Kaizen and Six Sigma are both management philosophies focused on

continuous improvement. Both philosophies try to increase the

efficiency of a business process by eliminating waste and
reducing defects.

History

Kaizen is an ancient Japanese philosophy that strives to

continually improve all aspects of a person's life; the Japanese
workforce first used it in business shortly after World War II.
Six Sigma was first implemented in 1986 by Bill Smith at
Motorola.

Function

Kaizen looks to improve all aspects of a business through

standardizing processes, increasing efficiency and eliminating
waste. Six Sigma focuses more on improving the quality of the
final product by finding and eliminating causes of defects,
whether by variances in the business process or in
manufacturing.

Facts

Kaizen focuses on improvement, looking at every employee from

top management to entry level positions. Sigma is a mathematical
term that measures a process' deviation from perfection.

Differences

Six Sigma uses more statistical analysis than Kaizen; Six Sigma
aims for as close to zero defects as possible, calling for a
maximum of 3.4 defects for every million opportunities, which
creates a 99.9997 percent success rate.

Benefits

Six Sigma and Kaizen help save money for companies; Motorola has
reported saving $17 billion since 2006 because of Six Sigma.
More than half of the Fortune 500 companies use Six Sigma,
including General Electric and Honeywell. Toyota and Canon both
reported saving money and increasing efficiency by using Kaizen.
Kaizen isn't so much a methodology as it needs to be a "belief"
system. A recognition that there is always a better way and what
is currently being done today, may not be good enough tomorrow.

The method typically read about is a "Kaizen Event" which in

essence is just a group continuous improvement event. These
events are typically 3-5 days, with the team being made up of
cross-functional group (engineering, supervisions, maintenance,
etc.) of approximately 5-8 people. Too many people and its easy
for people to wander.

Tools employed are typically spaghetti charts, data collection

(revolving around time, distance, etc.), brainstorming...in
essence, a kaizen event won't typically employ people running
around with laptops and Minitab performing Design of
Experiments. The target is typically quick, simple solutions
which may result in longer term opportunities (better, more
robust jigs and fixtures).

Six Sigma is usually broader in scope and more statistically

driven. A person will see "Lean Six Sigma" thrown out in
abundance nowadays but I think that's more of a marketing
gimmick than anything. It is important to remember that Kaizen
and Six Sigma have somewhat different purposes, Kaizen largely
being targeted at reductions in non-value added activities
(although variation reduction does occur through simply designed
jigs, fixtures, and workplaces), while Six Sigma's main emphasis
is on variation reduction. It's sort of a chicken before the egg
thing but if a choice is made....start with waste reduction
which can be accomplished in an extremely short period of time.

If I had a choice, my preference, at least initially would be in

focusing on waste reduction efforts and not the Six Sigma
approach. Having been trained in both, I've run into a few
people who have been through the "Lean Six Sigma" hybrid and
have not been overly impressed. If your embarking down the road,
utilize your manufacturing extension service in your area for
some Lean training and get yourself a good quality engineer.
From there, you should be able to handle about 80% of what
you'll run into.

As the world grows more and more global, firms find themselves
in direct competition with companies all over the planet.
Besides strong brands, customer proximity and further sales
strategies, quality has become a major component for the
competitive advantage of organizations. Today’s philosophy is no
longer mass production like in the beginning of the 20th
century, but the provision of high quality goods at affordable
prices. In order to follow this strategy, organizations have to
set a larger focus on quality itself.

The conduct of quality management within many firms is often

targeted at simply avoiding that product deficiencies reach the
end consumer. This, however, incorporates rework, replacement of
parts and other measures, thus resulting in additional costs.
Modern quality management intends to avoid these negative
characteristics by adding quality already to the process. This
is also the basic background of Kaizen and Six Sigma, two modern
management methods ensuring the provision of quality in a
broader sense, not only in form of the end product, but already
within production processes and services. Kaizen and Six Sigma
provide increased quality output by improving processes, thereby
decreasing costs. Thus, their implementation also increases the
profitability of an organization.

