The Basics of Six Sigma and Beyond with Dr. Abhay V. Trivedi

In this episode, I sit down with Dr. Abhay V. Trivedi, a Master Black Belt in Six Sigma, trained engineer, author, and former college dean. Not surprisingly, he has a rare depth and breadth of knowledge. He also has the skill of being able to communicate that knowledge in a way that is clear and memorable. The information just pours out of him. You should get your Six Sigma yellow belt just for listening to the podcast.

Six Sigma is the best-known model for helping companies improve processes by lowering defect rates, built around the DMAIC framework (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, Control). But this conversation goes well beyond methodology. Dr. Trivedi digs into the cultural, operational, and leadership factors that hold companies back — and what it actually takes to change them.

Listeners will walk away with more than a basic understanding of Six Sigma. You'll gain a core understanding of how operational efficiency and accuracy can transform a company from the inside out.

Connect with Dr. Abhay:

 
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/abhay-trivedi-08421214/

Find more from Duane:

Email: ddeason@efficacygroup.com

Website: https://efficacygroup.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/duanedeason/

Buy the Operationally Svelte book: https://efficacygroup.com/company-efficiency-book/

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

My name is Dwayne Deeston, and I am the host of the Cost Management Center podcast. I'm also the author of Operationally Spelt Manage Costs to Increase Profit and Enhance Performance. In this podcast, I interview experts and leaders in order to give my viewers and listeners the opportunity to learn about how to manage costs in their companies and organizations. Welcome to the Cost Management Center podcast. This is Dwayne Deeson. I'm your host today, and I have another special guest, Abhay Travidi. And that's actually Dr. Abhay Travidi, not only doctor, but also an engineer, an author. So we're going to get into his background, but a very interesting individual to talk mostly about Six Sigma. And that's a major uh credential and process to try to control costs. And so we want to make sure we explore that on the Cost Management Center podcast. And what's nice about Abhayi Travidi is he allows me to call him AT so I don't mess up the pronunciation every uh every time I do that. AT, welcome.

SPEAKER_03 1:02

Thank you so much, uh, Duane. Appreciate uh you inviting me. Uh very glad to talk about Six Sigma.

SPEAKER_00 1:09

I always like to give people a little bit about the background of the individual I'm speaking with. And I think yours is a particularly interesting, like how your journey led you from uh wherever you're from originally to studying uh to be an engineer to then getting into Six Sigma and process improvement. And I think you do more than just Six Sigma process improvement. I think you just do management advisory. And so give us a little background on that whole journey, if you would.

SPEAKER_03 1:34

Yeah, so how many minutes you got?

SPEAKER_04 1:36

Okay. As long as you need. So it it's very interesting.

SPEAKER_03 1:41

When I was in India, uh my dad had a pharmacy, and his uh vision was for me to become a medical doctor.

SPEAKER_04 1:50

So I actually uh went into that area. So I was uh really into the medical field, but the only problem is that I could not uh s uh take blood, I couldn't see blood. So I told my dad that uh this is not for me. And he said, okay, no problem. If not a doctor, then you have to become an engineer. That was your choice. She said, There's no choice. You just become an engineer. And you know, there I was in the United States, uh, you know, working on my engineering degree. But from a background perspective, uh it has been a very interesting journey because I started my career as a college professor. So I was a professor at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, and uh went from being a professor to chairman to dean to the VP of academic affairs. So I went all the way to the top of the food chain, and life was good. I mean, you know, life as a professor and in the academia is very good. But I thought, like, this is getting a little bit too boring, let's do something different. And that is where I jumped into consulting. And I went to New York and started working for a firm called Meritus. And uh, you know, one of the it was one of the leading firms uh in management consultant. But their clients were a lot of these auto industries. So that is where I started to get interested in Six Sigma and project management and all that. So, you know, my first client was Ford and Bestiang. So looked at uh those plants and all that, and then from there uh went on to consulting in multiple countries. So essentially I've consulted all over the world, I've consulted in Singapore, Malaysia, lived in Japan, uh lived in England, and uh it's been uh lived also lived in Russia. Um pleasure means it's the experience is uh is wonderful. And what I feel is at the end of the day, uh I consider myself uh a problem solver. So that's what I consider my expertise is, is a problem solver. And and then on the person's side, I have three wonderful boys and a wonderful wife.

SPEAKER_00 4:09

Yeah, fantastic. Now, into that problem solving aspect, let's drill into just a minute because I know you as a as a black belt in Six Sigma, and I actually I believe the is the designation um um uh master black belt versus uh because I am how did you how did you get into that? And uh is that just one of the methodologies that you use as a problem solver? Why did you pursue that one to its fullest extent?

