Six Sigma

Six Sigma

Six Sigma is a set of practices that are used to improve the quality of a product. It was created in 1986 by Bill Smith, who was a senior engineer at Motorola. By using Six Sigma, a company attempts to reduce variation in the process outputs, control, measure and improve manufacturing and business processes, and that success with Six Sigma is achieved by commitment of everyone in the company. To reach Six Sigma, a process in a company must produce no more than 3.4 defects per million opportunities. The definition of a defect is something that is not within the customer's specifications. It is called Six Sigma because sigma is the standard deviation and if one is six standard deviations from the mean process and specification limit, then there should be no items that are defects.

To achieve the goal of Six Sigma, companies create methodologies. There are many different types of methodologies that are use to achieve it. There are two key methodologies that are used, which are DMAIC and DMADV. DMAIC stands for define, measure, analyze, improve and control. The company must define the improvement goals for the company. The company must measure current processes to compare with future processes. The company must analyze relationships and make sure that all factors have been considered. The company must improve processes and relationships and the company must control the processes to make sure things are corrected before they become defects. DMADV stands for define, measure, analyze, design, and verify. The define, measure and analyze steps are the same as the first methodology but design and verify are different. The company must design the process that will be used to meet the customers' needs. The company must also verify the designs ability and performance to meet the customers' needs.

These methodologies seem to be quite similar in the fact that the first three steps are the same and they both use a lot of data, but they are different. Each should be used in different activities. DMAIC should be used when a process or product already exists in the company, but is not performing correctly or meeting customer satisfaction. It also measures the performance of a business process instead of customer needs. This methodology is also used to find the source of the problem. DMADV should be used when a process or product does not exist and needs to be or when DMAIC is used and was not successful in meeting the customers' needs or satisfactions. DMADV is used to measure customer satisfaction as well as specifications. The main use of DMADV is to measure and fix things that apply to customer satisfaction, while DMAIC applies to the basic and root of the problems.

There are many different roles in the implementation of Six Sigma in a company. Many position and roles are labeled the same as in martial arts. The first role is the executive leadership, also known as sponsor. This role includes the CEO of the company as well as other top managers. They set the up the implementation of Six Sigma and oversee the other roles in the implementation. Champions, or leader, implement Six Sigma throughout the company through integrations. Master black belts devote their whole time to Six Sigma. They assist the champions and help out the people in the lower roles. Black belts act as the team leaders on Six Sigma projects. They also devote all their time to Six Sigma and concentrate on execution. Green belts work part time on Six Sigma and help black belts achieve their goals. They also lead smaller projects at some points. Yellow belts are trained in Six Sigma, but have not participated in Six Sigma projects. All of the roles are important in the implementation