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Abstract: The rapidly changing
competitive landscape, the need to bring products to market faster
with higher quality, increasingly complex partnerships and the
pressure to manage spending down while continuing to do more each
year motivated the Cox Communications Information Technology
Department to examine Six Sigma as a process improvement approach.
The resulting improvements in software and information technology
have been stunning but the road to success was cluttered with
obstacles. Real examples of quality improvements in I.T. processes
will be used to demonstrate the value of overcoming the obstacles.
A discussion of the challenges facing process improvement
initiatives focuses on two key points. First, business managers
are fascinated with the current state of affairs versus data about
their process over time. Second, many commonly accepted
measurement systems are fatally flawed but faithfully utilized.
Several non-technical examples are used to illustrate both
challenges.
The good news is that there is a light at the end of the tunnel
and such techniques as Continuous Process Improvement incentives
work. The "quality dividend" is the ultimate payoff and
will be discussed. A live case on how incentives have been used to
drive incremental benefits will be presented.
Bio: Tom Guthrie joined Cox in 2002
as Vice President of Information Technology Operations. In this
position, he manages 200 information technology professionals and
is responsible for training, deployment, operations and support of
computer systems, services, networks, and applications.
Tom has been implementing Six Sigma programs in high technology
companies since 1996. He brought Six Sigma to Cox Communications
in 2002 and has been the executive sponsor for process improvement
initiatives and programs at Cox which have generated over $10M in
benefits in 2006 alone.
Guthrie has been involved in systems engineering and information
technology management for more than 20 years. Guthrie has a broad
base of education and experience in engineering and information
technology with degrees from the United States Military at West
Point and the University of Virginia. |
