Interview with Reginaldo S. de Figueiredo - Master Black Belt

eKNOWtion is committed to help organizations "unlock" their supply chain performance and optimize their "knowledge assets".  In a series of interviews and articles presented in this month's newsletter we focus on the Six Sigma methodology as a key to help move toward zero defects. In this interview with Reginaldo S. de Figueiredo, a Master Black Belt in the Semiconductor industry we hope to help our readers understand and clarify some of the key elements involved in a Six Sigma project. Reginaldo has kindly agreed to share with us his thoughts, experiences and challenges on Six Sigma project implementation.

Serving as a Master Black Belt at NXP Semiconductor I could combine two important competencies, my Six Sigma background obtained as a Green Belt and further as a Black Belt at LG Philips Displays and my recent MBA learning from the Rotterdam School of Management. In addition to this, my past experience as a researcher and hard science education were also of great help to embrace the Six Sigma spirit. Actually, my first steps in project management and problem solving were made at EDF (Electricité de France) as a free lance project leader.

KNOWledge: Do you think there is something unique to the way Six Sigma is implemented in the electronics industry?

Reginaldo: Absolutely! Six Sigma aims to achieve impressive savings via process excellence by using extended statistical support; we reduce costs related to scrap, rework, cycle time or any other deficient process. Let’s take our plant for example. More than hundred engineers work there, many of them with a Masters and or a PhD degree. In such environment, Six Sigma cannot make the difference by teaching statistical "bric-a-brac" to those guys. Of course, the statistical tools learned in the Six Sigma trainings are serious stuff, but electronic engineers already understand and apply statistics. In our case and in my opinion, the biggest challenge is the decision making process. Six Sigma isn’t a black box of statistical tools and templates; it is a lot about a way of working. Throughout my career, I have also learned that the differences of maturity levels and background of between businesses really must be taken into account when deploying any improvement program.

KNOWledge: What is the typical goal of a Six Sigma project within an electronics component manufacturer?

Reginaldo: That’s an excellent question because it goes back to the roots of the Six Sigma philosophy. The aim of any Six Sigma program is bringing competitive advantage to the business. Thus, a typical project is the one that brings performance up as fast as possible. This is the case in electronics as well as in any other kind of business. Let’s just quickly review the Six Sigma way of working: 1) Telling a few basic rules about how to identify opportunities; 2) Delivering a set of tools enabling the project manager to correctly evaluate potential savings coming from such opportunities; 3) Bringing structure and tools to problem solving. Thus, by using Six Sigma, it is possible to derivate a rational project portfolio composed by a set of projects that will contribute a maximum to performance enhancement. Projects inside that portfolio are typical projects, and their goals are typical goals. That’s the Six Sigma magic!

I know, this quick explanation may look vague, but it is not. In two years of Six Sigma implementation at NXP, I coached a variety of projects: reducing obsoletes, the energy bill, the cycle time, increasing quality yet reducing time to market. They are all good! On the Six Sigma point of view, there should not be a typical goal for a project, but the best one for it.

KNOWledge: What kind of impact (financially and others) have Six Sigma implementations brought to your organization?

Reginaldo: In the first two years we have made the equivalent of 0.8% of the local turnover in net savings per year. These 0.8% were thus "money in the pocket" since all the costs related to the Six Sigma implementation were already deducted. This result was reached by deploying a team of 4 certified Black Belts (including myself), 4 trained Black Belts and 2 waves of 16 Green Belts per year. We feel that savings won’t stop at these rates but will increase in time, as most of our challenges are connected to cultural changes and these do need time to occur. Besides, the higher level of transparency connected to the Six Sigma way of working enhanced satisfaction of the team which is also not negligible in achieving results.

KNOWledge: What are the major obstacles and challenges you have faced during an implementation?

