Six Sigma – Understanding Six Sigma and How Effective it Is in Business Management

Six Sigma is a business management technique which works to improve the overall quality of production output. It is a process, originally developed by Motorola, to identify and remove causes of variation and defects in manufactured products; and has actually has gained a universal recognition in doing so.

The concept of Six Sigma revolves around the use of a number of other quality management processes including statistical methods such as data collection, tables, and charts. When implemented within organisations, Six Sigma projects usually involve following a set of defined sequence of steps – with quantified targets. Such targets might be to improve product quality and production process, or even financial conditions.

Basically, the central idea behind Six Sigma is that if an organisation can measure how many "defects" there can be in a process, then it can easily and systematically identify ways to eliminate them; with an aim of reaching as close to "zero or no defects" as possible.

To achieve what is referred in quality management world as “Six Sigma Quality”, a process must produce no more than 3.4 defects per million opportunities. In this case, an "opportunity" may be defined as the chances of the products or processes not conforming to, or meeting, the required specifications which means Six Sigma quality management demands that a process be as close to perfection as possible in every aspect.

 How to Implement Six Sigma:

Before each step of implementing Six Sigma is identified here, it is recommended that everything involving the project is properly documented for future reference.

Without further ado, Six Sigma projects follow two project methodologies inspired by Deming's renowned “Plan-Do-Check-Act” Cycle. Each methodology is made up of five phases and is represented by the acronyms DMAIC and DMADV. It may help to know that DMAIC is used mainly for projects aimed at improving existing manufacturing processes while DMADV, on the other hand, is used for projects aimed at creating new product or process designs.

DMAIC – Each of the acronyms are described briefly below

• Define – define the problem at hand, from both customers and process perspective.

• Measure – measure the current process and collect relevant data.

• Analyse – involves analysing the data collected in an attempt to determine their relationship to the problem and how to solve it.

• Improve – based on the data collected and the analysis, the problem should then be tackled so as to improve the whole process.

• Control – controlling the future state of the process to prevent any deviation from target will ensure that the process remains on course.

DMADV - On the other hand, the acronyms in this methodology stand for:

• Define – This is same as the one earlier except it involves defining the design goal to meet the customers’ needs and manufacturing process.

• Measure – this involves identifying risks, production process capability and product capabilities.

• Analyze - After creating the designs, each of them is to be analysed; with the best possible one being picked for implementation.

• Design - once a design’s chosen, it is necessary to optimize it while planning for the next phase. This step may require simulations using certain software or prototype.

• Verify - the design, set up pilot runs, implement the production process and hand it over to the process owners.

5S - Process or a large part of Kaizen
Lean Manufacturing - Helps develope lean process
Poke-Yoka - Process to help find average timing