Six Sigma

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For other uses, see Sigma 6.
Not to be confused with 6S (methodology)
Six Sigma (6σ) is a set of techniques and tools for process improvement. It was introduced by engineer Bill
Smith while working atMotorola in 1980.[1][2] Jack Welch made it central to his business strategy at General
Electric in 1995. A six sigma process is one in which 99.99966% of all opportunities to produce some feature
of a part are statistically expected to be free of defects.
Six Sigma strategies seek to improve the quality of the output of a process by identifying and removing the
causes of defects and minimizing variability in manufacturing and business processes. It uses a set
of quality management methods, mainly empirical,statistical methods, and creates a special infrastructure
of people within the organization who are experts in these methods. Each Six Sigma project carried out
within an organization follows a defined sequence of steps and has specific value targets, for example:
reduce process cycle time, reduce pollution, reduce costs, increase customer satisfaction, and increase
profits.
The term Six Sigma (capitalized because it was written that way when registered as a Motorola trademark
on December 28, 1993) originated from terminology associated with statistical modeling of
manufacturing processes. The maturity of a manufacturing process can be described by a sigma rating
indicating its yield or the percentage of defect-free products it creates—specifically, within how many
standard deviations of a normal distribution the fraction of defect-free outcomes corresponds to. Motorola
set a goal of "six sigma" for all of its manufacturing.

Doctrine[edit]

The common Six Sigma symbol

Six Sigma doctrine asserts:

 Continuous efforts to achieve stable and predictable process results (e.g. by reducing process variation) are
of vital importance to business success.
 Manufacturing and business processes have characteristics that can be defined, measured, analyzed,
improved, and controlled.
 Achieving sustained quality improvement requires commitment from the entire organization, particularly from
top-level management.

Features that set Six Sigma apart from previous quality-improvement initiatives include:
 A clear focus on achieving measurable and quantifiable financial returns from any Six Sigma project.
 An increased emphasis on strong and passionate management leadership and support.
 A clear commitment to making decisions on the basis of verifiable data and statistical methods, rather than
assumptions and guesswork.

The term "six sigma" comes from statistics and is used in statistical quality control, which evaluates process
capability. Originally, it referred to the ability of manufacturing processes to produce a very high proportion of
output within specification. Processes that operate with "six sigma quality" over the short term are assumed to
produce long-term defect levels below 3.4 defects per million opportunities (DPMO). The 3.4 dpmo is based on
a "shift" of ± 1.5 sigma created by the psychologist Dr Mikel Harry. He created this figure based on the tolerance
in the height of a stack of discs.[3][4] Six Sigma's implicit goal is to improve all processes, but not to the 3.4 DPMO
level necessarily. Organizations need to determine an appropriate sigma level for each of their most important
processes and strive to achieve these. As a result of this goal, it is incumbent on management of the organization
to prioritize areas of improvement.

"Six Sigma" was registered June 11, 1991 as U.S. Service Mark 1,647,704. In 2005 Motorola attributed over
US$17 billion in savings to Six Sigma.[5]

Other early adopters of Six Sigma include Honeywell and General Electric, where Jack Welch introduced the
method.[6] By the late 1990s, about two-thirds of the Fortune 500organizations had begun Six Sigma initiatives
with the aim of reducing costs and improving quality.[7]

In recent years, some practitioners have combined Six Sigma ideas with lean manufacturing to create a
methodology named Lean Six Sigma.[8] The Lean Six Sigma methodology views lean manufacturing, which
addresses process flow and waste issues, and Six Sigma, with its focus on variation and design, as
complementary disciplines aimed at promoting "business and operational excellence". [8]

In 2011, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has published the first standard "ISO
13053:2011" defining a Six Sigma process.[9] Other standards have been created mostly by universities or
companies that have first-party certification programs for Six Sigma.

Six Sigma
Six Sigma is a disciplined, statistical-based, data-driven approach and continuous improvement
methodology for eliminating defects in a product, process or service. It was developed by Motorola
and Bill Smith in the early 1980’s based on quality management fundamentals, then became a
popular management approach at General Electric (GE) with Jack Welch in the early 1990’s. The
approach was based on the methods taught by W. Edwards Deming, Walter Shewhart and Ronald
Fisher among many others. Hundreds of companies around the world have adopted Six Sigma as a
way of doing business.

Sigma represents the population standard deviation, which is a measure of the variationin a data set
collected about the process. If a defect is defined by specification limits separating good from bad
outcomes of a process, then a six sigma process has a process mean (average) that is six standard
deviations from the nearest specification limit. This provides enough buffer between the process
natural variation and the specification limits.

For example, if a product must have a thickness between 10.32 and 10.38 inches to meet customer
requirements, then the process mean should be around 10.35, with a standard deviation less than
0.005 (10.38 would be 6 standard deviations away from 10.35), assuming a normal distribution.

