Walt Kelly

7/31/2019 Walt Kelly

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Walt Kelly's "Pogo" got it right a long time ago: We have met the enemy, and he isus. It's unfortunate that the quality community hasn't recognized that evaluativemethods and tools don't improve quality. Organizations improve quality by usingmethods and tools consistently to emphasize planning and refine their designs, not byappraising quality. Quality is only improved when the organizational culture iscommitted to change and is willing to make quality a priority characteristic or a metricthroughout the entire organization. There are no shortcuts or silver bullets. If qualitymatters, it should be a way of life.

It's a travesty to see so many resources being wasted in the name of quality when it'sstill viewed as an appraisal system. Twenty years ago, quality-methodologyinnovation and implementation were second to none, yet quality was (as it still is) aproblem. This remained true even when the quality "gurus" (Joseph M. Juran, W.Edwards Deming, Armand V. Feigenbaum, Philip Crosby and others) introduced

innovative ideas to address quality in the planning stages--that is, building quality intodesign, not simply monitoring it at the manufacturing level.

Similarly, ISO 9000 and QS-9000 had flashy introductions but fell short on delivery.They created a generation of overwhelming paper trails but offered no major qualitybreakthroughs. Organizations fell in love with the process but forgot the purpose ofISO 9000, which is to increase the effectiveness of quality systems.

We reinvent the wheel with each new quality fad, but we give it a new name in thehope that the name will help us beat the competition. Unfortunately, the more wechange, the more we stay the same. We've supposedly reduced the use of in-house

inspections because they're a waste of time and resources, but third-party inspectionhouses constitute a booming industry.

Now a new wave of quality methodology, Six Sigma, is "revolutionizing" manyorganizations. That's a shame--most consultants know it's simply a repackaging of oldconcepts, but they play along because it's highly marketed, and, for the short-term,there's a great deal of money to be made.

Six Sigma presents absolutely nothing new to the quality field of defect prevention.It's little more than an old appraisal methodology that focuses on problems afterthey've already occurred. Some claim it subverts the old paradigm of horizontalintegration by focusing on vertical integration, but (although vertical integration, orexecutive accountability, is an important issue that's worth exploring) Six Sigma is nota revolutionary concept.

Six Sigma is a marketing ploy that has mesmerized many quality professionals for atleast two reasons. First, it offers easy money, because both the training andqualification are controlled as though the concepts are unique and innovative and canonly be understood, taught and implemented in one way. In reality, many consultants


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who promote the Six Sigma methodology lack consistency in their training materialsand course content, and they themselves lack a knowledge base to build on. Second,Six Sigma sounds impressive because some major corporations claim exceptionalreturns on their Six Sigma investments. Although it's true that some companies--andthey constitute a small percentage of the whole--have had exceptional returns on

investment, they only experienced such a tremendous turnaround because theyattacked the simplest, easiest-to-solve problems first, and their quality levels were solow that anything they tried would have been a success.

Two of the leading proponents of Six Sigma, Mikel Harry and Richard Schroeder,define Six Sigma in their bookSix Sigma: The Breakthrough Management StrategyRevolutionizing the World's Top Corporations as "a business process that allowscompanies to drastically improve their bottom line by designing and monitoringeveryday business activities in ways that minimize waste and resources whileincreasing customer satisfaction." Obviously, quality improvement and cost efficiency

should be inherent in the design process, but can't this be attained with other proveninitiatives? For example, organizations that follow the benchmarking process canimprove their bottom line by at least 30 percent. Whatever the initiative, if topmanagement is sloppy in defining quality expectations and is not held accountable forbad decisions, quality will suffer.

Harry and Schroeder argue that those in the financial community are impatient forresults and only the Six Sigma approach will satisfy them. It's nave to assume that thefinancial community is unaware of the dangers of the abandonment and misuse ofotherwise sound programs designed to improve productivity, effectiveness andemployee morale. It's unlikely that this relatively new phenomenon will take over the

executive culture and revolutionize organizations' bottom lines--it didn't work whenthe goal was at three sigma; how in the world is it going to work at the six sigmalevel?

