Analyzing Lean Six Sigma Paper Research Paper

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organizations can adhere to simple frameworks structured with a purpose of attaining continuous improvement in its operations or its supply chain. These structured approaches aid and facilitate different aspects such as decision-making, problem solving, as also process enhancement. This paper discusses the existing interrelations between organizations that utilize structured frameworks for improvement together with their operational performance through case studies

General Motors Company

General Motors Company is a multinational company involved in designing, manufacturing, marketing, and distribution of vehicles, vehicular parts, and accessories. The headquarters of the company is situated in Detroit, Michigan. The company founded in the year 1908, is 108 years old today. It is centered in the automotive industry and is one of the major renowned companies in more than thirty nations and operating with about thirteen brands. The business units of General Motors include General Motors Financial, General Motors International Operations, General Motors North America, General Motors South America, and Opel Group (General Motors, 2016). The company currently hires about 212,000 spanning over 140 nations. General Motors targets individual consumers; it also retails its products commercially and in convoys to rental car businesses (General Motors, 2016). The core competence of General Motors is innovation. In the year 1911, the company originally conceptualized, engineered, and retailed the self-starter engine. 15 years later, the company unveiled Cadillac, which was the pioneer in developing a countrywide service strategy. The core products of the company encompass its different brands of vehicles and their parts. In 2015, the company generated a revenue of $152.4 billion dollars and a profit of $6.3 billion dollars (General Motors, 2016).

The framework that the organization is using to drive operational improvement is operational excellence through Lean Six Sigma. Six Sigma is an approach to minimize the number of product defects and to attain organizational distinction and operational excellence. Six Sigma aids the organization to obtain a competitive edge. It is a designed methodology with methodical statistical-based modus operandi, which is employed to enhance the performance of practices or products or quality of a service by decreasing process discrepancy (Martin, 2007). The concepts of this particular framework were improved and finally introduced in 2002 in Lean Six Sigma: Combining Six Sigma with Lean Speed by George and Lawrence (2002). Over time up until the contemporary, this particular framework has fared on extremely well and helped create several success stories in different industries.

General Motors is applying the operational excellence framework on the supply chain, legal, engineering, manufacturing, and product development departments. The framework is perceived by senior leaders, middle managers, practitioners as an approach that is able to consolidate the strengths and virtues of different departments to solve the company's problems. In addition, this facilitates the company to correct and unravel quality problems and at the same time eradicate waste and disparity in manufacturing. In addition, the leaders employ this framework in different ways. In accordance to Burden (2015), General Motors discovered a shortage of supply of superior 22-inch chrome wheels for its current and esteemed Cadillac Escalade SUV. The problem was that the supplier was incapable of supplying sufficient number of wheels to satisfy the demand of General Motors. In the preceding year, GM has also placed emphasis on process improvement and methods of eliminating waste. Having reliable process improvement practice and information in saving money and increasing revenue, GM deciphered precisely what to undertake when their supplier was not able to satisfy its demand (Burden, 2015). This indicates the success of the framework.

There is an extremely positive future outlook for this framework in this organization. The Chief Executive Officer of the company, Mary Barra, together with the personnel have been undertaking more than three hundred Operational Excellence business improvement projects which constitute an excess of $3 billion in prospective revenue or savings (Burden, 2015). What the organization can undertake differently to strengthen its improvement capability is to permit it to experience more transformation and also to let the structured framework to transform the corporate culture of the company in the forthcoming periods (Burden, 2015). In this assessment, there is a perceived link between the performance of General Motors, with regard to revenue and profit generated and its espousal of the structured framework. The project espoused by the company instigated a fix that was worth about $50 million in additional revenue generation.

Ford Motor Company

Ford Motor Company is a multinational automaker that is involved in designing, manufacturing, and selling automobiles as well as commercial vehicles, together with luxurious cars. The headquarters of the company is situated in Dearborn, Michigan.

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The company was founded in the year 1903 by Henry Ford and has come to be one of the top companies in the automotive industry (Ford Motor Company, 2016). The core products and services rendered by the company include trucks, buses, automobiles, buses, tractors, financial services, and automotive components. Currently, the number of employees hired by the company are about 199,000 in over 90 plants and facilities across the world (Ford Motor Company, 2016). Ford Motor Company targets individual consumers and retails its products commercially and in convoys to rental car businesses. The core competencies of Ford Motor Company include innovation and partnership development. With regard to innovation, the company developed methodologies for far-reaching and extensive manufacturing capabilities and also the all-encompassing management of an industrial labor force through the use of intricately engineered manufacturing series characterized by the moving assembly lines. These techniques came to be referred to as Fordism across the globe (Ford Motor Company, 2016).

Ford Motor Company began utilizing its consumer driven Six-Sigma initiative in the year 2000. Over the years, the framework has fared on very well in all its business units and has come to be a fundamental part of the company's management system. These encompass quality leadership initiative, quality operating system, and consumer driven 6-sigma (Marx, 2016). As mentioned already, it can be perceived that the departments of Ford Motor Company in which the structured framework is applied for improvement, encompass consumer satisfaction, quality operations, and leadership (Jacobsen, 2011). The framework is perceived by senior leaders, middle managers, practitioners as an improvement strategy that offers the perfect fit with the "One Ford" strategy employed by the company that places emphasis on working in tandem effectively as one team (Jacobsen, 2011). The way in which the leaders utilize this framework is through the DMAIC model to improve quality. Each Six Sigma Black Belt project at Ford begins with an ideal project charter, which takes account of an assessment score on the projected impact of the project's targets. The leaders are able to forecast the extent and magnitude of impact for every objective by measuring expected benefits against organizational goals and measures (Jacobsen, 2011).

In addition, Ford Motor Company employs a balanced scorecard system to pinpoint prospects for improvement. This system offers reporting tools that provide monthly or yearly scores against target numbers, as well as a system for prioritization. This utilizes green, red, or yellow assessments to ascertain where further improvement is possible and required. Through the application of this system, Ford is able to categorize its data into the colors. For starters, green implies that the metrics are on target or over target. Whereas, yellow implies that the metrics are below the target, but have improved, compared to previous year's achievements. Lastly, red means that the results are in fact below or under target (Jacobsen, 2011).

the success of the framework with respect to Ford Motor Company is evident in a number of examples. In assessing Ford Motor Company, there are links between the performance of the company and its embracing of a structured framework. To begin with, in accordance to the company's website, as from the year 2001, Six Sigma had facilitated eliminating waste in the company that is valued at more than $2.19 billion. In addition, according to the firm's annual report, the consumer driven 6-Sigma, waste elimination and quality enhancement technique have had an immensely significant influence on its operations. In particular, from the time it was established, the company has been able to undertake about 9,500 projects, which have generated savings of about $1.7 billion in its operations across the world (Marx, 2016). Moving forward, the organization can undertake additional management devices to fortify its improvement capability to continue with its incessant focus on quality, costs and all other basics of its business operations. This will enable the company to advance its endeavors to the next level. In addition, going forward, what the company ought to undertake in order to escalate or enhance this trend is through the application of personnel teamwork. This is particularly through instigating a sense of self-importance in workmanship and technology. More so, the company ought to find more ways in which it can fuse this framework into its different processes such as its quality operations systems, as also its production and manufacturing systems. This will ascertain that the organization continues.....

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