by James Bumpas, CMRP, Six Sigma Black Belt, Project Director, Meridium I was recently asked a compelling question, "Why do corporate improvement initiatives like Six Sigma fail?" I had to pause before responding, and really think about the question. As a Certified Six Sigma Black Belt, I have led quite a few Six Sigma project teams to victory (successfully sustaining the mythical 3.4 defects per million opportunities), and I've also suffered some defeats. Normally, the word "fail" isn't something I associate with positive outcomes, but the more I thought about this question, the more I came to realize that there are some significant fringe benefits associated with failure - for example, learning. There are hundreds of process improvement methodologies and strategies - Six Sigma, TPM, TQM, Five-Why, Kaizen Events, Root Cause and RCM. The reality is these corporate improvement initiatives do fail, sometimes more often than we would like to admit - over 60% of the time according to the Wall Street Journal article Where Process-Improvement Initiatives Go Wrong (Jan 25, 2010). In reality, most initiatives probably stumble at some point. The difference between the successful and unsuccessful initiative is not in failing, but rather in how the organization views failure. As an example of one of the many corporate improvement methodologies, Six Sigma is focused on identifying and eliminating defects - a perfect fit with the objectives of an Asset Performance Management (APM) initiative: improving asset performance, reliability, production, and profitability. Successful corporate improvement, as well as APM initiatives, choose to fail forwards - in other words, failure is not viewed as defeat, but rather as an excellent opportunity to learn through uncovering what is going wrong, developing problem solving skills, making adjustments, moving forward, and succeeding. And after some thought, I realized that my own 20 years of failing, learning, and succeeding along side maintenance and reliability professionals around the world has provided me with some important insights into answering the question, "Why do corporate improvement initiatives fail?" Click here to download the whitepaper Why Corporate Improvement Initiatives like Six Sigma Fail - How to Ensure the Success of an APM Initiative by James Bumpas, CMRP, Six Sigma Black Belt, Project Director, Meridium. Click here to view the webcast Improving Asset Performance with Six Sigma.
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