SPEAKER_04 4:36

Yeah, so uh that is interesting. That's a good question. Basically, what happens is that uh in a lot of these earlier projects that you that I took on with respect to consulting, uh it was not a designated task in the sense that when you hired as a consultant, they don't tell you exactly what they want, but one thing they want is increased productivity, improved in quality, cost reduction, and all those things. So, you know, one of the areas of uh interest to me was always uh cost reduction. How do you reduce the cost, no matter what type of problem-solving methodology you use, right? So I I started off with uh managing project managers and working with them, and I thought, well, maybe I just get certified in project management. And that is where I did a little bit of thinking and realized that when it comes down to project management, you're essentially trying to solve problems where the answer is no. Like when you when you think about project management, you know what you're doing, you know what the scope is, you generally it's more about managing the people, managing the resources, and using some of your uh you know experience and all that to get things done. But in Six Sigma, the key difference is that the solution is not known. So if you to if you let's say you are, you know, one of the VPs at Ford or in any of those companies, and you say, A T, we want to improve the quality and we want to improve, we want to reduce the cost, and you know, all those kinds of things, there is no fixed solution. I cannot come to you and I said, Okay, here's a formula, you know, put the formula into the equation and the problem is solved. So Six Sigma requires uh a very deep thinking into, you know, how do you define the problem? So clarity of definition. But anyway, to answer your question, that is where I thought that, okay, this is an interesting fear. And then it led me to think about like how do I go deeper into it, right? So I was already doing process optimization. So I thought, okay, from process optimization, how do I go deeper and get into not just uh understanding the technical aspects of it, but then building a culture of problem solving. How do I build a culture of problem solving and all that? And that led to the all these certifications. That led to me getting certified and all that. And then uh the one thing that has followed my life all through my life is no matter what I do, whether I'm consulting, whether I'm training, all that, people always, whatever organization that I have consulted, they always tell me that uh we would like for you to train our people. So something along the line, it is always like, can you train our people to do this? And that is where, you know, the training aspect of it excited me. So this this is what I typically do. I go into an organization, I look at their problems, I try to understand their problems, and uh I try to listen very carefully, because a lot of time it takes an effort just to capture what your real issues are, right? So it takes an effort, right? Capturing the requirements uh of what your issues are is is difficult. So that this is where the patience is required and so forth. And then over the years uh, you know, whenever you think about things like Six Sigma, and we can go deeper into what Six Sigma is and what the methodology is, and why is it successful and so forth. But at the end of the day, when you think about, you know, methodologies or principles of Six Sigma lean and all that, it is not a one-man show. It is creating a culture, right? And one simple example that a lot of experts say is that Toyota was not built in a day, right? Toyota quality uh did not happen in a day, right? When I was a college student, uh if you drove a Toyota, it means you were broke. Uh because because that was the cheapest and the most poorly made car, and you people knew you didn't have money, so you bought a Toyota, right? And today when you look at Toyota, look at the the quality, right? It's like Toyota automatically means that it's a quality car. And you know, it's it's it's a reputation is impeccable when it comes to quality, but it it doesn't happen in a day, right? The entire culture uh needs to get into that and so forth. Now, I can also tell you I lived in Japan, so I had a first-hand experience of how people think, right? Yeah. So, you know, on paper we read all this, think like an owner and all that. But when you actually work there in Japan, you realize the discipline that they have in many cases. They're very structured, very disciplined, very focused. And it is never an individual accomplishment, it is always a group accomplishment and all that. Not that we don't have it here in the US, the US is pretty good too. But those are the things that uh really lead uh into that. But that's how I got into this Six Sigma certification and from a perspective of certification, uh I'm certified in Six Sigma project management, risk management, supply chain and logistics, uh uh everything, agile, you name it. But uh I think the purpose of all that is simply uh to ensure what the expectations are and to also from an experience perspective, it doesn't help, but from a fundamental perspective, it really helps when you're certified and all that. It gets into the depth of how these you know these philosophies or methodologies have been successful over so many years. That is a long answer to your short question.

SPEAKER_00 10:40

It's a great answer, though. It was I thought very interesting, and so I appreciate that perspective. And I and I I share your your uh concern for making sure that that the improvements stick, and and that's why you got that you are trying to change the culture when you when you are trying to do trainings and such, because one of the biggest issues I have, and I I wrote about this in my book, is that when I would leave a company within oftentimes within two or three years, they had reverted back to the same environment that when I was when I first that I fixed. They were they they reverted back to the broken environment that I fixed. And it was it um very frustrating in the sense that I don't want to come back. You know, I I want part of my measure of success is making sure that they that my changes last and are long term. And I realized that I wasn't impacting enough of the culture that I and I needed to do more on that end, and that's where I think you were astute to realize that if you were could train them and have the credentials and whatever you needed to train them, probably your prof your background as a as a professor came into play there. I think there's much more likely that those changes in the philosophy will last.

