Six sigma Six sigma training, history, definitions - six sigma and quality management glossary

Six Sigma is now according to many business development and quality improvement experts, the most popular management methodology in history. Six Sigma is certainly a very big industry in its own right, and Six Sigma is now an enormous 'brand' in the world of corporate development. Six Sigma began in 1986 as a statistically-based method to reduce variation in electronic manufacturing processes in Motorola Inc in the USA. Today, twenty-something years on, Six Sigma is used as an all-encompassing business performance 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 continues apace in many of the world's largest corporations, many organizations and suppliers in the consulting and training communities have also seized on the Six Sigma concept, to package and provide all sorts of Six Sigma 'branded' training products and consultancy and services. Six Sigma has also spawned many 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 the USA, who first pioneered Six Sigma methods in the 1980's. The original and technically correct spelling seems to be Six Sigma, rather than 6 Sigma, although in recent years Motorola and GE have each since developed their own sexy Six Sigma logos using the number six and the Greek sigma character s. Six Sigma is now a global brand and something of a revolution. But what is Six Sigma?...

six sigma definitions Six Sigma is lots of things. Six Sigma is lots of different things because it had different meanings over time, 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 analysis can focus on any element of production or service, and has a strong emphasis on statistical analysis in design, manufacturing and customer-oriented activities."

Motorola Inc., who first developed the methodology in the mid-late1980's and who provide extensive Six Sigma training and consultancy services, provide the 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 Motorola University (Motorola's Six Sigma training and consultancy division), we think about Six Sigma at three different levels:

As a metric As a methodology As a management system

Essentially, Six Sigma is all three at the same time." "...Six Sigma as a Metric: The term "Sigma" is often used as a scale for levels of 'goodness' or quality. Using this scale, 'Six Sigma' equates to 3.4 defects per one million opportunities (DPMO). Therefore, Six Sigma started as a defect reduction effort in manufacturing and was then applied to other business processes for the same purpose.." "...Six Sigma as a Methodology: As Six Sigma has evolved, there has been less emphasis on the literal definition of 3.4 DPMO, or counting defects in products and processes. Six Sigma is a business improvement methodology that 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 process improvement. DMAIC is commonly used by Six Sigma project teams and is an acronym for:

Define opportunity Measure performance Analyze opportunity Improve performance Control performance.."

"...Six Sigma Management System: Through experience, Motorola has learned that disciplined use of metrics and application of the methodology is still not enough to drive desired breakthrough improvements and results that are sustainable over time. For greatest impact, Motorola ensures that process metrics and structured methodology are applied to improvement opportunities that are directly linked to the organizational strategy. When practiced as a management system, Six Sigma is a high performance system for executing business 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 business strategy and the metrics that most reflect success with that strategy. It provides the framework to prioritize resources for projects that will improve the metrics, and it leverages leaders who will manage the efforts for rapid, sustainable, and improved business results.." General Electric (GE), the first large-scale adopters and advocates of Six Sigma after Motorola, and considered by most experts to have been responsible for Six Sigma's rapidly achieved high profile, provide the following definitions of Six Sigma: six sigma according to general electric "...Six Sigma is a highly disciplined process that helps us focus on developing and delivering near-perfect products and services. Why 'Sigma'? The word is a statistical term that measures how far a given process deviates from perfection. The central idea behind Six Sigma is that if you can measure how many 'defects' you have in a process, you can systematically figure out how to eliminate them and get as close to 'zero defects' as possible. To achieve Six Sigma Quality, a process must produce no more than 3.4 defects per million opportunities. An 'opportunity' is defined as a chance for nonconformance, or not meeting the required specifications. This means we need to be nearly flawless in executing our key processes." "...At its core, Six Sigma revolves around a few key concepts.

Critical to Quality: Attributes most important to the customer Defect: Failing to deliver what the customer wants Process Capability: What your process can deliver Variation: What the customer sees and feels Stable Operations: Ensuring consistent, predictable processes to improve what the customer sees and feels Design for Six Sigma: Designing to meet customer needs and process capability..."