Six Sigma can also be thought of as a measure of process performance, with Six Sigma being the goal,
based on the defects per million. Once the current performance of the process is measured, the goal
is to continually improve the sigma level striving towards 6 sigma. Even if the improvements do not
reach 6 sigma, the improvements made from 3 sigma to 4 sigma to 5 sigma will still reduce costs and
increase customer satisfaction.
http://leansixsigmadefinition.com/glossary/six-sigma/

Total Quality Through Six Sigma

Some argue that many of the tools Six Sigma uses are not new. However, while Six Sigma uses
conventional methods, its application is anything but conventional. Instead it stresses the
importance of searching for a new way of thinking and doing. In fact, Six Sigma defines a clear
road map to achieve Total Quality:

1. Leadership Commitment: Top management not only initiates Six Sigma deployment, it also
plays an active role in the whole deployment cycle. Six Sigma starts by providing senior
leadership with training in the principles and tools it needs to direct the development of a
management infrastructure to support Six Sigma. This involves reducing the levels of
organizational hierarchy and removing procedural barriers to experimentation and change.
2. Customer Focus: Systems are developed for establishing close communications with “external
customers” (direct customers, end-users, suppliers, regulatory bodies, etc), and with internal
customers (employees). From upstream suppliers to ultimate end-users, Six Sigma eliminates
the opportunities for defects.
3. Strategic Deployment: Six Sigma targets a small number of high-financial leveraged items. It
focuses the company’s resources: right support, right people, right project, and right tools, on
identifying and improving performance metrics that relate to bottom-line success.
4. Integrated Infrastructure: The Leadership Team defines and reviews project progress. The
Champion acts as a political leader and removes the barriers for the project team. The Master
Black Belt acts as a technical coach and provides in-depth knowledge of quality tools. The Black
Belt controls the project while the Green Belt supports the Black Belt - together they form the
Six Sigma Project Teams. In addition, the incentive and recognition systems motivate the project
teams to achieve the business goals.
5. Disciplined Framework: Six Sigma projects are Implemented using the Measure, Analyze,
Improve and Control disciplined road map. This MAIC discipline sets up a clear protocol to
facilitate internal communication. In addition, from a business perspective, Six Sigma is also a
framework for continuous business improvement.
6. Education and Training: Six Sigma believes that true commitment is driven by true
understanding. As a fact-based methodology, it intensively utilizes quality and statistical tools to
 transform a practical problem to a practical solution. Thus, a top-to-bottom training is
conducted in Six Sigma philosophy and system improvement techniques for all levels.

In conclusion, Six Sigma’s approach and deployment makes it distinguishable from other quality
initiatives. The Six Sigma approach involves the use of statistical tools within a structured
methodology for gaining the knowledge needed to achieve better, faster, and less expensive
products and services than the competition. The repeated, disciplined application of the master
strategy on project after project, where the projects are selected based on key business objectives,
is what drives dollars to the bottom line, resulting in impressive profits. Moreover, fueled by the
bottom line improvement, top management will continuously be committed to this approach, the
work culture will be constantly nurtured, customers will definitely be satisfied, and Total Quality
will ultimately be achieved.

Six Sigma VS. Total Quality Management (TQM)

In some aspects of quality improvement, TQM and Six Sigma share the same philosophy of how
to assist organizations to accomplish Total Quality. They both emphasize the importance of top-
management support and leadership. Both approaches make it clear that continuous quality
improvement is critical to long-term business success. However, why has the popularity of TQM
waned while Six Sigma's popularity continues to grow in the past decade?

T. Pyzdek (Why Six Sigma is Not TQM, 2001) stated that the primary difference is management.
Unlike TQM, Six Sigma was not developed by technicians who only dabbled in management
and therefore produced only broad guidelines for management to follow. The Six Sigma way of
implementation was created by some of America's most gifted CEOs - people like Motorola's
Bob Galvin, Allied Signal's Larry Bossidy, and GE's Jack Welch. These people had a single goal
in mind: making their businesses as successful as possible. Once they were convinced that tools
and techniques of Six Sigma could help them do this, they developed a framework to make it
happen.

The differences between TQM and Six Sigma are summarized in Table 7.1.

Table 7.1: TQM vs. Six Sigma

TQM Six Sigma
A functional specialty within the An infrastructure of dedicated change
organization. agents. Focuses on cross-functional value
delivery streams rather than functional
division of labour.
 Focuses on quality. Focuses on strategic goals and applies them
to cost, schedule and other key business
metrics.

Motivated by quality idealism. Driven by tangible benefit far a major

stockholder group (customers,
shareholders, and employees).

Loosely monitors progress toward Ensures that the investment produces the
goals. expected return.

People are engaged in routine “Slack” resources are created to change key
duties (Planning, improvement, and business processes and the organization
control). itself.

Emphasizes problem solving. Emphasizes breakthrough rates of

improvement.

Focuses on standard performance, Focuses on world class performance, e.g.,

e.g. ISO 9000. 3.4 PPM error rate.

Quality is a permanent, full-time Six Sigma job is temporary. Six Sigma is a

job. Career path is in the quality stepping-stone; career path leads
profession. elsewhere.

Provides a vast set of tools and Provides a selected subset of tools and
techniques with no clear framework techniques and a clearly defined framework
for using them effectively. for using them to achieve results (DMAIC).

Goals are developed by quality Goals flow down from customers and senior
department based on quality leadership's strategic objectives. Goals and
criteria and the assumption that metrics are reviewed at the enterprise level
what is good for quality is good for to assure that local sub-optimization does
the organization. not occur.

Developed by technical personnel. Developed by CEOs.

Focuses on long-term results. Six Sigma looks for a mix of short-term and
Expected payoff is not well-defined. long-term results, as dictated by business
demands.

http://www.pqa.net/ProdServices/sixsigma/W06002011.html