Despite their different origin, background and orientation,

Kaizen and Six Sigma feature many similarities which form the
basis for entering into the question about their compatibility.

On the basis of theoretical analysis as well as empirical

interviews conducted with experts in the fields of Kaizen and
Six Sigma, the conclusion of this thesis suggests that Kaizen
and Six Sigma can complement and support each other in different
ways.

This thesis will further provide a guideline for the

implementation procedure for quality management based on the
assumptions of Kaizen and Six Sigma. This guideline is to
support executives willing to apply quality initiatives in their
organization to successfully accomplish the implementation.

During the early 1900s the era of craft production at which only
one item was produced at a time by well educated and highly
skilled technicians started to move towards its end. Craft
production was characterized by manufacturing individual
products exactly meeting an individual customers requirement.
Despite the wonderful idea that every consumer could specify
quite individual wishes, craft production also featured negative
sides, like the high prices for the end product which were also
the driving force for its fall. At a time at which a large mass
of people sought for cheap products, for instance automobiles
affordable for almost everyone, mass production edged out craft
production of its previously strong position. By manufacturing
large amounts of automobiles which were characterized by user
friendliness and easy handling, Henry Ford, pioneer in the
production of automobiles and founder of mass production,
managed to supply a major part of the demanding public with
passenger vehicles at highly attractive prices. Thus, a great
number of more or less equal vehicles had been produced to
satisfy the market; however, the low price was offered at the
expense of quality.1

By the end of the 20th century consumer demands and purchasing

habits underwent a further change. Customers were no longer
willing to spend their savings on products with inferior
quality, which made rework and reparation necessary; in extreme
cases already a short time after the product left the factory.

The living standards of the population increased and thus

customers asked for more premium goods promising a longer
product life.2 Today, customers are no longer willing to accept
inferior quality products regardless of their price. For this
reason, quality and quality management methods became a very
important part of modern business strategy. Organizations can no
longer afford to produce goods featuring minor quality and to
pass on this inferiority to the end consumer. Despite the
existence of warranty periods, customers will decide against the
purchase of a further product offered by the respective company.
In addition, corrections done within the warranty periods result
in high additional costs for firms, making the provision of
mended quality even more expensive.3

In today’s competitive environment organizations can no longer

afford to waste their time with the correction of defects or to
cure malicious gossip. A significant portion of companies have
recognized the importance of quality and also the importance of
providing it from the first moment on, giving the customer a
feeling of confidence when purchasing a product provided by this
firm. A significant number of companies apply modern management
methods focusing on the provision of premium quality to win
satisfied customers. Although this may appear as an expensive
undertaking, modern quality management provides for ways which
will not only result in qualitative superiority, but at the same
time also in a reduction of expenses and thus in profitability
for the firm.4

Many companies have tried to find an optimum system to

efficiently manage production, operations and personnel and
thereby they often intend to follow the well known examples of
the Toyota Motor Corporation (Toyota) and General Electrics
(GE), two leading companies in their respective segment having
implemented one of two considerable management methods, namely
Kaizen and Six Sigma. These two management methods approach
companywide quality in both production and process for the main
goals of profitability and customer loyalty.5 Kaizen and Six
Sigma provide for measures to successfully reduce the amount of
defects occurring during a production process by avoiding
mistakes from the first instance or by analyzing a company’s
current operation level which will then be subject to
improvement.6
Modern quality management methods are a valuable asset to
companies which, in case applied correctly, can result in a
competitive advantage for the business.

Several different management systems are or have been applied by

organizations in order to increase process efficiency and
quality. By comparing several different strategies with on
another, Kaizen and Six Sigma seemed to have a quite close
relationship, which often caused critics to accuse these two
methods of incorporating the same concept under two different
names.