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 performance improvements and cost savings. None of this of course happens on its own. Teams and team leaders are an essential part of the Six Sigma methodology. Six Sigma is therefore a methodology which requires and encourages team leaders and teams to take responsibility for implementing the Six Sigma processes. Significantly these people need to be trained in Six Sigma's methods - especially the use of the measurement and

improvement tools, and in communications and relationship skills, necessary to involve and serve the needs of the internal and external customers and suppliers that form the critical processes of the organization's delivery chains. Training is therefore also an essential element of the Six Sigma methodology, and lots of it. Consistent with the sexy pseudo-Japanese 'Six Sigma' name (Sigma is in fact Greek, for the letter 's', and a long-standing symbol for a unit of statistical variation measurement), Six Sigma terminology employs sexy names for other elements within the model, for example 'Black Belts' and 'Green Belts', which denote people with different levels of expertise (and to an extent qualifications), and different responsibilities, for implementing Six Sigma methods. Six Sigma teams and notably Six Sigma team leaders ('Black Belts') use a vast array of tools at each stage of Six Sigma implementation to define, measure, analyse and control variation in process quality, and to manage people, teams and communications. When an organization decides to implement Six Sigma, first the executive team has to decide the strategy - which might typically be termed an improvement initiative, and this base strategy should focus on the essential processes necessary to meet customer expectations. This could amount to twenty or thirty business process. At the top level these are the main processes that enable the organization to add value to goods and services and supply them to customers. Implicit within this is an understanding of what the customers - internal and external actually want and need. A team of managers ('Black Belts' normally) who 'own' these processes is responsible 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 most important 'deliverychain' processes will naturally increase efficiency, customer satisfaction, competitive advantage, and profitability. Easily said - tricky to achieve - which is what the Six Sigma methodology is for.

1) Yellow Belt (YB) the lowest level of Six Sigma expertise; applies to a professional who has a basic workingknowledge and who may manage smaller process improvement projects, but who does not function as a project or team leader; 2) Green Belt (GB) in many organizations, Six Sigma's "entry level"; a Six Sigmatrained (and sometimes certified) professional who does notwork on Six Sigma projects exclusively, but whose duties include leading projects and teams and implementing Six

Sigma methodology at the project level; 3) Black Belt (BB) a Six Sigma-trained professional who has usually completed an examination and been certified in its methods; all job duties include implementation of Six Sigma methodology throughout all levels of the business, leading teams and projects, and providing Six Sigma training and mentoring to Green and YellowBelts; and 4) Master Black Belt (MBB) the highest level of Six Sigma expertise; all duties involve implementationof Six Sigma, including statistical analysis, strategic and policy planning and implementation, and training and mentoring of Black Belts.

Seven Basic Tools of Quality Control.

Kaoru Ishikawa, at the time an associate professor at the University of Tokyo. Ishikawa had a desire to democratise quality: that is to say, he wanted to make quality control comprehensible to all workers, and inspired by Demings lectures, he formalised the Seven Basic Tools of Quality Control. Ishikawa believed that 90% of a companys problems could be improved using these seven tools, and that - with the exception of Control Charts they could easily be taught to any member of the organisation. This ease-of-use combined with their graphical nature makes statistical analysis easier for all. The seven tools are:

Cause and Effect Diagrams Pareto Charts Flow Charts Check sheet Scatter Plots Control (Run) Charts Histograms

Cause and Effect Diagrams Also known as Ishikawa and Fishbone Diagrams First used by Ishikawa in the 194os, they are employed to identify the underlying symptoms of a problem or effect as a means of finding the root cause. The structured nature of the method forces the user to consider all the likely causes of a problem, not just the obvious ones, by combining brainstorming techniques with graphical analysis. It is also useful in unraveling the convoluted relationships that may, in combination, drive the problem. The major purpose of the CE Diagram is to act as a first step in problem solving by generating a comprehensive list of possible causes. It can lead to immediate identification

of major causes and point to the potential remedial actions or, failing this, it may indicate the best potential areas for further exploration and analysis. At a minimum, preparing a CE Diagram will lead to greater understanding of the problem The basic Cause and Effect Diagram places the effect at one end. The causes feeding into it are then identified, via brainstorming, by working backwards along the spines (sometimes referred to as vertebrae), as in the diagram below:

Control (Run) Charts Dating back to the work of Shewhart and Deming, there are several types of Control Chart. They are reasonably complex statistical tools that measure how a process changes over time. By plotting this data against pre-defined upper and lower control limits, it can be determined whether the process is consistent and under control, or if it is unpredictable and therefore out of control. The type of chart to use depends upon the type of data to be measured; i.e. whether it is attributable or variable data. The most frequently used Control Chart is a Run Chart, which is suitable for both types of data. They are useful in identifying trends in data over long periods of time, thus identifying variation. Data is collected and plotted over time with the upper and lower limits set (from past performance or statistical analysis), and the average identified, as in the diagram below. Pareto Charts A Pareto diagram is a simple bar chart that ranks related measures in decreasing order of occurrence. The principle was developed by Vilfredo Pareto, an Italian economist and sociologist who conducted a study in Europe in the early 1900s on wealth and poverty. He found that wealth was concentrated in the hands of the few and poverty in the hands of the many. The principle is based on the unequal distribution of things in the universe. It is the law of the "significant few versus the trivial many." The significant few things

will generally make up 80% of the whole, while the trivial many will make up about 20%. Based upon the Pareto Principle that states that 80% of a problem is attributable to 20% of its causes, or inputs, a Pareto Chart organises and displays information in order to show the relative importance of various problems or causes of problems. It is a vertical bar chart with items organised in order from the highest to the lowest, relative to a measurable effect: i.e. frequency, cost, time. The purpose of a Pareto diagram is to separate the significant aspects of a problem from the minor ones. By graphically separating the aspects of a problem, a team will know where to direct its improvement efforts. Reducing the largest bars identified in the diagram will do more for overall improvement than reducing the smaller ones. There are two ways to analyze Pareto data depending on what you want to know: o Counts Pareto: Use this type of Pareto analysis to learn which category occurs most often, you will need to do a counts Pareto diagram. To create a counts Pareto, you will need to know the categories and how often each occurred. o Cost Pareto: Use this type of Pareto analysis if you want to know which category of problem is the most expensive in terms of some cost. A cost Pareto provides more details about the impact of a specific category, than a count Pareto can. For example, suppose you have 50 occurrences of one problem and 3 occurrences of another. Based on a count Pareto, you would be likely to tackle the problem that occurred 50 times first. However, suppose the problem that occurred 50 times costs only $.50 per occurrence ($25 total) and the problem that occurs 3 times costs $50 each time ($150 total). Based on the cost Pareto, you may want to tackle the more expensive problem first. To create a cost Pareto, you will need to know the categories, how often each occurred, and a cost for each category. A Pareto Chart makes it easier to identify where the greatest possible improvement gains can be achieved. By showing the highest incidences or frequencies first and relating them to the overall percentage for the samples, it highlights what is known as the vital few. Factors are then prioritized, and effort focused upon them.

A Simple Example A Pareto chart can be used to quickly identify what business issues need attention. By using hard data instead of intuition, there can be no question about what problems are influencing the outcome most. In the example below, XYZ Clothing Store was seeing a steady decline in business. Before the manager did a customer survey, he assumed the decline was due to customer dissatisfaction with the clothing line he was selling and he blamed his supply chain for his problems. After charting the frequency of the answers in his customer survey, however, it was very clear that the real reasons for the decline of his business had nothing to do with his supply chain. By collecting data and displaying it in a Pareto chart, the manager could see which variables were having the most influence. In this example, parking difficulties, rude sales people and poor lighting were hurting his business most. Following the Pareto Principle, those are the areas where he should focus his attention to build his business back up.

Scatter Diagrams A Scatter Diagram, or Chart, is used to identify whether there is a relationship between two variables. It does not prove that one variable directly affects the other, but is highly effective in confirming that a relationship exists between the two. It is a graphical more than statistical tool. Points are plotted on a graph with the two variables as the axes. If the points form a narrow cloud, then there is a direct correlation. If there is no discernible pattern or a wide spread, then there is no or little correlation. If both variables increase as the other increases i.e. the cloud extends at roughly 45 degrees from the point where the x and y axes cross then they are said to be positively correlated. If the one variable decreases as the other increases, then they are said to be negatively correlated. These are linear correlations; they may also be non-linearly correlated. Below is an example of a Scatter Diagram where the two variables have a negative correlation.

