Six Sigma investment to stay strong in '07, study shows

Judging by dollar and staffing resources, companies using Six Sigma must think they are on the right track, according to a new survey published in the November/December issue of iSixSigma Magazine (www.isixsigma-magazine.com).

"Nearly half of the respondents from companies already using Six Sigma said they would maintain their current level of training and staffing for 2007," said Michael Marx, research manager for iSixSigma Magazine. "More than a third expected to increase the training investment and 44 percent intend to increase the staffing level. In contrast, only 17 percent of the respondents whose companies are already involved in Six Sigma expected to spend less on training, and just 8 percent expected staffing levels to decrease.”

The survey gained responses from nearly 1,500 professionals representing a broad range of companies, some not using Six Sigma, some just starting out, and others with anywhere from two to seven or more years of experience.

Of the respondents from companies already using Six Sigma, almost half (46 percent) had enterprise-wide deployments and 80 percent of the remaining respondents said they expect their companies to take Six Sigma enterprise-wide at some point in the future.

Despite this strong level of commitment among companies using Six Sigma, there is still a lot of reluctance to get involved by those who have not made a commitment yet.

"Just over half (53 percent) of the companies who were not yet involved in Six Sigma planned to do so at some point in the future, and 47 percent said they had no plans to do so," said Marx.

Still, Marx said he found the patterns encouraging overall.

"Money is an indicator of how important an initiative is to a company," he said. "If investments in Six Sigma weren't paying off, you'd expect to see the dollars and resources drop off significantly. The fact that most companies are maintaining or expanding their investment is an excellent indicator that they're seeing the benefit."