UK businesses now have access to world-class training in Six Sigma, the management process which saved $12 billion for General Electric over five years, thanks to an exclusive strategic alliance between the Institute for Quality Assurance (IQA) and the American Society for Quality (ASQ).

Implementing Six Sigma into a corporate culture improves processes, maximises business performance and adds to the bottom line. Commitment to the process has proved to be a phenomenal success for a number of companies in the United States: Honeywell’s application of the Six Sigma methods saved £422 million in 1999; Motorola has claimed more than £10.5 billion in savings since Six Sigma was introduced to the organisation and cites one example where it reduced the manufacturing time for pagers from 40 days to less than one hour. Medium and large-sized multinational companies, including Sony, Nokia and American Express, have all seen results on a similar scale.

“The widespread implementation of Six Sigma in UK organisations would have an unprecedented positive effect for businesses and the public sector,” comments IQA director general Frank Steer. “The benefits that can be achieved are real and proven – improved outputs, dramatically improved business performance, increases in bottom-line profitability, and more effective public services.

“All organisations can benefit, not just those struggling or achieving moderate performance, and Six Sigma is not just for manufacturing enterprises,” Steer emphasises. “Financial institutions, health care organisations and service providers are already reaping the benefits in the United States. Now that first class training is available from a national organisation, we hope this success will be replicated in the UK.”

The IQA is in the unique position of being able to provide Six Sigma training from ASQ expert instructors, known as Master Black Belts, who are all experienced in every facet of Six Sigma and quality training.

For Six Sigma to succeed in any organisation, buy in from the top is not only critical, it’s imperative. To achieve this goal, IQA/ASQ Training offers individualised training programmes for Black Belts and Green Belts, who will be the people to direct the cost-reduction and effectiveness-improvement projects within an organisation. Importantly, IQA/ASQ Training also offers concentrated programmes for upper management. All programmes are based on a proven curriculum that’s been peer reviewed and enhanced through valuable customer feedback.

Six Sigma is a statistical measure of variability – typically in a given process, and a business performance target specifically focused on critical customer specifications. In manufacturing, Six Sigma could measure defects in a sub-assembly; in a service environment, it could quantify delays in month-end reconciliation procedures.

Variation is the cause of defects and out-of-control processes. According to leading estimates, most companies today are operating at four sigma, or 6,000 defects per million. When a company has achieved a Six Sigma rate of improvement, it has limited defects to 3.4 per million, which is virtually a defect-free performance.

For more information or advice on how Six Sigma programmes can benefit organisations, please call (0)20 7245 6722 and ask to speak to Emma Jackson.