¶ … organizations can adhere to simple frameworks structured with a purpose of attaining continuous improvement in its operations or its supply chain. These structured approaches aid and facilitate different aspects such as decision-making, problem solving, as also process enhancement. This paper discusses the existing interrelations between organizations that utilize structured frameworks for improvement together with their operational performance through case studies
General Motors Company
General Motors Company is a multinational company involved in designing, manufacturing, marketing, and distribution of vehicles, vehicular parts, and accessories. The headquarters of the company is situated in Detroit, Michigan. The company founded in the year 1908, is 108 years old today. It is centered in the automotive industry and is one of the major renowned companies in more than thirty nations and operating with about thirteen brands. The business units of General Motors include General Motors Financial, General Motors International Operations, General Motors North America, General Motors South America, and Opel Group (General Motors, 2016). The company currently hires about 212,000 spanning over 140 nations. General Motors targets individual consumers; it also retails its products commercially and in convoys to rental car businesses (General Motors, 2016). The core competence of General Motors is innovation. In the year 1911, the company originally conceptualized, engineered, and retailed the self-starter engine. 15 years later, the company unveiled Cadillac, which was the pioneer in developing a countrywide service strategy. The core products of the company encompass its different brands of vehicles and their parts. In 2015, the company generated a revenue of $152.4 billion dollars and a profit of $6.3 billion dollars (General Motors, 2016).
The framework that the organization is using to drive operational improvement is operational excellence through Lean Six Sigma. Six Sigma is an approach to minimize the number of product defects and to attain organizational distinction and operational excellence. Six Sigma aids the organization to obtain a competitive edge. It is a designed methodology with methodical statistical-based modus operandi, which is employed to enhance the performance of practices or products or quality of a service by decreasing process discrepancy (Martin, 2007). The concepts of this particular framework were improved and finally introduced in 2002 in Lean Six Sigma: Combining Six Sigma with Lean Speed by George and Lawrence (2002). Over time up until the contemporary, this particular framework has fared on extremely well and helped create several success stories in different industries.
General Motors is applying the operational excellence framework on the supply chain, legal, engineering, manufacturing, and product development departments. The framework is perceived by senior leaders, middle managers, practitioners as an approach that is able to consolidate the strengths and virtues of different departments to solve the company's problems. In addition, this facilitates the company to correct and unravel quality problems and at the same time eradicate waste and disparity in manufacturing. In addition, the leaders employ this framework in different ways. In accordance to Burden (2015), General Motors discovered a shortage of supply of superior 22-inch chrome wheels for its current and esteemed Cadillac Escalade SUV. The problem was that the supplier was incapable of supplying sufficient number of wheels to satisfy the demand of General Motors. In the preceding year, GM has also placed emphasis on process improvement and methods of eliminating waste. Having reliable process improvement practice and information in saving money and increasing revenue, GM deciphered precisely what to undertake when their supplier was not able to satisfy its demand (Burden, 2015). This indicates the success of the framework.
There is an extremely positive future outlook for this framework in this organization. The Chief Executive Officer of the company, Mary Barra, together with the personnel have been undertaking more than three hundred Operational Excellence business improvement projects which constitute an excess of $3 billion in prospective revenue or savings (Burden, 2015). What the organization can undertake differently to strengthen its improvement capability is to permit it to experience more transformation and also to let the structured framework to transform the corporate culture of the company in the forthcoming periods (Burden, 2015). In this assessment, there is a perceived link between the performance of General Motors, with regard to revenue and profit generated and its espousal of the structured framework. The project espoused by the company instigated a fix that was worth about $50 million in additional revenue generation.
Ford Motor Company
Ford Motor Company is a multinational automaker that is involved in designing, manufacturing, and selling automobiles as well as commercial vehicles, together with...
Movements There has been much debate and consideration extended towards the major quality and process movements of the last several generations. This is true both in the United States and around the world. Some of the more common ones, and indeed the ones that will be covered in this report, include Six Sigma, Lean Six Sigma and Business Process Reengineering (BPR). There are also other movements and methods such as
Logistics & Transportation Managers Benefit From the Use of Lean Six Sigma Given the continual economic turbulence and uncertainty surrounding nearly every industry, the need for stabilizing, securing and growing supply chains has become critically important for the long-term viability of many manufacturing and services-based industries. Lean Six Sigma continues to gain widespread adoption as enterprises look to better manage their supply chains by reducing risk, costs and increasing speed, accuracy
Quality Management System and Continuous Improvement Six Sigma Strategy for Continuous Improvement Implementing Six Sigma Lean Strategy for Continuous Improvement Lean and Sig Sigma Interrelated Industrial application of lean / six sigma Lean / Six Sigma in Service Industry Lean / Six Sigma in Manufacturing Industry Lean / Six Sigma in Construction Industry Lean / Six Sigma in Mining Industry Effectiveness of the Lean / Six Sigma in the Industry Population and Sampling In the business management strategy, quality plays a major
Wipro Technologies and Six Sigma Wipro Technologies is a successful global services provider that primarily delivers the technology and relative mechanism to those companies that are IT-oriented and use IT as the primary mode for satisfying their clientele. Wipro has 40 'Centres of Excellence' that induce solutions around specified requirements of the producers and manufacturers. Wipro provides unmatched business value to clients through a mix of development excellence, quality structures and
It was thought that the Six Sigma concept was simply "too powerful to fail," a misconception on which the whole misfortune of the Six Sigma programs is based. The human factor is often not taken into consideration. Elements such as empowerment, communication and recognition play an important role in determining the success of the Six Sigma methodology, according to the result of the study. Implementation in sectors like finance and
The lack of manufacturing integration to this process was responsible for $60 of the $200 per order processing cost. Figure 1: Typical order Workflow Solution Business Process Management analysis showed that there were several iterations of documents at the initial customer design sessions, and each iteration had slightly different input for the manufacturing orders. The analysis of this area through lean manufacturing BPM techniques also showed that by using more of a
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