Firms profit or take a leading position in competitive

environments when the quality of their products meets or exceeds
the expectations of their customers.7 However, at the outset of
the 21st century the conditions of business environment
changeddrastically.8 Product quality is an indispensable feature
for both the manufacturing and service industry. From the
perspective of the customer, service even became part of the
overall quality of products, which is thus the reason why
business attention moves closer towards the quality of
processes.9

Management systems like Kaizen and Six Sigma were designed in

order to improve the quality performance of processes and
thereby also the final product. These improvement methodologies
differ from conventional quality management in several ways.
While traditional quality management is simply applied to make
sure that defects or inferiority of products do not reach the
customer, Kaizen and Six Sigma are already applied during the
process of production. They do not seek to mend minor quality at
the end of the manufacturing process, but to improve the process
responsible for poor results.10

When talking about quality management systems, quite often the

question about the roots of the mistakes which are to be avoided
under Kaizen and Six Sigma arises. As a matter of fact, no
company has the intention to make mistakes and so all
organisations undertake some measures to avoid them. However,
Kaizen and Six Sigma provide a systematic approach of how to go
about these problems. These two methods try to identify and
analyze the roots of all defects and eliminate all factors which
could harm the quality of the end product. By making mistakes
during the process and trying to mend them in the end, a company
loses valuable time and resources which could be employed
otherwise (in the form of opportunity costs).11

Kaizen and Six Sigma do not only go about avoiding mistakes, but
also about improving processes by identifying and eliminating
potentialities for defects. At this point, it is important to
analyze the status quo at which an organization performs at the
moment in time of the implementation of a management method.
Both management systems do so in a systematic way which assists
companies in their intention of defect elimination and
improvement. Both Kaizen and Six Sigma are similarly successful
in these undertakings.12

In how far Kaizen and Six Sigma are management systems, is open
to discussion. A management system may be defined as a company’s
process of strategic planning, and .translating the strategic
plan into and execution plan including operational targets..13
Kaizen and Six Sigma may be an element of the execution plan or
a management system by itself. In the proceedings of this paper,
Kaizen and Six Sigma will be named interchangeably with the
terms management system or management method.

Quality is if a product keeps what it promises. It is a product

which does not have to be returned to the producer due to
defects of any kind.

In summary the survey showed that there is no single definition

of quality and it proves the assumption that quality cannot be
defined in principle. Despite the fact that the most important
authorities in the area of quality management often teach
similar approaches, their definitions of quality differ greatly
as well.

DEMING, an American statistician and business consultant in

quality issues, defines quality as anything that enhances the
product from the viewpoint of the customer..15 However, in his
book Out of the Crisis he prefers to describe quality with
examples, rather than providing a definition.

AGUAYO, author of the book Dr. Deming, The American Who Taught
The Japanese About Quality, decided to explain what quality is
not, instead of giving an exact wording.

JURAN is also a main authority in quality consultancy, defining

quality as .fitness for use or purpose..16 JURAN argues that
quality improvement does not take place coincidently, but it is
a planned undertaking performed in form of various projects.17

By defining quality with .conformance to requirement.18, CROSBY,

also a consultant in quality matters, introduces the notion of
zero defects as quality standard. In his mind, quality is simply
anything that corresponds to or satisfies the requirements made.
In business, it may be referred to as requirements of customers
towards the product or service of an organisation.19 There are
several consultants or .gurus. having had major influence on
modern forms of quality management, nevertheless, most
characteristics of the management methods Kaizen or Six Sigma
can be traced back to DEMING.s teachings on which also other
quality management authorities build their work.20

Kaizen is based on the idea that no day should pass by without

change, or preferably, improvement.35 In the Japanese mind
change takes place all the time. An old saying states that if
one did not see a man for three days, one should pay special
attention and observe how he changed during that time. Kaizen
takes place everywhere: in daily life, in households and firms;
it may even be the case that people do not know that it is in
actual fact part of their life.36