Scatter diagram showing a negative correlation between two variable

Histogram Histograms are graphs of a distribution of data designed to show centering, dispersion (spread), and shape (relative frequency) of the data. Histograms can provide a visual display of large amounts of data that are difficult to understand in a tabular, or spreadsheet form. They are used to understand how the output of a process relates to customer expectations (targets and specifications), and help answer the question: "Is the process capable of meeting customer requirements?"

Like Pareto Charts, Histograms are a form of bar chart. They are used to measure the frequency distribution of data that is commonly grouped together in ranges or bins. Most commonly they are used to discern frequency of occurrence in long lists of data. For instance, in the list 2, 2, 3, 3, 3, 3, 4, 4, 5, 6, the number 3 occurs the most frequently. However, if that list comprises several hundred data points, or more, it would be difficult to ascertain the frequency. Histograms provide an effective visual means of doing so. Bins are used when the data is spread over a wide range. For example, in the list 3, 5, 9, 12, 14, 17, 20, 24, 29, 31, 45, 49, instead of looking for the occurrence of each number from 1 to 49, which would be meaningless, it is more useful to group them such that the frequency of occurrence of the ranges 1-10, 11-20, 21-30, 31-40 and 41-50 are measured. These are called bins. Histograms are very useful in discerning the distribution of data and therefore patterns of variation. They monitor the performance of a system and present it in a graphical way which is far easier to understand and read than a table of data. Once a problem has been identified, they can then also be used to check that the solution has worked.

Example To understand the application of histograms, consider a simple example: height data were collected from a training class of 50 individuals, as shown on the following table:

There are only 50 measurements, but it is difficult to draw specific conclusions about the data without further analysis. A Histogram can be constructed to provide more usable information:

The Histogram graph gives a quick visual summary of the data. It is easy to see that the average height is around 69 inches, with few people shorter than 66 inches, and few as tall as 72 inches. The frequency distribution tells us a lot about probability. If this sample was representative of the overall population of employees (randomly drawn), and if the sample is large enough, we could conclude that the probability of finding employees who are over 73 inches or under 65 inches is low. The shape of this distribution, which is common both in nature and industrial settings is a "Normal Distribution", which looks like a bell-shaped curve. The histogram below is overlaid with a normal curve.

There are other distribution shapes that you may encounter:

Flow Chart A flow chart is a visual representation of a process. It is not statistical, but is used to piece together the actual process as it is carried out, which quite often varies from how the process owner imagines it is. Seeing it visually makes identifying both inefficiencies and potential improvements easier. A series of shapes are used to depict every step of the process; mental decisions are captured as well as physical actions and activities. Arrows depict the movement through

the process. Flow charts vary in complexity, but when used properly can prove useful for identifying non-value-adding or redundant steps, the key parts of a process, as well as the interfaces between other processes. Problems with flow charts occur when the desired process is depicted instead of the actual one. For this reason, it is better to brainstorm the process with a group to make sure everything is captured.

Common Flowchart Symbols Different flow chart symbols have different meanings. The most common flow chart symbols are:

Terminator: An oval flow chart shape indicating the start or end of the process. Process: A rectangular flow chart shape indicating a normal process flow step. Decision: A diamond flow chart shape indication a branch in the process flow. Connector: A small, labeled, circular flow chart shape used to indicate a jump in the process flow. (Shown as the circle with the letter A, below.) Data: A parallelogram that indicates data input or output (I/O) for a process. Document: Used to indicate a document or report (see image in sample flow chart below).

A simple flow chart showing the symbols described above can be seen below:

Check sheet Also known as Data Collection sheets and Tally charts Like flow charts, check sheets are non-statistical and relatively simple. They are used to capture data in a manual, reliable, formalised way so that decisions can be made based on facts. As the data is collected, it becomes a graphical representation of itself. Areas for improvement can then be identified, either directly from the check sheet, or by feeding the data into one of the other seven basic tools. Simply, a table is designed to capture the incidences of the variable(s) to be measured. Tick marks are then manually put in the relevant boxes. As the ticks build up, they give a graphical representation of the frequency of incidences. Below is a typical example.