The following is a list of some of the highly useful programs that have beenintroduced but have been implemented inappropriately because of organizationalissues or internal culture wars:

Failure mode and effect analysis (FMEA) can help identify problems before theyoccur. It can save billions of dollars if applied properly and appropriately. A recentcase in the automotive industry, a product liability suit worth more than $5 billion (a

far cry from the average $175,000 savings per Six Sigma project), exemplifies theimportance of FMEA.

The eight-discipline approach to problem solving is the workhorse of theautomotive industry. If it's done properly, not only will problems be resolved, but theywill be resolved for good. Millions of dollars, not mere thousands, are waiting to besaved.


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Value engineering/value analysis is the financial workhorse of marginalprofitability. If done properly, it can save billions of dollars from design throughmanufacturing.

Robust designs, in conjunction with design for manufacturability parameter and

tolerance methodologies, will optimize designs and maximize profits every time, allthe time. However, they must be done early in the planning stages.

Harry and Schroeder further define Six Sigma as "a disciplined method of usingextremely rigorous data-gathering and statistical analysis to pinpoint sources of errorsand ways of eliminating them." Again, this is nothing new--quality professionals havetried for at least the last 30 years to come up with quality metrics and methodologiesto do precisely that. Most of their efforts have been wasted not due to weak tools ormethodologies or statistics but due to lack of management support.

Quality gets discussed but is seldom internalized; it's usually placed on the backburner and serves only to use management power that already exists in the concepts ofconformance and nonconformance and cost of quality. Quality plays second fiddle inany organization that focuses on corrective actions, and that's exactly what Six Sigmais: another prescriptive corrective action. As long as management isn't rewarded forcost avoidance, nothing will change.

Table 1 illustrates that the Six Sigma breakthrough is nothing more than arepackaging of the automotive methodologies of advanced product quality planning(APQP), problem solving and statistical process control (SPC). I challenge anyone tofind any differences between the benefits of the Six Sigma model and the Quality

Operating System that Ford Motor Co. introduced in the early 1990s. There aren't any.Not only is Six Sigma startlingly similar, but APQP is actually more precise becauseit ties all deliverables of a particular phase to a timing milestone.

Table 1: Alternate Means of Achieving Six Sigma Goals


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The vertical integration of the top executives differs among the methodologies in

Table 1, but that's a cultural issue within the organization. It's this cultural issue thatprevents quality from being central in any organization. We give quality a great dealof lip service because it's "the right thing to do," but we all know that it's typically anafterthought--how else can we explain the fact that we have so much warranty costand so many customer complaints even after so many quality programs have beenimplemented and so many millions of dollars have been spent in the name of quality?The answer, of course, is lack of management commitment and appropriate culturalenvironment for quality to grow and become part of the status quo. Because timing,production and cost are the true driving forces, we keep regurgitating old tools andmethodologies to divert attention from the real problems.

Defects per unit (DPU) and defects per million opportunities (DPMO) are goodexamples of repackaged old tools. In fact, anybody who has done any attributecharting will recognize them as the u-chart. Further, the concept of a "defect" takes usback at least 20 years--we don't talk about defects in modern quality; now we addressour problems as nonconformities.


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The automotive industry recognized the concept of the 1.5-sigma shift in the mid-1980s, evaluated it and deemed it unacceptable. Furthermore, the amount and type ofshift are matters of discovery, not of assumption.

Six Sigma proponents don't understand that modern-day quality is a planning-

oriented activity rather than an appraisal activity. Modern-day quality focuses onoptimization of resources through robustness rather than by defining defects in aparticular way. They don't understand that training in specific tools and specificmethodologies won't have favorable results unless the personnel trained in the toolsand methodologies are allowed to utilize them in the improvement process on aconsistent basis.