The term Kaizen was introduced to Quality Management by IMAI,

author of the book The Key to Japan’s Competitive Success. IMAI
was an employee at Philips at the time when the company started
to introduce a program for the improvement of quality. He took
up on the idea that the program was to improve everything
happening at Philips and started to name the process of positive
change

Background
Two decades before the oil crisis of the 1970s the world economy
boomed. Insatiable demand for new technologies and products,
rapidly expanding markets, customer-orientation towards quantity
rather than quality and cheap raw materials were typical
characteristics of the business climate during this time; a
period at which innovative strategies flourished.40

The oil crises of 1973 and 1979 totally altered the business
environment. Consumer behavior changed with the demand for
higher quality, at the same time costs for raw materials, energy
and labor significantly increased. Moreover, companies were
confronted with rising competition in small and saturated
markets.41 Despite the drastic changes in foreign trade, Western
managers retained innovation as a strategy and ignored warnings
and demands from customers that a different approach would have
been indispensable. Western managers did not take notice of the
approximation of the competitive threat of Japanese firms, a
fact that was to cause significant disadvantages for Western
companies in the years to follow.42

Particularly in the 1970s and 1980s the efficiency and

importance of quality management methods was broadly recognized.
The advancement of the Japanese competition gave a first impulse
to emulate the characteristics of far Eastern management. The
question whether Japanese management methods can also be applied
internationally, despite historical and cultural factors,
emerged.43

However, quality management is not necessarily a cultural issue,

it is rather a mentality.44

.Kaizen..37

Kaizen derives from the two Japanese words Kai and Zen. Kai
stands for change and Zen means in a positive sense. Altogether,
it stands for continuous improvement.38 Being part of both
business and private life, the word Kaizen spread around the
world and became known as the most important Japanese management
method permanently striving for improvement. Essential is not
only improvement on products, but also the improvement of all
procedures which include production, commercialization and
customer care, as well as the constant and further development
of employees.39
Dimensions of Kaizen

In order for Kaizen to have a strong and explicit impact on a

company’s operations, it needs to have considerable significance
among management. In many companies it enjoys high importance,
in others it is just regarded as a minor matter. However, a
study conducted by SCHWAGER revealed that only seldom Kaizen as
minor important matter leads to successful improvements. The
results of this study reveal that the valuation and
comprehension of improvement programs are part of the success
and effectiveness of Kaizen. Therefore, it should enjoy top
priority and everyone in the company should participate in it.91

Kaizen is too important as to abandon it to only a few experts

or to a designated group of people.92 As Figure 6 explains,
everyone in the company does not only have a certain position in
Kaizen, they are always included in Kaizen processes. Every
employee, from top management to workers should actively
participate in the three segments into which Kaizen can be
divided:

1. Management-oriented Kaizen: The Kaizen process is started by

management and usually supported by experts. It involves teams
and specialists from top management whose responsibilities have
an emphasis on the improvement of systems and procedures.

2. Group-oriented Kaizen: continuous improvement as a component

of group work is dealt with within QCs. The members and leader
of a group individually act within the scope of their direct
field of responsibility.

3. Person-oriented Kaizen: In the scope of .idea-management. and

an improved suggestion system, individuals submit ideas for
improvements resulting in self-development and higher Kaizen-
commitment.93

Each of these three dimensions has specific responsibilities and

tasks which all contribute to the success of the whole Kaizen
system.94 Six Sigma is a methodology for the measurement of a
company’s overall performance. According to HARRY, the
indisputable authority behind the Six Sigma theory, it is
defined as a business process enabling a company to drastically
improve its results, including waste reduction and increased
customer satisfaction.113 The Purpose of this approach is the
collection of quantitative data in order to evaluate a company.s
sigma level, which represents the quality of its processes in
terms of defects per million opportunities (DPMO).114 A company
operating on a level of Six Sigma counts about 3.4 DPMO, which
means that it strives for near perfection. However, most
companies operate on a three or four sigma level at which
between 66,807 to 6,210 DPMO may occur.115