SPEAKER_04 11:51

And you make a good point with the strategistic sigma, when you look at the Demite methodology that defined measure, analyze, improvement, control, the control part of it is sustainability. There's a lot of emphasis on process control so that once you implement the new processes, there has to be a measure on whether that improvement is sustainable. And uh and and so sustainability is very important with respect to a lot of things. Like even when you look at 5S method that the Japanese propose, a simple method, like you know, organization, better organization, standardization, but sustainability is a key thing, right? And uh I I face the same problem. I have been to industries and I've charged them a lot of money to improve their processes, I've actually improved their processes, and then when you revisit them after two years, they call you for the same thing, and you feel guilty. You feel like, you know, why did you not sustain uh some of the improvements uh and so forth. And there are two reasons for it, right? Uh the two reasons for it is that many times what happens is that you know when you think about sustainability, it also means that as processes change, they need to be documented, right? So let's say there's an old process, and that has changed, and nobody does, nobody follows the old process. Now it's everything is new. But the new process is not documented. So on paper you still have the old process. But in reality, you follow the new process. And over time, you really don't know which process you're following, whether you're following the old process or you're following the new process, and that is another issue. The issue is not just following the process, but also ensuring that whatever process you follow is the current process that is being documented. And this is one of the headaches, and this is where Agile comes into play, and what Agile says is that don't rely heavily on just documentation. Don't show me all the papers and say this is how we do it. You know, demonstrate that you do it that way, right? That is important. So one of the things that I think that becomes important is that we don't want people to blindly follow things. At the same time, we also want people to be conscious that if something changes, then that is reflected in either the documentation or either in the new process or either that is being conveyed to everyone that this is what it is. So I think it that that that is important. Now, the reason this is where the culture comes in is it is not a one person thing. It's like everybody has to chip in that are we on the right track? Is this what we are following? How do we brainstorm it? How do we improve it? How do we ensure that it doesn't take too much time to translate from A to B? Because uh these days what happens is the pressure is more and more on you to perform better and better. We live in the world where the technology is zooming up. Like today, you know, when you think about Six Sigma and you know project management, you talk a lot about AI. Now all of a sudden AI is jumping in. So, you know, as the technology becomes better and the technology improves, then it is also a matter of how do you incorporate that to enhance the productivity, all that. And I want to point a very simple thing, right? You know, industries don't look for, at the end of the day, they don't look for all these wonderful technology and all these wonderful processes and all that. They really look for the bottom line. So if all that does not impact the bottom line, it is of no use, right? If I open a shop and I have the most fanciest stuff and nobody buys it, and I don't make any money, I'm going to be go broke, right? So you have to respond to your stakeholders, you have to respond to your shareholders in many organizations. And the only way that you can convince them that you're putting billions and billions of dollars in new technology is because that will eventually increase your productivity and it take you to a point where your profits are significantly going to be higher in the future. But that is easier said than done, right? Because it impacts a lot of people. So one of the things that in my experience, what has happened is that when I walk in in any of the organizations, people are very excited about Six Sigma, they're very excited about process optimization, they're very excited about project manager and management and so forth. But when you sit with them and when you go into the depth of the understanding, that is where the problem comes in. So this is where there is a gap. This is where as a consultant you enjoy the gap because then you're going to be there for a long time. They don't know the late. Let's let's just rephrase that. So as a consultant, you know, it's good for you. But as a human being, you feel like, you know, they work hard. But if they only knew the right approach, it will make their life simpler. Right? So understanding the fundamentals, like y you know, when you think about Six Sigma, we all know what Six Sigma is. Six Sigma is essentially uh three point four defects in a million with respect to a product, right? But what does that mean? Right? How do you target a 3.4 defect in a million? If you're producing a car, how do you target the only 3.4.4 defects in a million uh cars that you produce? So you can't target for 3.4. What do you target for is perfection. But now when you think about perfection, that is a different story. And the reason that perfection is a very different story is because it does not involve one thing. It involves at least three to four things, right? One is people, second is process, the third is technology, and the fourth is the environment. So when you think about perfection, if you are involved in any process as a human being, then what is the guarantee that everything that you do is going to be perfect? Because human beings are not supposed to be 100%. Human beings are not six sigma.

SPEAKER_00 18:32

Yeah, I wish we are I wish I was six sigma. I wish I was anything close to six sigma.

