Wal-Mart's Performance Improvement Project
Wal-Mart's Performance Improvement Project
SYS/540
John Murdock
August 20, 2006
Wal-Mart's Performance Improvement Project
Wal-Mart has difficulty developing and implementing a process that can improve the product material quality since there are so many vendors, manufacturers and international companies involved. They need to implement a set of standards that every company needs to adhere to by setting acceptable standards that must be met across the board whether the company is a local business or a foreign company. Most of the material defective products come from overseas. The process that can afford the opportunity to fix this dilemma is the process known as Six Sigma. This method is designed to manage process variations which cause defects. The concept of this process is to take an already established defect variation and use a step-by-step chain of events that will work towards managing variation in order to eliminate the established acceptable defects. The purpose behind selecting this process is because Six Sigma has the ability to provide high-performance, reliability, and value to the products Wal-Mart purchases which offers a better quality product to the customer. The process was originated by Bill Smith while working at Motorola in 1986. The process was initially defined as a metric for measuring defects and improving quality which would set precedence and standardize defective measures for all vendors and suppliers for Wal-Mart.
Six Sigma has been so successful in manufacturing business that it has moved into other industries like insurance, banking, telecommunications, healthcare, software, marketing and construction. Fortunately, for Wal-Mart, this process has not made its debut in the retail business. This opportunity will give Wal-Mart a huge head start over their competitors. The existing metric process that rates an acceptable level of defective manufacturing is below acceptable standards and the result is Wal-Mart is losing
SYS/540
John Murdock
August 20, 2006
Wal-Mart's Performance Improvement Project
Wal-Mart has difficulty developing and implementing a process that can improve the product material quality since there are so many vendors, manufacturers and international companies involved. They need to implement a set of standards that every company needs to adhere to by setting acceptable standards that must be met across the board whether the company is a local business or a foreign company. Most of the material defective products come from overseas. The process that can afford the opportunity to fix this dilemma is the process known as Six Sigma. This method is designed to manage process variations which cause defects. The concept of this process is to take an already established defect variation and use a step-by-step chain of events that will work towards managing variation in order to eliminate the established acceptable defects. The purpose behind selecting this process is because Six Sigma has the ability to provide high-performance, reliability, and value to the products Wal-Mart purchases which offers a better quality product to the customer. The process was originated by Bill Smith while working at Motorola in 1986. The process was initially defined as a metric for measuring defects and improving quality which would set precedence and standardize defective measures for all vendors and suppliers for Wal-Mart.
Six Sigma has been so successful in manufacturing business that it has moved into other industries like insurance, banking, telecommunications, healthcare, software, marketing and construction. Fortunately, for Wal-Mart, this process has not made its debut in the retail business. This opportunity will give Wal-Mart a huge head start over their competitors. The existing metric process that rates an acceptable level of defective manufacturing is below acceptable standards and the result is Wal-Mart is losing
References: EMA, Inc. (2003). Six sigma process improvements: Find and fix the problems, hold the gains. EMA, Inc. Retrieved on 17 August, 2006 from Website: http://www.ema-inc.com/PDF/MSS-401.pdf Phadnis, S. (2006). Selection of project metrics. iSixSigma. Retrieved on 16 August, 2006 from Website: http://www.isixsigma.com/library/content/c011008a.asp Wikipedia (2006). Six Sigma. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. Retrieved on 16 August, 2006 from Website: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Sigma Winings, J. (2005). The six steps to six sigma using. Six Sigma SPC. Retrieved on 18 August, 2006 from Website: http://www.sixsigmaspc.com/six-sigma/sixsigma.html#sixsigmaastep