Thank you to the tens of thousands of readers of my post on Six Sigma at Ford. Many hawkers of Six Sigma claimed that the destruction wreaked by their Scam is “the fault of the individual”. They claim the Six Sigma Scam should not be blamed. This is the opposite of what Professor Deming pointed out: “A bad system will beat a good person every time.” Professor Deming is of course correct.
Six Sigma is a bad system. It is built on blatant farce. Even its creator explained in his “Six Sigma Story” that: "Six Sigma Champions are con men". "All you have is smoke and mirrors". In his "Shifty Business article he admitted that "opponents [of Six Sigma] are absolutely correct." He called his Six Sigma "a snow job".
Several claimed I took Harry’s "Six Sigma Champions are con men” description “out of context”. In what context can being a con man ever be justified? Fraud is never OK. The quality greats such as Professor Deming, Dr Shewhart and Dr Wheeler would never dream of making such a statement.
Quality depends on openness, honesty and integrity. Harry spent pages explaining how his Six Sigma con men should use smoke and mirrors: “Smoke can also be used to cover areas you want to hide from view.” Absolutely disgusting!
Some admitted they know Six Sigma is nonsense but DMAIC is the magic snake oil. Dr Wheeler shreds DMAIC in his Quality Digest article. He points out that any claimed DMAIC success is simply a reflection on the mess the company was in to begin with. DMAIC at Ford has yielded only disaster. There is no reason to ever stray from Professor Deming’s PDSA.
Many still do not understand the difference between specification and Process Behavior Limits, with nonsense such “3 sigma quality”. 3 sigma refers to Process Behavior Limits. These limits are fixed by the process. Six Sigma limits are Specification Limits. Specification Limits can be set anywhere.
by Dr Tony Burns BE (Hon 1) PhD (Chem Eng)