TQM, ISO 9000, Six Sigma: Do Process Management Programs Discourage Innovation?

A look at the evolution, and potential misuse, of process management programs.

By No Analyst or Consultant

November 18, 2005 — CSO —

Proof that the premier process management program in American business has crossed over into mainstream consciousness is that a rock band in Northern Kentucky calls itself 6 Sigma. Even those who know more about frets than fractions can explain that Six Sigma is a way of increasing efficiency. A less-alliterative management tool, ISO 9000, also has many fervent adherents but, alas, no rock namesake.

Within the business community, enthusiasm for process management programs such as Six Sigma, ISO 9000 or their predecessor Total Quality Management (TQM) runs strong after two decades. For example, numerous consulting firms still encourage firms to adopt Six Sigma. And despite the mid-summer departure of James McNerney to become chief executive at Boeing, 3M continues to implement the Six Sigma methods that McNerney brought in 2001 from General Electric.

Yet Wharton management professor Mary J. Benner says now may be the time to reassess the corporate utility of process management programs and apply them with more discrimination. In research done with Harvard Business School professor Michael Tushman, she has found that process management can drag organizations down and dampen innovation. "In the appropriate setting, process management activities can help companies improve efficiency, but the risk is that you misapply these programs, in particular in areas where people are supposed to be innovative," notes Benner. "Brand new technologies to produce products that don't exist are difficult to measure. This kind of innovation may be crowded out when you focus too much on processes you can measure."

TQM, a strategy in which an entire organization is focused on continuous improvement, arose in the 1980s in response to Japanese competition (and the work of W. Edwards Deming) and was popular into the early 1990s. Six Sigma started at Motorola and gained popularity in the mid-1990s largely because of GE's visible efforts. The goal is to improve a company's quality to only three defects per million through systematic incremental change in processes and careful statistical measurement of outcomes.

Six Sigma is similar to TQM in its focus on techniques for solving problems and using statistical methods to improve processes. But whereas TQM emphasizes employee involvement organization-wide, the Six Sigma approach is to train experts (known as green belts and black belts) who work on solving important problems while they teach others in the company.

The focus of ISO 9000, a program started in 1987 by the International Organization for Standardization, is to make sure that companies have standard processes in place that they follow: "Document what you do and do what you document." ISO 9000 involves a third-party registration program (UL  Underwriters Laboratories  is one such registrar) certifying that companies are following documented processes.

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