Furthermore, by focusing on specification limits, Six Sigma dismisses GenichiTaguchi's loss function, which targets uniformity around a nominal with no referencesto specifications. Indeed, Six Sigma takes us backward.

Many programs and processes have been tried over the years. Some have beensuccessful, some have been failures and still others are lingering. No one knows whataffect the marketing blitz surrounding Six Sigma will have in the quality world.However, one thing is certain: Six Sigma is getting management's attention bypromising to focus on bottom-line results. Let's hope it works this time and doesn'tend up being just another flavor of the month. To succeed despite all of themethodology's shortcomings, users must accept that the major contributing factor isnot so much the methodology itself but the politics of the organization's internalculture.

Will Six Sigma work in manufacturing? No one knows for sure. But let's look at the

automotive industry--usually an early adopter of new quality methodologies. No oneis nave enough to believe that the automotive industry' problems will be resolvedwith this new methodology. After all, for the last 20 years, the top five warranty itemshave been the same. We know what the problems are, but no one is willing to fixthem. We know that recent figures in warranty costs for the U.S. automotivecompanies are hovering at about $5 billion annually per company, yet no one is reallyaddressing these issues.

We've come to accept the notion of short-term Six Sigma as 0.001 DPMO and long-term Six Sigma as 3.4 DPMO. We've forgotten that, in practical terms, there's nothingoutside of three sigma.

We don't need the Six Sigma methodology to save millions of dollars annually byavoiding tuning engines and then detuning the same engines when we couple themwith the transmissions. We need to invest in improving the transmissions rather thanwasting funds in engines.


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We don't need the Six Sigma methodology to save millions of dollars annually byavoiding reducing the unsold automobiles sitting on the parking lots; instead, we needto produce vehicles that meet customer requirements rather than plant counts.

We don't need the Six Sigma methodology to improve efficiency and productivity in

our products; rather, we need to stop issuing "letters of deviation" and "waivers" fromour specifications (especially at the product submittal warrant stage). Every time thesedeviations occur, we are introducing mistakes and "off specifications"--that is,nonconforming--parts. A recent study by Prescient Technologies on more than 3,300product models from aerospace, automotive, consumer products and electronicindustries worldwide showed that more than 90 percent failed company-definedstandards. We are continually building products with nonconformances from the get-go without anyone being held accountable.

We don't need the Six Sigma methodology to improve throughput and timing. Rather,we need to stick to the milestones of timing and follow the guidelines of APQP. We

need management's commitment for consistency and concern for improvement.

We don't need the Six Sigma methodology for transactional problems such as payingsuppliers within 90 days to 120 days; rather, we need to recognize that suppliers haveto be paid on timely basis.

So, what are we to do with this Six Sigma phenomenon? We need to recognize it forwhat it is--an appraisal tool that does nothing for prevention--and use it only when it'sappropriate and applicable. It's not a panacea, and it won't bring spectacular results inmost organizations. A better way to report progress on a breakthrough project is toexhibit the before-and-after pictures without any financial report manipulations. We

all must understand that some cases require problem solutions rather than root-causesolutions. We need problem solvers utilizing statistical thinking, not root-causeproblem solvers dealing in high-level statistical analysis. This is especially true withtransactions.

To solve actual problems, it takes more than one method, one observation, one studyor one experiment. To demonstrate improvement, one must wait to see the processdeveloping and confirm the results based on verification of the "fix." Storytellingalone won't do it. We need to invest a great deal of thought and set achievablemeasurables on a good target to track the improvement.

References

Deming, W.E. Out of Crisis.MIT CAES: Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1982.

Harry, M. and R. Schroeder. Six Sigma: The Breakthrough Management StrategyRevolutionizing the World's Top Corporations.Doubleday: New York, 1999.

Neave, H.R. The Deming Dimension. SPC Press: Knoxville, Tennessee, 1990.


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How does Six Sigma work?

Six Sigma starts at the top of an organization and requires constant attention by seniormanagers who are responsible for establishing the Six Sigma culture. In addition, seniormanagement must enable the creation of an infrastructure to support Six Sigma

improvement projects.

