Chapter 1: Overview of Six Sigma


Overview

Few quality-focused initiatives have generated as much interest and debate as six sigma. This methodology, developed at Motorola, has been adopted by companies such as General Electric, Allied-Signal, Ford Motor Company and others. It is routinely debated in periodicals, and dozens of books, courses and consulting firms promote it. However, many executives, managers and engineers still do not understand what six sigma is or how it can help them.

The basic elements of six sigma are not new—statistical process control, failure mode effects analyses, gage repeatability and reproducibility studies and other tools and methodologies have been in use for some time. Six sigma offers a framework that unites these basic quality tools with high-level management support. The keys to the program's success are the commitment of resources and a rigorous methodology to identify and eliminate sources of variability.

The practitioner of the six sigma methodology in any organization should expect to see the use of old and established tools and approaches in the pursuit of continual improvement and customer satisfaction. So much so that even TQM (total quality management) is revisited as a foundation of some of the approaches. In fact, one may define six sigma as "TQM on steroids." However, it must be emphasized over and over again that the difference between the established quality initiatives and six sigma is the packaging of the tools, the systematic implementation of the tools, a commitment to extensive training and, perhaps the most important ingredient of them all, the commitment of the executives in the organization. This commitment is quite unique—quality initiatives in the past have been identified and promoted but were never made available to the boardrooms of American organizations, until the six sigma.

It is this presence in the boardroom that has made the difference, because suddenly we are all looking at specific ROI (return on investment) that can help the organization through specialized projects. This is indeed a new approach.

However, what is six sigma? In the narrow statistical sense, six sigma is a quality objective that identifies the variability of a process in terms of the specifications of the product, so that product quality and reliability meet and exceed today's demanding customer requirements. Specifically, six sigma refers to a process capability that generates 3.4 defects per million opportunities. Most organizations today operate in the four-to-five sigma range (6,000–67,000 defects per million opportunities); moving to six sigma is a challenge. The DMAIC (define, measure, analyze, improve and control) process is the key to achieving this breakthrough improvement in performance. It is a nonlinear process—if any step yields new information, earlier steps in the process must be reevaluated.

Successful use of the data-driven six sigma concepts helps organizations to eliminate waste, hidden rework and undesirable variability in their processes, resulting in quality and cost improvements, driving continued success. The following sections examine the six sigma methodology in detail.




Six Sigma Fundamentals. A Complete Guide to the System, Methods and Tools
Six Sigma Fundamentals: A Complete Introduction to the System, Methods, and Tools
ISBN: 156327292X
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 144
Authors: D.H. Stamatis

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