SPEAKER_04 18:36

Well, think about it, right? Well, think about it. If I put you on the assembly line, I tell you a funny incident. I was uh consulting for one of the organizations, and uh there was this wonderful woman, Mary, and she was on the assembly line and she was checking little switches, right? And while she was checking those switches, she was reading a book. And I said, Mary, who allowed you to read a book while you're doing this? He says, 80, I got it. I've been doing this for so long that I can, you know, I can check and also read the book. So I said, Mary, I think you're going to be in trouble, but you're such a sweet lady, I won't ask them to fire you. But I might ask you to to have you stopped reading the book while you're doing it. So no matter what the organization, no matter how sophisticated they are, but even if your motivation is right, if you're a highly motivated individual, there are certain operations that you cannot, as a human being, you cannot be perfect in it, right? You know, so and we are not just talking about manual operation, we're even talking about when you read the data, when you analyze the data, when you interpret the data. There's a limit to how far you can do what's as a computer who can look at the trend, who can look at multiple things, who can analyze tons and tons of data like that. So today, you know, the the thing is that you have a wonderful advisor in AI and the computers and all the technology, which will provide you with the right suggestion. That this is what my analytical ability is providing you, this information. Now, at the end of the day, your experience, your ability, your leadership, your decision-making ability, all that will come through. And you will come up with the right decision. That's why human beings are needed at this point. But you know, when you think about Six Sigma and you look at the methodology, even the simple thing which starts with a D, right? Because the methodology is D M A I C define, measure, analyze, improve, and control. Even if you look at defined, a lot of times the problems have to be defined very clearly. What exactly is a problem? Right? So that's what the Six Sigma emphasizes. Six Sigma has a lot of different tools by which you capture the customer's real issues, right? We have tools like QFD, quality function deployment or the house of quality, which gets into very sophisticated ability of what your current capabilities are, what are the competitors doing, you know, what are the interaction of different processes that you have, and based on all that, where you are. So the thing is that, you know, A, when you define a problem, it has to absolutely reflect what you're trying to solve. The second thing is, in order for you to define the problem properly, you also have to understand how much do you want to improve. What is realistically what do you want to do with the Swatra the improvement. And then not only that, but when you get into how do you solve the problem and all that later on, you also have to think about it's not just solving the problem. Today, you can solve any problem. The problem is what is the amount of money that you Going to spend to solve the problem. So it is not, you know, it's like uh if you have a million dollar solution for everything. Uh you know, you go you're gonna solve all the little problems, right? If you have a million dollar solution, right? If uh if my kid has a if my kid is going to school either in the fourth grade and he has an issue, I can put three people to work with him, three professors who are PhDs and say, teach my kid, all of you, right? Of course the kid is going to do good. But we don't have the luxury uh to put uh all kinds of resources, right? So we are limited in resources. The pressure is high. We are expected to come up with innovative products, we are expected to come up with the best quality of products that we want and so forth. So the challenge is first of all, define what you want. Second, make sure that whatever the problem definition is, when you solve the problem, it really provides you with all the wonderful benefits and you are a successful organization. The third thing is cost-benefit analysis. The amount of money that you're going to put in is also very important. You can't blindly put in money thinking all this will improve and not knowing that and not being efficient is how we do things. And that's where you see a lot of organizations are very rich, and at the end of the day they go down because they don't know what they're doing, they just throw money at anything and so forth. And that is why I think that over the years, I always, when my first meeting with a client happens, I always tell them that in order for us to have a long-term relationship, right, because I always strive to have a long-term relationship. I'm not interested in a short-term quick, make money in what I'm always interested in a long-term relationship. I've never lost a client in 20, 25 years. So so the thing is that you have to talk to the client of what exactly do you expect me to do for you? And what you know, what exactly is a return on investment that you're expecting. So let's be clear on that, because if you have no idea what how much money I'm gonna save you and what kind of improvements I'm gonna bring uh to you, what is going to happen is you're gonna be disappointed and I'm gonna be disappointed, right? Because I feel like, you know, you didn't have any direction, and you know, I I tried to do my best, and uh, you know, it doesn't work like that. There had to be a partnership. So it always makes sense to to be very clear on the definition part of it. The second thing, and this is very important even from a definition perspective, with respect to Sigma. What is happening, as you know, that there is a wonderful uh theory, uh theory or you can say uh tool or methodology, whatever you prefer, by Professor Kano. The Professor Kano is a Japanese, he was a Japanese professor, and he came up with this wonderful thing called the Kano model. We call it the Kano model. The Kano model is an interesting model, it's an interesting thought. What he said is that at one time quality was important. Today it is important that we focus on both the quality and the customer satisfaction. So we look at both parts of it from a quality perspective and also satisfaction. But one thing which is very interesting in the Carnot model is that your expectations always go in one direction. So let's say, for example, that you are a customer and at in five years ago, let's say somebody you bought a car, and all the cars gave you a 10,000 mile bumper to bumper warranty, you were happy with it because everybody offers the same thing. Then four years ago, they increased it. They told you, Duane, the warranty is fifteen thousand miles bumper to bumper. And let's say today the warranty is, you know, fifty thousand miles bumper to bumper warranty, right? Now, tomorrow if they say the warranty is ten thousand miles bumper to bumper, all hell will break loose. You say, uh not gonna buy a car because I'm not trusting it. It can break down any minute, right? The same person five years ago who said, Oh, ten thousand bumper to bumper, that is absolutely fantastic. But the same person is not going to accept once it reaches that 50,000 bumper to bumper warranty, you can go back. Your expectation cannot go back. So one of the things that you realize in every field, whether it is banking, whether it is healthcare, whether it is finance, uh, whether it is consumer industry, if the custom is expected to a certain level of quality, and the customer is expected to a certain level of service, then they cannot go back. So now when you don't have the right quality in place and you don't have the right customer service in place, and you don't have all those things in place, what do you think is going to happen? You're gonna start to lose business, you're gonna start to lose money, your p your brand is gonna go down, and so forth. So the reason Six Sigma methodology is important is it's not just from a quality perspective. You know, obviously, the you know, if you're a car manufacturer, it implies that you have to have, you know, six sigma quality with respect to the brake pads, right? Your brake pads, you cannot have more than very few brake pads that go bad because anytime the customer is driving a car and the brake pads fail and all that, it could be a disappointment. So you want to come down to absolutely zero. Same logic with hospitals. You know, if you go to a hospital and the hospital says we are 99% good, uh well, that is trouble.

SPEAKER_01 28:03

Right, right.