Return to topWhat are some mistakes companies make when they implement Six Sigma?

Here are the top reasons why Six Sigma does not work:

Thinking that six sigma is just using the tools and ignoring the improvementcultural component.

Seeing Six Sigma as a temporary activity rather than a way of on-goingbusiness operations.

Not understanding the power and importance of data and statistics. Assigning responsibilities to implement Six Sigma without giving the authorityand training necessary to carry through on Six Sigma efforts. Not measuring processes or ignoring the story the measurers are telling. Not linking compensation to six sigma performance.

Return to top

How can my company get started implementing Six Sigma?

The first step in implementing Six Sigma is learning how it works and buying into thephilosophy. While there are many resource available to satisfy this need, one of the best

references is a book called Six Sigma: The Breakthrough Management StrategyRevolutionizing the World's Top Corporations by Mikel Harry.

Return to top

What is the best way to teach people how to use Six Sigma?

Six Sigma covers a broad range of topics beginning with a general overview of what six

sigma is and then going into specific detailed topics related to the environment, tools, andinfrastructure of six sigma. Resource Engineering has developed computer-based trainingprograms to support Six Sigma efforts including theSix Sigma Start-Up. One of the

foundations of the Six Sigma philosophy is statistics and statistical process control. SPCWorkoutis a computer-based training program on the use and application of SPC inmanufacturing. Another cornerstone of the Six Sigma philosophy is preventing problemsfrom occurring rather than waiting for them to occur and then having to detect them and

eliminate them. Mistake-Proofing is a Six Sigma tool that helps teams identify andimplement solutions that make it impossible to make mistakes. Failure Mode and EffectsAnalysis (FMEA) is a natural precursor to Mistake-Proofing as it provides a means for

analyzing failure potential and prioritizing potential failures based on severity, chance ofoccurrence, and ability to detect the failure before it occurs. Resource Engineering hascomputer-based training programs on both Mistake-Proofingand FMEA. Accurate

measurements and a reliable measurement system is also a critical part of the Six Sigma

formula. Gage Mentorteaches people how to use and manage gages and other measuringequipment.
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six sigma

six sigma training, history, definitions - six

sigma and quality management glossarySix Sigma is now according to many business development and qualityimprovement experts, the most popular management methodology in history.Six Sigma is certainly a very big industry in its own right, and Six Sigma isnow an enormous 'brand' in the world of corporate development. Six Sigmabegan in 1986 as a statistically-based method to reduce variation in electronicmanufacturing processes in Motorola Inc in the USA. Today, twenty-something years on, Six Sigma is used as an all-encompassing businessperformance methodology, all over the world, in organizations as diverse as

local government departments, prisons, hospitals, the armed forces, banks,and multi-nationals corporations. While Six Sigma implementation continuesapace in many of the world's largest corporations, many organizations andsuppliers in the consulting and training communities have also seized on theSix Sigma concept, to package and provide all sorts of Six Sigma 'branded'training products and consultancy and services. Six Sigma has also spawnedmanay and various business books on the subject. Six Sigma, it might seem,is taking over the world.

Interestingly while Six Sigma has become a very widely used 'generic' term,

the name Six Sigma is actually a registered trademark of Motorola Inc., in theUSA, who first pioneered Six Sigma methods in the 1980's. The original andtechnically correct spelling seems to be Six Sigma, rather than 6 Sigma,although in recent years Motorola and GE have each since developed theirown sexy Six Sigma logos using the number six and the Greek sigmacharacter s.

Six Sigma is now a global brand and something of a revolution. But what isSix Sigma?...

six sigma definitions

The answer is that Six Sigma is lots of things.


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First, Six Sigma is arguably a very clever way of branding and packagingmany aspects of Total Quality Management that exist in their own right,regardless of the development of Six Sigma. Read the section aboutTotalQuality Management and 'Excellence'and you will understand this.

