by the business owner in order to make it easier for them. Six Sigma tools enable teams to analyze data effectively and design efficient workflows.

One important Six Sigma tool is the quality function deployment method or QFD. This method is used to gain knowledge about the requirements of the customer, attempting to meet their needs to a satisfactory level. The deployment part of this method is from earlier times when a face to face meeting was required. In these instances, a quality control researcher would visit the site of the problem to gain knowledge about what they need to make them satisfied.

Diagrams are often used as a tool for cause and effect control. The fishbone diagram is used most often, offering a good view of what the problem is, what parts of the company it effects, and what is causing it. Narrowing down the elements of the problem in a diagram makes it easier to come to effective solutions.

Learning the cause and effect of a problem helps to solve the issue or at least come up with some ideas for resolution. This is an extension of sorts to the diagram, as it also relies on learning the cause and effect for specific answers to be found. Using the C&E matrix during the measuring phase of the DMAIC or DMADV methodology will help narrow down possible solutions and contingency plans before anything is actually done about the matter.

Contingency plans are a necessity whenever a problem is being analyzed for solutions. Things can and do go wrong with nearly every project. Having a project run completely smooth is a rare occurrence. It is because of this that contingency plans are necessary. The issues that surround a project must also be identified in order to create contingency plans that cover all the bases. The Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA) method identifies the problem as well as the outside factors that are affecting it.

This method of analysis allows the researcher to list possible failures, taking into account how likely it is to happen and how negatively it will affect the project. Then, the solutions are listed in order and prioritized so that if the need for the plan should arise, measures will be taken quickly to see that it is put into action before the project is affected.

Another method used in the Six Sigma model is the T-Test, which establishes how confident the researcher can be with the measurements they receive. This method helps teams make sure the results they receive are valid and true.

Charts are also used as Six Sigma tools. Charts are a good way to put a visual image to the numbers on the books. It can also help get a better realization of the results that have come from various tests that have been done. Much can be learned from using these methods, and they are excellent ways to validate business research.

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