SPEAKER_04 28:05

Out of every hundred, uh, one person is uh being uh treated the wrong way, the same logic with airlines. You know, if the airlines say, you know, our record is 99.9%, that is not good for every thousand flights that warm one is coming down, right? So one of the things that becomes so important is the concept to understand. And if you look at the Six Sigma example of, you know, Walgreens or any of the drug stores that you go to and get your medicine, imagine that they make a mistake, they make they are 99%, 99% good. Out of a thousand person m getting their medicine, one is getting the wrong medicine. It is unacceptable. The whole system will shut down, right? Because you don't want to play, you don't want to take a chance that I might be one of a thousand getting the wrong medicine. So, of course, they have checks and balances and they they do a lot of things in order to do that. But this is where that when you talk about six sigma, there are two separate things. One is to understand the methodology. Right? So when you look at the methodology, it is define, measure, analyze, improve and control. But within Six Sigma, and by the way, Six Sigma is not yesterday's technology, it has been there for the last forty, fifty years. So it tells you that, you know, it is still very successful, like. But if you look at uh the methodology six sigma, what it is essentially telling you, you have to define the problem properly. And then you have to measure. So whatever, whether you're measuring the process parameters, whether you're measuring uh measuring other attributes of the product or the uh or the service, whatever, you have to have a way by which you measure. If you cannot measure it, you cannot analyze it, you cannot improve it. And once you measure it and you have the data, then of course there's a whole bunch of analysis that you do. So one thing that is very advantageous to somebody who has a six sigma green belt, black belt, uh, a master black belt is typically for training, other black belts. But one thing that becomes very important is that as a six sigma black belt, you don't know what the solution is. As I said before, initially when you talk to them, you don't know exactly what the solution is. But what you have is you have a whole bunch of tools in your pocket. So now you know, you know, you know the Ishikawa diagram, you know regression analysis, you know analysis of variance, you know, failure mode and effect analysis, and throwing out words here, all the buzzwords, but at the end of the day, what those techniques means is that once you have that data and once you have the measurement, you can take a look at the measurement from different perspectives and try to figure out maybe this will work, maybe this is the root cause, maybe it's an issue of people, maybe it's an issue of the process, maybe the material is not good, maybe we need to have a uh a front-end inspection, maybe we have to so what you have is your ability to have that confidence that we'll find the solution by looking at the data, by analyzing the data, by using different techniques, by looking at the trend, by looking at the correlation, by looking at, you know, uh, you know, interrelationship between the things and so forth. And the thing is, you don't have to manually do any of it. You have to understand some of these basic tools and techniques and so forth. But we now live in a world where the computers can do wonders for that, right? I can just dump the data and tell the computer, show me what distribution uh does this data fit into. And the data will say 80, 98% this distribution looks like, you know, whatever, a normal distribution, long marvel, whatever distribution it is. So the the challenge today for people is not so much into getting knowing all the techniques and tools and all that. The challenge of the people is to present the problem in a manner that there is so much clarity on exactly what you want that it becomes easy for an expert to say, okay, I completely understand your problem. This is how we're gonna capture the data, this is how we're gonna measure the data, these are the techniques I'm gonna use to figure out, analyze it, and we're gonna solve it. Right? So it is, you know, it is a combination of you as a manager or as a VP from a strategic perspective to know what is the amount of money that you can spend to improve the quality, what is the right quality that you need, what is the right innovation that you need, what is the best design that you need, and all that. So this is where the top-level things come in. And then you get into the right people to set up all the tools, the right the right people to set up all the processes and all that, right? So it becomes very important in order for I give you some examples like that would help you. So, you know, my experience with the university for many years, right, and uh one time, you know, I've submitted some some invoice, right? And it was like it was about three, four months, and I said, you know, it shouldn't take three, four months uh to get an invoice pay, right? Because the terms are never nobody knows what the terms are, 90 days, 180 days. The terms are actually upon receipt. So I just for fun, because I was actually training Six Sigma uh for this university. So I was actually training the Six Sigma for this university to all the it. So I said, well, the let's see what the processes they use eternally. And I found out, like, you know, I was talking to different people and uh I went through the process and I realized that they had a pretty good process. And based on the process, I should have got paid within two weeks. But this was four months, I lied. And then they told me, well, somebody was on vacation, so it took a long time. So somebody was on vacation, but there was no alternative on what happens when somebody's on vacation, there's some things. You know, they