Six Sigma is lots of different things because it had different meanings overtime, and also because it is now interpreted in increasingly different ways.And Six Sigma is still evolving.

The UK Department for Trade and Industry says Six Sigma is:

"A data-driven method for achieving near perfect quality. Six Sigma analysiscan focus on any element of production or service, and has a strong emphasison statistical analysis in design, manufacturing and customer-orientedactivities." June 2005.

Here's theDTI fact-sheet on Six Sigma- please note this isCrown copyright.

Motorola Inc., who first developed the methodology in the mid-late1980's andwho provide extensive Six Sigma training and consultancy services, providethe following definitions:

six sigma according to motorola

"...Six Sigma has evolved over the last two decades and so has its definition.Six Sigma has literal, conceptual, and practical definitions. At MotorolaUniversity (Motorola's Six Sigma training and consultancy division), we thinkabout Six Sigma at three different levels:

As a metric As a methodology As a management systemEssentially, Six Sigma is all three at the same time."

"...Six Sigma as a Metric: The term "Sigma" is often used as a scale for levelsof 'goodness' or quality. Using this scale, 'Six Sigma' equates to 3.4 defectsper one million opportunities (DPMO). Therefore, Six Sigma started as adefect reduction effort in manufacturing and was then applied to otherbusiness processes for the same purpose.."
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"...Six Sigma as a Methodology: As Six Sigma has evolved, there has beenless emphasis on the literal definition of 3.4 DPMO, or counting defects inproducts and processes. Six Sigma is a business improvement methodologythat focuses an organization on:

Understanding and managing customer requirements Aligning key business processes to achieve those requirements Utilizing rigorous data analysis to minimize variation in those processes Driving rapid and sustainable improvement to business processes..""..At the heart of the methodology is the DMAIC model for processimprovement. DMAIC is commonly used by Six Sigma project teams and is anacronym for:

Define opportunity Measure performance Analyze opportunity Improve performance Control performance..""...Six Sigma Management System: Through experience, Motorola has learnedthat disciplined use of metrics and application of the methodology is still not

enough to drive desired breakthrough improvements and results that aresustainable over time. For greatest impact, Motorola ensures that processmetrics and structured methodology are applied to improvement opportunitiesthat are directly linked to the organizational strategy. When practiced as amanagement system, Six Sigma is a high performance system for executingbusiness strategy. Six Sigma is a top-down solution to help organizations:

Align their business strategy to critical improvement efforts Mobilize teams to attack high impact projects Accelerate improved business results Govern efforts to ensure improvements are sustained..""..The Six Sigma Management System drives clarity around the businessstrategy and the metrics that most reflect success with that strategy. Itprovides the framework to prioritize resources for projects that will improve


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six sigma according to isixsigma

The Isixsigma organisation, which seems to be the biggest online 'community'of Six Sigma practitioners, was founded in 2000, and is owned and run by a

number of 'quality professionals'. Isixsigma provides the following maindefinition of Six Sigma (which actually serves as an introduction to severalother very detailed Six Sigma definitions contained in the Isixsigmaresources):

"...Six Sigma is a rigorous and disciplined methodology that uses data andstatistical analysis to measure and improve a company's operationalperformance by identifying and eliminating 'defects' in manufacturing andservice-related processes. Commonly defined as 3.4 defects per millionopportunities, Six Sigma can be defined and understood at three distinct

levels: metric, methodology and philosophy..." July 2005.

six sigma history

Here's a brief history of Six Sigma, and the Six Sigma name.Additionally,comments I've received about Six Sigmacontain aspects of SixSigma history.

Since the 1920's the word 'sigma' has been used by mathematicians andengineers as a symbol for a unit of measurement in product qualityvariation. (Note it's sigma with a small 's' because in this context sigma is ageneric unit of measurement.)