Like in Kaizen, a defect can be defined as anything that falls

short of customers.
expectations or negatively affects a process or service. Any
variation can cause
such unacceptable deviations from the mean. Therefore, Six Sigma
seeks to
reduce or even eliminate the amount of defects which in turn
will lead to an
optimization of processes, productivity improvement and customer
retention. 116
These are objectives that are followed by most management
methods, however,
Six Sigma promises an additional, very favourable
characteristic. As it will be
discussed in the following pages, a central idea of the Six
Sigma concept is that
quality should not cost, but rather save money. Therefore it
assumes an
augmentation of profitability and the rate of return, real money
a company can
save.117
The name Six Sigma derives from the Greek letter ó (sigma) which
is used to

describe the standard deviation. The standard deviation is the

value which

represents the average distance of a set of scores from the

mean. The smaller the

value of the standard deviation of a set of data, the closer it

is to the mean.118

113 Kroslid (2003), p. 19

114 iSix Sigma LCC (n.d.a. b), n.p.a.

115 Magnusson (2004), p. 39

116 Harry (2002), p. 22

117 Ibid., p.15

118 Magnusson (2004), p. 6

38

2.3.1. Background

The theory of Six Sigma was developed in the late 1970s by

Motorola, a

recognized global technology leader. At a time at which

companies put

considerable efforts in the provision of high quality for which

substantial

investments seemed necessary, managers at Motorola developed the

idea of

decreasing these costs by avoiding mistakes from the first

moment on. The costs

for quality include both price of production and expenses for

the correction of

qualitative inferior goods, the latter of which was to be

eliminated by a production

without errors. Further, it was suggested to reduce waste of

supplies.119

These theories were developed by SMITH, an engineer at the

Motorola IT

department. Although in the early days confronted with

scepticism, the

combination of superior quality with cost reductions formed the

basis of today.s Six

Sigma concept, allowing a more active, rather than reactive

approach.120
In 1987 Motorola implemented the newly developed quality program
Six Sigma in

all areas of the company in order to close on the lead the

Japanese electrical

industry had during that time. Already in the first couple of

years Motorola was

rewarded with high savings.121

Six Sigma was relatively unknown until the mid 1990s when well-
known

companies in both Europe and the Unites States (US) started to

follow the

remarkable quality improvement of Motorola. With the

implementation of the

quality program at GE, Six Sigma made a name for itself and the
concept spread

to other continents and industries. Six Sigma was developed by

Motorola; however

GE is the company which made it famous.122

A PROFOUND COMPARISON

Lining up Kaizen and Six Sigma next to each other, the observer
will identify a

large amount of similarities between these two systems. The

number of similarities

may exceed the amount of differences; however the latter are

very significant and

have a major impact. Figure 16 identifies the most important

distinctions.

Figure 16: Major Differences between Kaizen and Six Sigma

DEMING

Kaizen Six Sigma

Despite the evidence that both Kaizen and Six Sigma work in
practice, they are

still the centre of major criticism. Severe critics of modern

quality theories argue

that nothing new had been developed since DEMING taught his
thoughts about

quality. They comment that improvement strategies like Six Sigma

and Kaizen

simply took on and renamed already existing theories like some

companies solely

change the packaging of a product and introduce it to the market

as brand-new

commodity. Further arguments revile modern management methods as

being all

equal . the same goals, the same concept, and the same tools.

70

On the one side, these opinions are accurate. The Kaizen

umbrella unfolds a

variety of measures and includes tools which can be found in the

concept of other

management methods. JIT management and Kanban derive from

logistics rather

than quality management and for sure have originally been

developed for different

reasons than the improvement of the quality of an end product.

However, superior
logistic strategies contribute to the quality of the whole
process of production and

are therefore applied in quality management.