were supposed to come back, then they extended it, then when they came back, they had to go. You know, like when you think about it, this is where the top organization don't tolerate this nonsense. So when you look at top organizations, they want to ensure that everything from the first step till the end step is done perfectly well. Right? I worked with medical organizations, and when you look at some of these medical organizations, especially in the uh critical care area like cancer and all that, you realize that how important it is to treat the customer, how important it is for somebody to get the right appointment, how important it is for the customer of the patient to absolutely not worry about the process. And because the the poor person already has cancer. So they want to be treated, they only want to focus on their health. Talking with the doctor is the most value to them. Talking with the right people about their health is the most value to them. Spending four hours to figure out why am I not getting an appointment is not the most value to them, right? So when you look at a lot of these things from a quality perspective, from a six sigma perspective, even the customer needs to become smarter. The customer needs to become smarter about how things work. The customer needs to become smarter about what is the process, right? How sophisticated are their processes? Why can't they be that efficient? You know, they have to have a little bit of a better idea of how things work around that, and that will force industry to come up with a better solution. You know, like you know, think about it, right? I give you a classic example, and this is a fun example I give people. Uh I was a young kid in India, and uh we had to get the college uh books, textbooks, and there was the store uh in India that you could only buy the book from that store. So that store had a monopoly, you know, you can buy those special books anywhere except the store. And I go to the store in the middle of the afternoon, and there's only one person sitting there, which is the owner. And he is he's just sitting comfortably on his chair, legs up, all that, relaxing. And I told him, I need this book. And he told me, he said, uh, can you come back after a couple hours? I said, Well, I drew all the way, what do you mean, couple hours? He said, Listen, you see that that shelf there, you know, I gotta take a ladder, climb up. He said, I don't want to do it. He said, You come when my salespeople are here, they will climb and give you the book. But that's what I'm saying, right? The expectation is I don't have to worry, I don't have to get up, I don't have to do anything, because this little kid is going to come back after two hours, not complain about anything, because if he complains, I won't give him the book. So what happens is that when you look at Six Sigma, it is the expectation. It is when you say the expectation has to be much higher, then I cannot survive by providing you with poor products. Yeah. What happens is when we live in a competitive world, when we live in a competitive world, all of a sudden we realize that the term which uh Jack Welsh of General Electric, the CEO of uh GE, he found the term cost of quality. So he said that we often ignore the word cost of quality. And the word cost of quality refers to all the things that we do, both in terms of prevention and correction, right? Corrective action and preventive act. So he said that when you are, when you look at Six Sigma, Six Sigma is not just a methodology, it also tells you that when you're operating at six sigma, the amount, the cost of quality with respect to your revenue is less than 1.5%. But when you operate at 3 sigma, your cost of quality is going to be 35, 40 percent, right? So it takes away from your profit. And I tell people very I give them a simple example, I said, think about it. With the parista, you know, when you go to Starbucks and the parista is making a latte, right, and he makes a mistake and he throws it away. He makes a mistake, throws it away. In an hour, if he throws away ten lattes because he's not doing his job, right? Now nobody notices it if the management is not active and the manager is not smart enough, they won't notice it. But somewhere he threw away ten cups of fully made latte. There is a cost associated with it. So essentially what you're doing is you're not paying him 20 bucks an hour, you're paying him fifty bucks an hour because 30 bucks he throws away. So those are the little things uh that become important. Now, having said that, uh I've worked with very large organizations where you know you're talking about building a car, uh building, you know, a big machine, uh, you know, so everything from uh, you know, banking to pharmaceutical, right? How important it is. I've worked with uh companies that actually uh manufacture uh you know drugs for cancer and all that. So when you look at different organizations, it becomes very interesting on how they approach things, right? How they approach things. That's the first thing. So mindset. Six Sigma starts with a mindset. Because when you say perfection, what it is, it's a mindset, right? So what you have to think about is you have to think about the chances of something going wrong at every instant. So you have to be very proactive in thinking what could go wrong at every instance in everywhere, right? So if you go to Toyota, and let's say there's a machinist, and you tell them that how many different ways can you make a mistake here? He will tell you that. He will say, if I do this, that there's a problem here. If I do also this, there's a problem here. If I put a part here, and if I uh if the program has an error in it, it will cut my hand. He will tell you all that. He will tell you all the errors that could be made at that particular station. And then you'd ask him, like, how many errors do you make? He'll say zero.