In the mid-1980's engineers in Motorola Inc in the USA used 'Six Sigma' anan informal name for an in-house initiative for reducing defects inproduction processes, because it represented a suitably high level ofquality. (Note here it's Sigma with a big 'S' because in this context Six Sigmais a 'branded' name for Motorola's initiative.)

(Certain engineers - there are varying opinions as to whether the very firstwas Bill Smith or Mikal Harry - felt that measuring defects in terms ofthousands was an insufficiently rigorous standard. Hence they increased themeasurement scale to parts per million, described as 'defects per million',which prompted the use the the 'six sigma' terminology and adoption of the
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capitalised 'Six Sigma' branded name, given that six sigma was deemed toequate to 3.4 parts - or defects - per million.)

In the late-1980's following the success of the above initiative, Motorolaextended the Six Sigma methods to its critical business processes,

and significantly Six Sigma became a formalised in-house 'branded' name fora performance improvement methodology, ie., beyond purely 'defectreduction', in Motorola Inc.

In 1991 Motorola certified its first 'Black Belt' Six Sigma experts, whichindicates the beginnings of the formalisation of the accredited trainingof Six Sigma methods.

In 1991 also,Allied Signal, (a large avionics company which merged withHoneywell in 1999), adopted the Six Sigma methods, and claimed

significant improvements and cost savings within six months. It seems thatAllied Signal's new CEO Lawrence Bossidy learned of Motorola's work with SixSigma and so approached Motorola's CEO Bob Galvin to learn how it could beused in Allied Signal.

In 1995, General Electric's CEO Jack Welch (Welch knew Bossidy sinceBossidy once worked for Welch at GE, and Welch was impressed by Bossidy'sachievements using Six Sigma) decided to implement Six Sigma in GE,and by 1998 GE claimed that Six Sigma had generated over three-quarters of a billion dollars of cost savings. (Source: George Eckes'

book, The Six Sigma Revolution.)

By the mid-1990's Six Sigma had developed into a transferable 'branded'corporate management initiative and methodology, notably in GeneralElectric and other large manufacturing corporations, but also in organizationsoutside the manufacturing sector.

By the year 2000, Six Sigma was effectively established as an industry inits own right, involving the training, consultancy andimplementation of Six Sigma methodology in all sorts of organisations

around the world.

That is to say, in a little over ten years, Six Sigma quickly became not only ahugely popular methodology used by many corporations for qualityand process improvement, Six Sigma also became the subject of manyand various training and consultancy products and servicesaroundwhich developed very many Six Sigma support organizations.


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six sigma central concepts

You will gather from the definitions and history of Six Sigma that many people

consider the model to be capable of leveraging huge performanceimprovements and cost savings.

None of this of course happens on its own. Teams and team leaders are anessential part of the Six Sigma methodology.

Six Sigma is therefore a methodology which requires and encourages teamleaders and teams to take responsibility for implementing the Six Sigmaprocesses. Significantly these people need to be trained in Six Sigma'smethods - especially the use of the measurement and improvement

tools, and in communications and relationship skills, necessary toinvolve and serve the needs of the internal and external customers andsuppliers that form the critical processes of the organization'sdeliverychains.

Training is therefore also an essential element of the Six Sigmamethodology, and lots of it.

Consistent with the sexy pseudo-Japanese 'Six Sigma' name (Sigma is in factGreek, for the letter 's', and a long-standing symbol for a unit of statistical

variation measurement), Six Sigma terminology employs sexy names for otherelements within the model, for example 'Black Belts' and'Green Belts',which denote people with different levels of expertise (and to an extentqualifications), and different responsibilities, forimplementing SixSigma methods.

Six Sigma teams and notably Six Sigma team leaders ('Black Belts') usea vast array of tools at each stage of Six Sigma implementation to define,measure, analyse and control variation in process quality, andto manage people, teams and communications.

When an organization decides to implement Six Sigma, first the executiveteam has to decide the strategy - which might typically be termedan improvement initiative, and this base strategy should focus onthe essential processes necessary to meet customer expectations.


