Six Sigma was developed at Motorola in the late 1970s by Mikel Harry and Richard Schroeder and with-in four year of implementation; six sigma had saved Motorola $2.2 billion. Since then it has spread to other big manufacturing companies like – General Electric, Allied Signal, and Polaroid. And now a second wave of companies is aiming Six Sigma’s method at service process inside their company, like information technology services. A six sigma company is 10 thousand time better than an average company.
How 6σ Helps –
1. It maximizes success.
2. Increase customer retention
3. Higher Production
4. Increase Market Share, &
5. Lower Cost
In a company when 6σ is implemented, then they require 6σ Certified Professionals of various category (Belts) as per there role. There are different roles of different Belts, i.e.
Green Belt – They are the employees who have to incorporate Six Sigma into there KRA and need to focus on high impact project.
Black Belt – Are experts in implementing six sigma, who act as internal consultant, having aptitude to Statistics and are interested in process implementation.
Master Black Belt – Are the one who understand Philosophy of 6σ i.e. Principles and Goals. They act as Mentor or Trainer of Black Belts, They direct and steer project. They are the one who communicate status to Business Leadership. They formulate project team, utilize and disseminate Six Sigma Tools. They continuously drive business focus and are dedicated to quality. Finally they only have authority for Project Approval and Project Closure.
Process Capability
Six Sigma refer to a statistical measure called Process capability, i.e. How well the process is performing. We measure process capability by DPMO i.e. Defect per million opportunity.
What is a Process?
A particular method of doing something, generally involving a number of steps or operation.
What is Opportunity?
Opportunity is any characteristics of a process that is measured or tested.
What is Defect?
One of those characteristics that doesn’t meet the desired performance or outcome.
Thus,
Process Capability ---- DPMO
2σ ---- 3,08,537
3σ ---- 67,000
4σ ---- 6,200
5σ ---- 233
6σ ---- 3.4
It has been observed that an average company performing on 3.5σ
How effective is 6σ; learn by examples –
1. Talk about Mail Delivery
If a company works on 3.8 sigma, the 20,000 mails were lost per hour. But, if they use 6 sigma, there will be loss of only 7 mails per hour.
2. Talk about Electricity Cut
A company on 3.8 sigma scales led to power cut of 7 hrs/month, while the company on 6 sigma, there will be only 1hr. power cut in 34 years.
3. Talk of Surgery
A hospital with 3.8 sigma can go upto 5000 error in surgery per week, where as a hospital on 6 sigma works with 1.7 errors per week.
The 6σ involves data driven decisions, and its calculation involves Standard Deviation with Average.
The 6σ process starts with evaluation of customer need, then move to detailed analysis and improvement of internal business processes.
The 6σ Green Belt study involves five Phases or Process called DMAIC (Pron. as Duh-mi-ac)-
D – Define
M – Measure
A – Analyze
I – Improve
C – Control
Each phase involves 3 steps and thus every project goes through 15 steps in 5 process of DMAIC.
Define
Identify the Project CTQ
Develop a Team Charter
Creation of Process Map
Measure
Selecting CTQ Characteristics
Define Performance Standard
Establish Data Plan, Validate the Measurement System and Collect Data
Analyze
Evaluation of Process Capability
Defining Performance Objective
Identify the Variation Sources
Improve
Screen Potential Cause of variation
Examine Variable Relationship and Propose Solution
Establishing Operating Tolerance and Pilot Solution
Control
Validate the Measurement System of the Control Variables
Determination of Process Capability
Implementation of Process Control System
What is CTQ?
Critical to Quality i.e. the key characteristics required to meet the need of a customer.