SPEAKER_01 41:30

Right.

SPEAKER_04 41:30

Because he says, for every possible error, we have a solution over the years, not one day, but over the years we master like this cannot go wrong. And I'm not just talking to you, Rabbi, I'm talking about all the manufacturers here too. But that is how they have to think. Because we are talking about perfection. You're talking about 3.8 defects in the million. So you have to go, you have to have the ability to look at the relationship between A and B. And what does that mean? You have to look at the relationship between the incoming materials. If you're producing something, the incoming material has to have that six sigma quality. If I am shipping you some material, and if the material is not good, then if you put that material into your product, of course there is not going to be any six sigma because you're already putting garbage into it. Right? So it starts with every possible element. What comes in, who works on it, what is the capability of the machine, what kind of inspection that you have, what kind of preventive mechanism that you have. That is where robots come in. So now when you talk about robots at machine vision, and you talk about a lot of those new technology, what does that do? They're precise. Right? The robot is precise. The reason you use robot is it's a very precise machine, right? It can do wonderful things, it doesn't make errors, it doesn't forget, and all that. So the Six Sigma, from a perspective of Six Sigma, it is a problem-solving methodology that allows you to think in terms of problem definition from the right perspective, removing the ambiguity, clarity of the problem, and then elements, attributes of the problem that you're trying to solve. Then the right things to measure. So only measure what is relevant. Don't measure something that is not relevant. So measure all these relevant attributes, and there are different techniques to measuring, right? You have automated techniques of measurement, you have manual techniques of measurement, whatever it uh applicable in your case. You do that, and then the of course the ability to analyze data. That's a very broad scope. That's why when you get into Six Sigma, you start off with a yellow belt, then you go to a green belt, then you go to a black belt. So as you move from the very basic belt, which is Fundamental understanding to Green Belt, which is understanding what are the different analytical techniques and all that, to the black belt where you're a master at just about knowing every sophisticated statistical technique and all that. So that is where you're going to uh jump into. And then of course, you know, after that is all innovation. So innovation is where out-of-the-box thinking, right? This is where, and this is another aspect of six sigma uh that I want you to think about. In many cases, what happens is the process is define, measure, analyze, improve and control. That means you look at the problem, uh, you measure all the attributes, then you analyze it, and then you come up with improvements. This is what we want to improve, this is how we can improve, this is what the automated technique will be, and so on. But six sigma generally is continuous improvement over time. So you tweak it, tweak it, tweak it, tweak it, tweak it till it is perfect. But in many cases, what happens with six sigma is what we do is we define the problem, we measure it, we analyze it. When we analyze it at this point, we realize that the problem is so bad. The problem is so bad that there is no point in tweaking it. There's no tweak. That's gonna fix it. Uh-huh. And fix it. And that is when we call it a breakthrough improvement. So in that case, we completely redesign. So Six Sigma has multiple variations. So one of them is DMADV. So after you define measure analyze, then you d uh redesign the system and then you validate. So it is not that, you know, sometimes it is so bad that you say forget it, let's just redesign the old other thing. And that sometimes it is necessary. Right? Because sometimes over the years you have not realized that there are much better ways to do things. You can't just follow one simple way of doing things. You know, it has to be uh there are multiple ways of doing things and so forth. So that is one of the headaches that you have is you know, you can't get into a blind spot by only one way to do it. These are all innovative techniques. This problem solving is, you know, innovation. Like, how do you solve a problem? Like, you know, you think about out-of-the-box thinking, this might work here, this doesn't work here, let's look at something else, let's look at uh completely redesigning the system, let's look at is there something? And in the end, sometimes, you know, the product is redundant. You realize that the product you're working on is a redundant product. So it's uh this is where the experience comes in. But having said all that, there is a way to start, right? So if anybody is getting into the field of Six Sigma, what they have to realize is that Six Sigma has connections with everything. That Six Sigma is connection to project management, Six Sigma is connection to cost reduction, six sigma is connection to quality, six sigma is connection to brand recognition, six sigma is uh in a relation to safety. So when you think about the depth of six sigma, it can be fitted any anywhere. And that's why if you really look at it, if you look at the history, you know, I mean, we are talking about uh Demek, you know, who lived up to ninety, ninety-five years. He proposed all the uh define measure analyze and you know, the PDC plan to check act so many years ago. You're talking about 70 years ago. So what we are talking about, uh this problem-solving methodology has survived a lot of years because it is a sound problem-solving methodology. It's a very sound problem-solving methodology, right? But what we are now realizing with the new technology and with the new things and innovation and all that, that what we thought one at one time could not be done is now being you be able you're being able to do it, right? Because you have robots. You have robots, you have better control, you have better sensors and all kinds of things. Like when you can create a car that can be a selfless driving car, you can do a lot of things. I give you an example, 25 years ago, and I'm only 30 years old, but 25 years ago, I visited the national lab in Washington, D.C., right, the National Bureau of Standard List. At that time, they had a factory, an experimental factory, they called it the flexible manufacturing system, that completely ran and made parts. It had a robot, it had a conveyor system, it had all that without any human interaction. There were no human beings in all. It was a self-running factory. And all the MIT people and all are working on that. I mean, I'm talking about a long time ago. So what can happen in the future is uh very interesting. But I think for people who are really interested in this field, there are so many opportunities. I mean, it is just it's a wonderful experience to get into some of these uh methodologies like six a month and to see the results firsthand. Imagine if you actually improved the quality from ten thousand parts in a million to three hundred parts in a million. Imagine the satisfaction you would get. Imagine if you worked on in a hospital setting and all that, and you realize that I cut down the Arabs from X to X to Y. It's the number of patients, right? That I saved. But the number of patients who I made a difference is so significant, right? So I think that this becomes very important, right?

SPEAKER_00 50:15

But I have to block how do we know I think. Well, you see you uh but again it's one of the best and most comprehensive uh definitions that I I could imagine. So I can tell you and your your professor skills and your training skills really are very great at articulating uh the methodology and the reason behind it. Uh I did have one question um uh that about kind of the defining of a problem because I get a lot of times what I get is something very general, and I get something where, you know what, we we have good growth, but no matter what, we are still always break-even. And it goes down from there where where we've done everything we can and we're just not profitable. So it's a very general problem, and they really don't have a situation where, oh, we have uh something like 12 cars out of a million coming out that are that are error, uh, that have a defect. You know, so it when you have a more much more general problem like that, does you does your approach change, or how do you how do you uh handle clients in that type of a circumstance?

SPEAKER_04 51:21

Yeah, it's a very uh normal question, and you get it uh all the time. But here's what typically happens with any organization, right? So how does an organization make money? So it starts off with how do you make money, right? So the first thing is the the volume grows. So whatever you're manufacturing or whatever you're providing service, the volume grows. So when you have a growth in volume, uh people typically ignore the profits. Because people say, well, you know, put putting a lot of money in technology, putting a lot of money in infrastructure and so forth. So of course the, you know, people don't pay attention to profit and all that. They focus on the growth, the company is growing and so forth. So if you look at companies like Amazon, in the first ten years, uh Amazon never made any money, and people were saying, you know, well, the the stock is so high and they don't make any money, the PE ratio and so forth and so forth. But the people are banking all that on the growth. The growth is going and growing significant. When the growth is growing sick, I mean there's a significant growth, then you can get away with inefficiencies. You could be inefficient for a while and you could be getting away with inefficiency. The second thing is that if the growth is stagnant, or there is a saturation of growth, then the only way that you're going to get mu uh make money, uh you know, sales being the cost, and you know, the only way you make money is if you reduce the cost. Right? And reduce the cost means a lot of things, right? Reducing the cost means you increase the efficiency. You use better tools, you use better techniques, you do more things with the minimal resources, right? So there's a significant amount of resource that you might have, and you say, you know, we don't need all those resources, we can do it better, we can do it more efficiently. So if the technology that we have invested in all this, why do we need the same number of people? So now what happens is that now you start analyzing that what is the real problem here? What are the areas that we can attack? And this is where the challenging question comes. It is not easy. So, you know, one thing which is easy is to lay off hundred thousand people, lay off 10,000 people, right? And what that essentially does is right off the back, uh, your cost goes down and it shows on your balance sheet and all that in the short term.

