Six Sigma..

What is SIX SIGMA?
Well, it’s not too different from going to the doctor. What is seen as a problem is
often only the effect, or some times the symptom. Just as some doctors treat the
symptoms of the problem by prescribing symptomatic medicines to suppress the
problem, organisations often try to find quick fixes to some of their chronic problems.
As defined by Wikipedia, Six Sigma is a business management strategy originally

developed by Motorola, USA in 1986. As of 2010, it is widely used in many sectors
of industry.
Six Sigma seeks to improve the quality of process outputs by identifying and
removing the causes of defects (errors) and minimizing variability in manufacturing
and business processes. It uses a set of quality management methods,
including statistical methods and creates a special infrastructure of people within the
organization (“Black Belts”, “Green Belts”, etc.) who are experts in these
methods. Each Six Sigma project carried out within an organization follows a defined
sequence of steps and has quantified financial targets (cost reduction or profit
increase).
The term six sigma originated from terminology associated with manufacturing,
specifically terms 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. A six-sigma
process is one in which 99.99966% of the products manufactured are statistically
expected to be free of defects (3.4 defects per million). Motorola set a goal of “six
sigmas” for all of its manufacturing operations, and this goal became a byword for the
management and engineering practices used to achieve it.
However, Six Sigma gets to the root of the problem and deals with it at the very
fundamental level. And of course, instead of doctors, the people who work to heal,
expedite and optimize organisational processes are called black and green belts.
NOBODY’S PERFECT, BUT…
You can certainly make a real effort, with Six Sigma. Yes, the basic aim of adopting
Six Sigma is to take organisational processes to the level of near-perfection. Just like
other quality management approaches such as Kaizen and TPM, Six Sigma focuses on
people working in teams, and continuous improvement as the keys to attaining an
optimum point of functioning. This is critical not only for corporations, but also
sectors like healthcare, aviation, public utilities and others, where delivery and quality
of services offered are important. Often, a consultant’s assistance is sought, since
organisations usually don’t have the people and resources to implement Six Sigma on
their own.
Keep in mind here that Six Sigma is an ideal and many companies are around the 3-4
sigma level, which means that the numbers of errors per million ‘opportunities’ is
much more than in a five or six sigma organisation.
Another reason Six Sigma is so popular, is because it saves corporations megabucks.
Experts say that the target gains in profit for 2006–07 through Six Sigma are over a
million USD for the organisation. Six Sigma is chosen after carefully study, because it
supports our goal of a metric-based organisation, has a project approach which
provides us with milestone-based measurement, integrates well with our other
initiatives such as ISO and CMMI and is measurable (issues, problems, progress,
benefits etc), not open ended.
HOW IT’S DONE
Jack Welch’s directive that his GE managers could wriggle out of Six Sigma training
at the cost of losing their promotion only goes to show how important it is to enforce
this practice from the top.
The people involved in Six Sigma execution are
a) master black belts who are well versed in the rules of the game,
b) black belts (technically oriented individuals involved in the process of

organisational change and development) and
c) green belts (employees who lead six sigma project teams).
Experts have listed the high-level steps involved in implementing Six Sigma in an
organisation:
• Identify business goals from customer requirements

• Assess the current level of performance to determine the
gaps
• Identify improvement projects and prioritise
• Form Six Sigma improvement teams, comprising stakeholders, for each project
• Equip the Six Sigma improvement teams with Six Sigma training on methodologies
and tools
• Allocate Six Sigma specialist to support and guide the teams, sponsor to champion
the project
• Track progress of Six Sigma teams through management reviews and resolve issues
• Audit completed Six Sigma projects to ensure they have achieved the goals
• Reward and recognise Six Sigma teams
SIX SIGMA FUNDAS
• Strong customer-oriented approach that relies on data to create more efficient

processes or refine existing processes
• Under the prescribed specifications, there cannot be more than 3.4 defects (defined
as anything that doesn’t add value to the end customer), per million opportunities
• You can apply it to anything, from making a movie to manufacturing truck tyres!!!
• It needs the unstinted support of organizational leaders, and emphasizes teamwork
and lifelong evolution of practices and processes
CRITICISM – NOT A PERFECT SYSTEM
For all its wonders, Six Sigma is not invulnerable to weaknesses. A common criticism
against Six Sigma is its heavy focus on rigour and discipline related to methodology.
There are occasions when Six Sigma demands exhaustive data collection that can be
painstaking and formidable. On account of these there is a tendency for Six Sigma
projects to take longer time for completion than desired.Experts say that given its
current form, defining the problem is not very easy. Also the fact that only traditional
brainstorming for coming up with potential solutions to obtain solutions is another
weakness in the methodology.
The solution to this is probably to integrate Six Sigma with other tools and techniques
such as Lean, I-Triz, Taguchi Techniques, etc. Managers need to be absolutely clear
whether they’re ready to go the distance to execute Six Sigma in their organisations.
Managers question, “Why Six Sigma? What is there in it for me? Such questions or
similar ones need to be addressed by customised training, involving the right people
and selecting the right project the first time to show that it works across functions.
Implementing Six Sigma is like propagating a religion. Just like we can introduce
anybody to a religion, introducing any organisation to Six Sigma is easy; but just as it
is tough to meticulously practice a religion, practicing and ensuring that Six Sigma
becomes the DNA of the organisation is tough, and needs complete commitment and
belief in the methodology.
However, every system is prone to imperfections and many are of the opinion that Six
Sigma is ‘less imperfect’ when compared to other process improvement tools.
Features like customer-focus and bottom line-orientation are its primary strengths and
for all the criticism, corporates are willing to swear by it, at least for the moment.
Some critics have argued that the success of quality programs depends more on the
right organizational culture than on any corrective or preventive program. It means
that improvement results from the internalization of quality program. Six Sigma is not
merely a corrective program and it recognizes that cultural issues including leadership
development as the most important issues to be addressed to bring about
the improvement of any organization.
Critics have suggested that Six Sigma did not bring quality improvement in all the
organizations where it was implemented. However, in majority of these cases it is not
the tools which have failed but the mangers and other professionals failed to
implement them correctly.
Another technical criticism is that the normal distribution is simply a model and most
of the processes are not represented by it. Although it is fact that normal distribution
is a model but it is very useful and reasonable for many situations. Furthermore, any
realistic process model will predict a much larger probability of producing a product
outside the specifications.
So Happy Implementing Six Sigma

Six Sigma..

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Six Sigma..

Uploaded by

Document Information

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Six Sigma..

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

What is SIX SIGMA?

As defined by Wikipedia, Six Sigma is a business management strategy originally

NOBODY’S PERFECT, BUT…

HOW IT’S DONE

The people involved in Six Sigma execution are

b) black belts (technically oriented individuals involved in the process of

c) green belts (employees who lead six sigma project teams).

• Identify business goals from customer requirements

SIX SIGMA FUNDAS

• Strong customer-oriented approach that relies on data to create more efficient

So Happy Implementing Six Sigma

You might also like