The first Six Sigma Boot Camp organized by Harrington Middle East in Dubai recently was attended by executives from leading private and public sector companies, including Commercial Bank of Dubai, ADMA-OPCO, Saudi Hollandi Bank, Riyad Bank, Department of Health, Saudi Telecom Co., Gulf Testing Factory Services (GTFS) and Al Saif and Sons Medical Company. The Six Sigma Boot Camp was high intensity group-teaching programme, at the end of which the participants were given a certification endorsed by Dr. HJ Harrington, CEO of Harrington Middle East, and guru of performance improvement.

“Six Sigma, an advanced form of total quality management, can save thousands of dollars, once implemented in a company. It focuses on simple statistical methods to analyze measure and improve the performance of all the processes throughout the organization,” said Patrick Donnally, managing director, Harrington Middle East. “It offers the participants proven methodologies designed to achieve or exceed their organization’s performance improvement goals.”

Harrington Middle East, established less than a year ago, is fully geared to train participants to apply the Six Sigma core strategies to their processes. At the end of the course, the participants are given the title of Green Belt. The participants are made to understand innovative tools, cause-and-effect analysis, trend analysis, process improvement tools and data analysis.

Selected employees, who are usually managers and team leaders, are thereafter chosen to attend an advanced programme for the Black Belt. The training covers project management, application management, team management and team building. They are then sent back to seek out and eliminate problems plaguing their organizations.

“The launch of regular Six Sigma courses marks a new stage in the development of Harrington Middle East as the international consulting firm with a full range of services targeting the entire Middle East region, with a strong focus on the GCC,” said Donnally. “We are also embarking on an expansion drive to cover other countries like Malaysia and Sudan.”

Dr. Harrington, who has written over 30 books on performance improvement, is currently working on a new book called “Organizational Excellence,” The title of the book also happens to be the motto of Harrington Middle East.

The Six Sigma methodology is a superior improvement approach that scores over the ISO 9000. The standard for quality has today improved from two percent defective in the 1940s to 00.0003 percent defective.

Until the Six Sigma methodology was accepted by business, processes that were producing more than 62 defects per 100,000 were acceptable. Now a Six Sigma process can produce less than 3.4 defects per million. This type of performance is expected not only from production but also from internal support departments and service organizations.