The launch of a full-time Six Sigma resource is a clear indication of Honeywell Southern Africa's continued commitment to the process of continuous improvement and renewal in local industry and business.
So says Honeywell's Zane van der Nest, who has now been appointed to manage the local Six Sigma Project (6SP) initiative for driving growth and productivity.
"Honeywell is one of the leaders in South Africa in adopting innovative processes designed to ensure customer satisfaction and improve business performance,' says van der Nest. "Winning the SAEF (South African Excellence Foundation) award (the highest level of national recognition for performance excellence) in 2000 is evidence of this."
As Six Sigma Lead for Middle East and South Africa, van der Nest is responsible for the rollout of the Six Sigma Plus strategy adopted by Honeywell. He will be responsible for training and mentoring employees in use of the tools, sharing responsibility with senior management to identify projects that either reduce costs or grow clients' businesses, while improving customer satisfaction.
Six Sigma is used to drive continuous improvement, based on utilising a 'toolkit' that ensures sound decision-making and defines specific actions that need to be taken, based on an objective data set. "6SP is an holistic approach to making improvements," says van der Nest. "Too often the improvements undertaken in companies have an open feedback loop. At best, a customer survey might be conducted on an annual basis and the impact of changes will be inferred from the results of the survey.
"With 6SP the process ensures that very early on, the team identifies clear and measurable performance indicators. These are measured at the start, during the project and post implementation. A system for continuously measuring the Key Performance Indicators is developed as part of the control plan that comes into play, post implementation. This way, feedback of actions taken is far more relevant and immediate, allowing managers to take action early on."
He adds that 6SP is a perfect complement to the ISO system. One of the outputs from a Six Sigma Project is an updated process map. This is directly translated into the ISO system to ensure that it is adopted and becomes a standard operating procedure. Using 6SP the process map is thoroughly tested for potential failures and possible impacts, so that a robust system/process is developed.
"All too often this vital step is missing when defining a company's procedures and processes, creating the opportunity for failures despite the documented procedures," he says. "6SP is also an excellent tool to drive, measure and monitor the effects of any major change management initiatives undertaken by a company."
For more information contact Zane van der Nest, Honeywell Southern Africa, 011 805 1201, www.honeywell.co.za
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