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This could amount to twenty or thirty business process. At the top level theseare the main processes that enable the organization to add value to goodsand services and supply them to customers. Implicit within this is anunderstanding of what the customers - internal and external - actually want

and need.A team of managers ('Black Belts' normally) who 'own' these processes isresponsible for:

identifying and understanding these processes in detail, and also understanding the levels of quality (especially tolerance of variation) that

customers (internal and external) expect, and then

measuring the effectiveness and efficiency of each process performance -notably the 'sigma' performance - ie., is the number of defects per million

operations (pro-rate if appropriate of course).

The theory is entirely logical: understanding and then improving the mostimportant 'delivery-chain' processes will naturally increase efficiency,customer satisfaction, competitive advantage, and profitability.

Easily said - tricky to achieve - which is what the Six Sigma methodology isfor.

Most practitioners and users of Six Sigma refer to Motorola's early DMAIC

acronym (extended since to DMAICT) as a way of reinforcing and remindingparticipants what needs to be done:

six sigma DMAIC and DMAICT process

elements

D - Define opportunity M - Measure performance

A - Analyse opportunity I - Improve performance C - Control performance, and optionally: T - Transfer best practice (to spread the learning to other areas of the

organization)


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Motorola emphasises that in order for Six Sigma to achieve 'breakthroughimprovements' that are sustainable over time, Six Sigma's 'process metrics'and 'structured methodology' must be extended and applied to 'improvementopportunities' that are directly linked to 'organizational strategy'. It is difficult

to argue with the logic. There is little point in measuring and improving thingsthat have no significant impact on the strategically important organizationalprocesses.

Six Sigma team leaders (Black Belts) work with their teams (team memberswill normally be people trained up to 'Green Belt' accreditation) to analyse andmeasure the performance of the identified critical processes. Measurement istypically focused on highly technical interpretations of percentage defects (bya which a 'sigma' measurement is arrived at - see theone-to-six sigmaconversion scalebelow), and a deep detailed analysis of processes, involving

organizational structures and flow-charts. Many other tools for performancemeasurement and analysis are used, for example the'balancedscorecard'method, and 'process mapping', etc., depending on the processesand systems favoured by the team leaders and project statisticians, and whatneeds to be measured and analysed. Six Sigma does not stipulate specificallywhat analytical methods must be used - the organization and particularly theteam leaders decide these things, which is why implementation and usage ofSix Sigma varies so widely, and why Six Sigma will continue to evolve. Anyanalytical tool can be included within Six Sigma implementation.

Six Sigma experts and commentators commonly refer to typical failure ratesof organizations that have not put particular pressure on their qualityperformance levels. Aside from anything else this at least helps to put the'Sigma' terminology into a simpler mathematical context:

It is said that many ordinary businesses actually operate at betweenthree and two and sigma performance. This equates to betweenapproximately 66,800 and 308,500 defects per million operations, (whichincidentally is also generally considered to be an unsustainable level ofcustomer satisfaction - ie., the business is likely to be in decline, or about to

head that way). Bear in mind that an 'operation' is not limited to themanufacturing processes - an 'operation' can be any process critical tocustomer satisfaction, for example, the operation of correctly understanding acustomer request, or the operation of handling a customer complaint. SixSigma is not restricted to engineering and production - Six Sigma potentiallycovers all sorts of service-related activities. What matters is that the operation
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is identified as being strategically critical and relevant to strategy andcustomer satisfaction.

A measurement of four sigma equates to approximately 6,200 DPMO, oraround 99.4% perfection. This would arguably be an acceptable level of

quality in certain types of business, for instance a roadside cafe, but a 99.4%success rate is obviously an unacceptable level of quality in other types ofbusiness, for example, passenger aircraft maintenance.

A measurement of five sigma equates to just 233 defects per millionopportunities, equivalent to a 99.98% perfection rate, and arguablyacceptable to many businesses, although absolutely still not good enough forthe aircraft industry.