SPEAKER_01 53:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 53:58

But in the long term, you know, in order for you uh to be successful, you have to have control over your costs. You have to have control over your processes, you have to have control over your cycle time. So what happens is if your cycle time is to come up with new products, in two years you have to compress the cycle time so you can come out with the the the products in a shorter interval of time. And this is where innovation comes in. Right? So a lot of organizations are scared. And the reason they are scared, and you saw this recently, the the reason you're scared is if a 300 people company can come up with some product or at least announce something that can shake up a hundred and fifty thousand employee company. Now that is scary. Yeah. So what happens is it is not just a matter of I can reduce the cost, I can improve the quality, I can, you know, advertise, market things better, I can do all that and you know still make money. I think it is also a matter that the external environment is changing. So no matter what you do internally to approve, you also have to be sensitive to the external environment, right? You have new product that and and the thing is the consumer liking changes all the time. So what I like can change, just like that. Right? So all those things become important. So this is where you look at the strategic plan that the organization. What is your strategy? Right? What is your vision? So I can see tomorrow, but what do you see as a CEO, as management, what do you see ten years from now, five years from now? Forget five years, three years from now. Right? How do you intend to take this company to the next level? Right? What are the products that you're trying to come up with, or where are you seeing the growth alright? And this becomes very important. There's a lot of gray area, right? There's no nobody has the right answer. There's a lot of gray area. But that is where the open discussion needs to be. I need to understand the big picture before I jump into you know doing something from an action perspective. Because without a vision, without clarity, without strategy, money is not going to be poured into the right things. Money is going to be poured into the wrong things. This is where islands of automation, islands of thinking, all those things need to disappear. This is where you need a very fast and highly performing team come together at every level to say that, you know, this is highly competitive. You know, now think about it today, right? We are talking about six sidma, we are talking about some high-level things, we're talking about improvement and productivity and all that. But think about it, that the common man, the young graduate from college, right? All these people, they have to start thinking. Because, you know, 30 years ago, if you had a bachelor's degree, there was no problem getting a job. If you had a bachelor's degree, you would get a job, right? But things are not going to be that easy unless you know something. It's not just a degree. You have to have a focus on what you want to do and how you want to contribute to the organization. So you cannot tell the organization today, hire me and tell me what to do. The organization is going to ask you questions. How are you going to help us? What do you know? And the thing is, to be very honest, in Silicon Valley, if you go for an interview, people talk about, oh, Silicon Valley, they make millions of dollars and all that. But if you go for an interview in Silicon Valley, they are not just going to say, you know, we have looked at the resume, can you talk about this? Can you no? They're going to say, here's the problem solved. They're going to test it. Right? Mm-hmm. Is the problem solved, right? Yeah. If I want to hire you as a Sigma, Red Ball, I'm going to give you a problem like this or the scenario, right? A case study scenario, problem, whatever, solve it for me, right? So we we are the word is changing.

SPEAKER_01 58:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 58:37

Technology is changing. But what that means is that there are going to be wonderful opportunities for people who focus. Right? Who focus from very early on how they want to tackle things, right? Which area they want to go. And then, of course, out of the box thinking. I think today we cannot have people who are simply task-oriented. We cannot have someone saying, you tell me what to do, and I will do it. That is not going to work. Because we're looking at empowerment. We use the word empowerment all the time. That's what we have become good at. We know all the buzzwords. We know what empowerment is. We all have servant leadership. We know what emotional. We we can throw words. But these are not simple words. It is high time that we realize that in order for us to be competitive, we need to understand what sex admires. We need to understand what project management is. We need to understand what business analytics is. We need to understand what cost reduction is. We need to understand how a structure of an organization comes about, right? Even not to a very detailed level, but at least to a level which applies to us. So all that becomes important. But we are in a we are in a good place, Duane.

SPEAKER_00 59:57

This has been amazing, and I think that's a great way to end because it really makes people think about what they are going to do with their careers and how are they going to offer something special to the companies that they that they seek to work with. So I think that's a great background. I could not have asked for a more detailed overview of what Six Sigma is and not only what it is, but what why is it important. And so I very much appreciate this discussion, and I I'm confident that anyone who listens to this will walk away really understanding a lot more about why Six Sigma has become such a strong um uh credential over many years and has lasted for so long. So you're you're a great representative of the of that. Uh they should they should be hiring you for for uh to be to be their representative. So nice.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:51

Thank you so much, Rain. Uh thank you for giving me the chance, but uh uh this is my passion, so I love it. Uh thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:58

It shines through, and and um this was a very valuable uh podcast, so thank you so much. Thank you for listening. I encourage you to check out other episodes of the Cost Management Center podcast. I believe we offer great advice to individuals that are looking to manage costs within their organizations or companies. If you would like to reach me with a question or comment, please do so on my website, theefficacygroup.com. And that's EFF I C A Cygroup.com. I would love to hear from you.