"Six Sigma for the Little Guy"
Engineering Management
November 2004, pp. 8-10
The authors of this article claim that up till recently, small and midsized companies have not had the opportunity to share in the value of Six Sigma programs because "the original Six Sigma architects didn't design their delivery systems for businesses of that size."
This article explains that Six Sigma programs have changed their focus during the last 20 years. The first iteration of Six Sigma was primarily concerned with reducing defects. The second iteration was primarily concerned with reducing costs in general. The authors say we are now in Six Sigma Generation III, which "aims to help companies deliver goods and services of the highest value possible. For business purposes, value is defined as delivering a product or service to the right spot, at the right time, in the correct volume, and at the lowest possible cost."
In Six Sigma Generations I and II, there was a high cost of training Six Sigma professionals (Black belts and Green belts) in a classroom situation, and there was often a relatively long wait for return on investment. This why it was difficult for small and midsized companies to afford a Six Sigma program.
Six Sigma Generation III has introduced the "White belt", who requires far less training and can provide a quicker payoff for the investment. The White belt is not expected to work as broadly in the organization as the Black belt or Green belt is. They will often focus on just one area of the organization, such as doing multiple projects in one work cell.
Online training systems have also made it substantially less expensive to train Six Sigma professionals. The article goes into some detail describing the Six Sigma Generation III online training program of the Ira A. Fulton School of Engineering at Arizona State University.
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