Six Sigma and the idea of reducing variation is probably more

different to

conventional quality management as it uses statistical theories

to reach superior

quality. Nevertheless, the idea of input . process . output is

also part of logistics

teachings and the all praised DMAIC road map can be traced back
to DEMING.s

PDCA cycle. Further, the DPMO concept derives from the theory of
defects per

unit, simply represented in a more modern way.227

These thoughts are only the basis of the criticism defining

Kaizen and Six Sigma

as very similar or even equal. In fact, these two methodologies

have a lot in

common. If one would line up the features characterising them,

there would be an

80% overlap.228 Nevertheless, differences having a major impact

on the conduct,

practice and outcome do exist and have to be taken seriously.

This chapter will compare Kaizen and Six Sigma with one another
and put their

characteristics to discussion. The differences identified will

be further investigated

in chapter 4.2, which will also deal with the compatibility of

the two methodologies

to the corporate targets of organisations.

227 Ramberg (2000), n.p.a.

228 Rush (2006), n.p.a.

71

4.1. Kaizen and Six Sigma Compared

The majority of similarities between Kaizen and Six Sigma

originate in DEMING.s

theories of customer-orientation, process-orientation, waste

reduction and defect

elimination. These theories from the early 1900s never lost

their validity and still

form the basis of modern quality management. DEMING.s teachings

were further

investigated and his theories developed, so that they would suit

to the specific

requirements and needs of an organisation. As a matter of fact,

the practices of

either Kaizen or Six Sigma are not 100% equal in all

organisations around the

globe; there are always additions or combinations with other

tools, like for instance

the TPS which Toyota interlinked with its Kaizen operations.

Both Kaizen and Six Sigma strive for improvement and premium
quality. Despite

these similar or even equal targets, their approaches to go

about them as well as

the obstacles to be overcome to reach the various milestones on

the path to best

in class differ in many ways.

4.1.1. Goal- vs. Process-orientation

Process-orientation and its advantageous effect on the end
product have already

been sufficiently discussed; therefore its importance should be

obvious by now.

Nevertheless, it has been argued, that it is not only process-

orientation with which

a company manages to change to the better. A healthy portion of

goal orientation

connected to it is indispensable as well.229

Six Sigma primarily intends to reach profitability, to increase

the net profit visible

on the corporate financial statements. The process of

improvement is rather seen

as a secondary effect, ranked high as it was identified that

quality is the driving

force leading to financial profits. Six Sigma.s goal orientation

is directed towards

the defined target of profitability, a target which those

companies having

implemented this methodology decided to follow. In other words,

processorientation

in Six Sigma is the sheer strategy to reach the defined goal.230

229 Rush (2006), n.p.a.

230 Harry (2002), p. 15

72

Goal orientation is important in order to have a focus, a

direction in which the

improvement of a process should go. Also at GE, the targets to

be reached were
set first, and then it was identified how Six Sigma can go about
their achievement

in the most sufficient way. Finally, all projects were reviewed

and only those which

were likely to reach the goal were initiated. 231

The objective of Kaizen is put together conversely. In the

centre of this philosophy

stand increased quality levels, continuous improvement and never

ending change.

These goals are processes that take place continuously and never
come to an

end. The Kaizen philosophy states that there is always room for
further

improvement. Perfection is seen as illusion and unreachable,

however one may

get very close to it. Profitability and financial returns are

accompanied by this

movement towards premium quality, but the reason for undertaking

all these

efforts remains quality together with customer loyalty.

Several milestones appear during the enduring interplay of

continuous

improvement and innovation, but also within leadership, that may

be pointed out

as set goals. As far as leadership is concerned, Kaizen intends

to make clear to all

employees why an organisation carries it out and how everyone

can contribute to

positive change. Reaching employee conviction in that matter

could possibly be
defined as a goal, but still it is a goal the persisting success
of which needs to be

maintained, thus resulting again in a never ending process.