Here's a simplified one-to-six sigma conversion scale:

one to six sigma conversion table

'Long Term

Yield'

(basically

the

percentage

of

successful

outputs or

operations)

%

Defects Per

Million

Opportunities

(DPMO)

'Processs

Sigma'

99.99966 3.4 699.98 233 599.4 6,210 493.3 66,807 369.1 308,538 2


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30.9 691,462 1

You can see from the conversions above that the sigma scale is exponential.The difference between the DPMO equating to each whole number more thandoubles as you move up through the scale. By my rough calculation, 'sevensigma' would equate to about 2 defects per 100 million opportunities (correctme if I'm wrong), which is perhaps a little over-demanding even for theaircraft industry, and that's perhaps why nobody bothers much with anythingover six sigma.

Motorola and many other devotees of Six Sigma are increasingly at pains topoint out that Six Sigma is nowadays far less concerned with the

mathematical theory of the Sigma calculations, and a lot more concerned withthe model's broader performance improvement methods, nevertheless, SixSigma's complexity and variable interpretations are not helped by thedifficulty in penetrating the original mathematical reasoning behind theessential Six Sigma metric: just exactly why does Six Sigma equate to 3.4defects per million? What are the calculations which take us from 3.4 PPM+interpretations vary apparently. (If you can explain this in simple language,and less than a couple of hundred words,please do, and I'll gladly add theexplanation to this page).

There is also difficulty in phrasing a single simple definition of Six Sigma. Forexample, the task of creating a Six Sigma 'elevator speech' (in other words -explain Six Sigma inside 30 seconds) continues to challenge many of the SixSigma enthusiasts who frequent the growing Six Sigma web forums. If youhave a good Six Sigma 'elevator speech'please send it, and I'll gladly add it tothis page.

six sigma elevator speech

Here is a suggested Six Sigma elevator speech (thanks Steven, Jun 2010):"Sigma is the symbol of standard deviation, a measurement of deviation of asample from the population average. Each sigma you depart from theaverage, the event, in this case failure, becomes more an more improbable.At 6 sigma, the probability is about 3.5/million. But this is just the statisticalside of Six Sigma. The bulk of the work in a Six Sigma project would be indefining failures, measuring deviations, and other activities which ultimately
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lead to product quality. In fact, Six Sigma is used as a term for amanagement style, with the ultimate goal of high levels of customersatisfaction."

Can you offer a better Six Sigma elevator speech than this? If soplease send

it.

See also theSix Sigma elevator speech funny storybelow.

Aside from its definitions, the Six Sigma concept now has a life of its own,open to a range of interpretations, beyond the control and reach of the earlySix Sigma originators.

I heard someone say once that Six Sigma is a bit like Naomi Campbell - an

attractive, seductive, yet highly complex model. (Also, sexy, expensive, andhas been known to fall over...)

Advocates of Six Sigma, which include many highly respected people such asJack Welch, are in no doubt that Six Sigma can produce immense results, andquickly too. You will see claims that Motorola saved in excess of $16bnresulting from implementing Six Sigma.

The Six Sigma model may or may not be the most popular ever, butultimately - as with any business methodology - it relies not on how it is

defined, it relies instead on how well people use it.

six sigma - other points of note

First and simply, Six Sigma is a quality improvement methodology.

Six Sigma has also become a generic 'brand' for a set of concepts that manyorganizations have used, and continue to use, to improve quality, and to

provide quality and performance improvement services and training.In this respect Six Sigma has captured corporate imagination. Six Sigma is animmensely popular vehicle for initiating and supporting the process oforganizational change. Six Sigma has become an industry in its own right. Seethe names of some of themajor US organizationsthat have adopted SixSigma in recent times.
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Six Sigma is a very flexible concept: to an statistical engineer Six Sigma mightbe a production quality metric; to a customer service employee, or a CEO, SixSigma can represent a corporate culture.

The expression Six Sigma was first used in the context of quality improvement

by American Motorola engineers in the mid 1980's.

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Walt Kelly