Managing for Quality and Performance Excellence 9th Edition by James Evans,William Lindsay

Exercise 51

A consultant told the story of two Six Sigma teams that made separate presentations on how they would improve processes in their own areas. At the end of the second presentation, the consultant asked a basic question that stopped both Black Belt team leaders in their tracks: "Haven't you both just proposed making improvements based on eliminating parts of processes in the other group's areas? It seems that the implementation costs in one area will cancel out the savings in the other area!" What had the Black Belts failed to recognize? What would you recommend to prevent this situation from happening in other organizations?