Reginaldo: Misunderstanding Six Sigma at the management level was the main challenge. Line managers are constantly under pressure. Somehow a few of them believed that Six Sigma would be a magic tool that once "abracadabra" was pronounced their engineers would perform better and they could go play golf.  Obviously, things don’t work like that. In the beginning, we tried to switch management’s role from control and command to energize and enable. Thus, all the line managers were asked to give more attention to their respective project leaders. They should not interfere on the technical content of a project, but be there to remove roadblocks.  In my observations many projects fail due to management created distractions.  Simons and Chabris’ experiment demonstrates that by asking the "wrong" question we can make someone blind to an obvious answer. In their movie, asking the question; how many times a white player touches the ball, most people do not see the black gorilla. Actually, I noticed that many projects were failing for a similar reason. Instead of asking for a solution to the problem, management expects the project leaders to apply his solution.

KNOWledge: How would you describe the potential of Six Sigma in the electronics industry?

Reginaldo: et’s not forget that Six Sigma was introduced to the electronics industry by Motorola. The $16b savings reported by the company with the methodology, explains the rapid success and extended application to other businesses. Globally and not only in the electronics industry, successful Six Sigma implementation cases report net year savings which vary from 0.6% to 1.2% of the companies' turnover. Its potential is very large. Nowadays, combining Lean with Six Sigma is more common, leading to even better results.  I believe that Six Sigma is something like "doing the right things right". I don’t think it will disappear but rather enlarge its potential. What might happen in time is that, extra features such as Knowledge Management for example will be integrated, perhaps leading to renaming the initiative. In any case, the roots of Six Sigma will permanently remain in the electronics field. The whole tool is too sexy, it shows that can improve your financial results by producing superior quality and satisfying your customer, and that is competitive advantage.

KNOWledge: Could you provide a brief example of a specific area within another electronics component manufacturer where Six Sigma has delivered good results?

Reginaldo: There are many cases but one in particular was a very short unexpected project in a Belgium plant a few years ago. Under the Six Sigma deployment, a Black Belt was sent to the HR department. He drew process flows and analyzed them, leading to a flow redistribution and allowing the company to gain two FTEs. This is just a small example. In general, I think that Motorola and GE are undeniably the most expressive cases of success in the electronics field.

KNOWledge: Is there any thing in particular that you think is critical when implementing a Six Sigma project in this industry sector?

Reginaldo: Yes, the CEO commitment, but not only in the electronics fields. Remember: you are leading a revolution, to change cultures. If you don’t have the support of your upper management, most likely you will fail. Electronics is a nice sector to start a Six Sigma program since all the Six Sigma tools can be directly applied. Au contraire, trying to deploy it in a soft field business like leisure for example would be much more challenging from a strictly statistical point of view. Meanwhile, don’t forget that you are dealing with people. Thus think about how to motivate your team to gain commitment to the new way of working and not only compliance with it. In Six Sigma, we want hard results and these are generated by people. You absolutely need to integrate your new way of working and new skills to appraisal mechanisms and career plan.

KNOWledge: Six Sigma and the Supply Chain, what are the key factors to make a good marriage between these two?

Reginaldo: Let me just refer the case of a great friend. He is a supply chain manager and his company doesn’t have Six Sigma. I deploy Six Sigma but not integrated with Supply Chain. In some way, our conversations are always aligned, not because our friendship, but because we speak the same language and care about the same goals. Indeed, a Supply Chain manager could use Six Sigma to achieve impressive results and vice-versa. Supply Chain focuses on the value added chain, and will use such approach to leverage business results. Six Sigma focuses on the cost of quality to identify where the opportunities for business improvement in the value added chain are. As both Supply Chain and Six Sigma focus on the same goal, the hardest part of the integration is already done; complimenting agendas. Now, Supply Chain players must understand how Six Sigma works to take all advantage out of it. Send your Supply Chain team to a Six Sigma training and results will flow naturally.

Thank you very much Reginaldo for your time and contribution to the eKNOWtion Knowledge Academy.