In fact, both Kaizen and Six Sigma have identified goals. In

Kaizen it is superior

quality output, while in Six Sigma profitability as well as

reaching a quality level of

six sigma are fundamental. While the latter strategy seems to

have accomplished

its goal once operating on a six sigma level, the former

proceeds to adhere to its

practices. While Six Sigma identified an overall goal, Kaizen

operations do never

end.

CONCLUSION

In the very beginning of this thesis the research question of

whether Kaizen and

Six Sigma, two quality management methods which are said to be

very alike but

still different, could be connected with or even supplement one

another, had been

defined. Kaizen as quality culture involving every single

employee of an

organisation and Six Sigma as road map for improvement projects,

were designed

to restructure already existing ideas of quality management to

become even more

successful than previous strategies.

The previous pages of this thesis disclaimed the assumptions
that Kaizen or Six

Sigma were simply fashions and that they were just the same
concept or

compilation of tools given different names. It has been made

clear that Kaizen and

Six Sigma are different from one another, also because the equal
tools applied are

often interpreted differently.

Kaizen and Six Sigma can significantly increase the quality

output of a company.

The major focus on process-orientation, customer satisfaction,

waste and defect

reduction as well as the consideration of cost of poor quality

themselves, already

provide a profound basis for companies to be successful.

What had been asked in the research question of this thesis was
whether these

already individually standing strategies could be combined, and

if, whether this

combination would cause even more favourable results.

Thus, the first conclusion can be drawn: Kaizen and Six Sigma
can exist next to

each other in one organisation.298

Kaizen and Six Sigma can be connected and thereby supplement

each other in

three different ways. First of all, both management methods can

be applied to a
company.s overall operations or to one single project. To give
one example, it has

been mentioned that Six Sigma does not include an employee

suggestion system

in the same way as Kaizen makes use of the knowledge and

experience of its staff

members. Six Sigma.s VOE barely provides the opportunity to give

opinions and

provide ideas by the time an employee has a sudden inspiration,

while the

suggestion system under Kaizen allows more independence and

therefore

enables employees to submit their ideas at any point in time.

The suggestion

system can, without any problems, be attached to daily Six Sigma

practices. It

might be the case that other tools under Kaizen may not be as
applicable as

employee suggestion system; however, this example showed that a

combination is

possible.

Another example would be to state that although Six Sigma is

characterized by

immediate perfection, meaning that all steps should be planned

and investigated

clearly before action is taken, continuous improvement may also

apply in this

case. Although project teams provide a profound basis with

planning and

investigating projects, there are always factors which are

beyond human control
and thereby a team has to respond to the new situation as
quickly as possible.

This can be considered as continuous improvement within the

planning or acting

phase of the Six Sigma road map.

The second way how to combine Kaizen and Six Sigma is to

identify the most

suitable strategy for each individual project. By going about

improvement,

companies undertake a great variety of projects which are in no

case absolutely

equal. There are always small characteristics which distinguish

one project from

another. Therefore, some projects will be more suitable to

Kaizen, while other

improvements should rather be carried out by the application of

Six Sigma.

298 Schweiszer (2007), n.p.a.

101

Thereby, an organisation may profit best by applying those

methods which

promise the best efforts to each project.

To explain the third way of Kaizen and Six Sigma combination, we

will once more

use the example of GE which implemented Six Sigma in every

business unit world

wide. In fact, it was not left open to discussion if a business

unit would prefer a

different management system to be launched as it could probably

identify itself
better with it. WELCH made the decision for Six Sigma
implementation for all

employees, for all business units and establishments of GE.

However, instead of

forcing all business units to comply with the same strategy

launched by the head

office, it is also possible to allow each individual

establishment to decide which

quality management method it prefers to implement.299 Siemens is

only one

example of firms applying both Kaizen and Six Sigma, not

interchangeably but in

individual business units.300

BIBLIOGRAPHY

BOOKS

Aguayo R. (1990); Dr. Deming . The American who taught the

Japanese about

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