What is Six Sigma?

It is a set of techniques developed and used to ensure process improvement and

consistent output in manufacturing. Originally developed by Motorola in 1986, this
approach was first put into practice in General Electric in early 1990s. Over two
decades later, Six Sigma is widely used in a variety of industries. The method is
covered by 6 certifications which are highly popular with quality control
professionals in manufacturing.
The goal of Six Sigma method is to ensure the highest quality of manufacturing
process outputs by means of identifying the causes of deviations or defects and
removing them. The approach is based on the goal of minimizing variability in
manufacturing and business processes. To reach these results, Six Sigma
methodology outlines special projects with defined sequences of steps and Key
Performance Indicators (KPI), which are mostly quantified targets. Six Sigma KPIs
are usually the following: reduced process costs and/or time, reduced pollution,
improved customer satisfaction and, ultimately, increased profit. Thus, Six Sigma
simply emphasizes breakthrough rates of improvement, and focuses on world class
performance to achieve organizational success.
The Evolution of Six Sigma
Before, January 15, 1987, Six Sigma was solely a statistical term. Since then, the Six
Sigma crusade, which began at Motorola, has spread to other companies who are
continually striving for excellence. While it is progressing, it has extended and
evolved from a problem-solving technique to a quality strategy and ultimately into a
sophisticated quality philosophy. However, this unique philosophy only became well
known after GEs Jack Welch made it a central focus of his business strategy in
1995. Today, Six Sigma is the fastest growing business management system in
industry .
Overview of Six Sigma
Six Sigma is one of the most popular quality methods lately. It is the rating that
signifies best in class, with only 3.4 defects per million units or operations
(DPMO). Its concept works and results in remarkable and tangible quality
improvements when implemented wisely. Today, Six Sigma processes are being
executed in a vast array of organizations and in a wide variety of functions.
Fueled by its success at large companies such as Motorola, General Electric, Sony,
and Allied Signal, the methodology is proving to be much more than just a quality
initiative. Why are these large companies embracing Six Sigma? What makes this
methodology different from the others?
The goal of Six Sigma is not to achieve six sigma levels of quality, but to improve
profitability. Prior to Six Sigma, improvements brought about by quality programs,
such as Total Quality Management (TQM) and ISO 9000, usually had no visible
impact on a company's net income. In general, the consequences of immeasurable
improvement and invisible impact caused these quality programs gradually to
become the fad of the moment.
In 1891, British physicist Lord Kelvin wrote, When you can measure what you are
speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it. Mikel
Harry, a noted Six Sigma authority, extends the thought as, we don't know what
we dont know; we cant act on what we dont know; we wont know until we search;
we wont search for what we dont question; we dont question what we dont

measure. Both imply that if you failed to quantify the results of what you were
doing, in a way, it means that you might not understand what you were really doing.
In contrast with other quality initiatives, Six Sigma recognizes that there is a direct
correlation between the number of product defects, wasted operating costs, and the
level of customer satisfaction. In the short term, Six Sigma is a method to eliminate
defects and the opportunity for defects. It utilizes a statistical unit of measurement
to measure the capability of the process, then achieve defect free performance, and
ultimately increase the bottom-line and customer satisfaction.
Six Sigma Success Factors
Research into what makes a Six Sigma implementation a success has revealed 10
Critical Success Factors. They are, in order of importance:
1. Top management leadership & commitment - these are essential to Six
Sigma QMS success. Top management should act as key driver in continuous
improvements, communicate to employees about organizational goals, and
establish an environment for supporting organizational & employee learning.
2. A well implemented customer management system - is critical to Six
Sigma QMS success. Processes need to be established in order to monitor
customer satisfaction levels, to receive customer feedback, and to resolve
customer concerns.
3. A continuous education & training system - should provide continuous
courses to employees for equipping them with quality-related knowledge and
problem-solving skills.
4. A well-organized information & analysis system - should be designed to
collect the performance measures in order to monitor the quality of key business
processes.
5. A well-implemented process management system - that identifies,
improves, and monitors the key business processes has a positive impact on Six
Sigma QMS success. The quality assurance system, work unit performance
measures, and statistical techniques are essential to process management.
6. A well-developed strategic planning system - must translate into
executable action plans with related performance measurements. The necessary
human & financial resources must be allocated to support the implementation of
business action plans.
7. A well-developed supplier management system - where the main criteria
for selecting suppliers, is based on quality aspects, has a positive impact on Six
Sigma QMS success. Processes need to be built in order to monitor the quality
performance levels of suppliers.
8. Equipping everyone in the organization, from top management to
employees, with a working knowledge of the quality tools
9. A well-developed human resource management system - has a positive
impact on Six Sigma QMS success. A job advancement system is important to
human resource development. Various methods are developed to facilitate the
communication between the organization and its employees. To promptly
improve performance, employees need to receive their performance feedback
from their supervisors.
10.A well-developed competitive benchmarking system - should be capable
of collecting market and competitors information. The process of benchmarking
information collection needs to be evaluated to ensure its effectiveness.
How Does Six Sigma Work
Six Sigma is a disciplined and quantitative approach involving setting up a system
and process for the improvement of defined metrics in manufacturing, service, or

financial processes. The approach drives the overall process of selecting the right
projects based on an organization's business goals and selecting and training the
right people to obtain the results. Improvement projects follow a disciplined process
defined by a system of four macro phases: measure, analyze, improve, control
(MAIC). Sometimes a preliminary step, define, is added at the beginning, which
relates to the appropriate selection of projects and problem definition. The problem
must be chronic and impactful.
The 4 MAIC phases will be described as follows:
Measure Phase: Measure the existing systems. Establish valid and reliable metrics
to help monitor progress towards the project goals. Customer expectations are
defined to determine out of specification conditions.

Identify and describe the potential critical processes/products - list

and describe all of the potential critical processes obtained from
brainstorming sessions, historical data, yield reports, failure analysis reports,
analysis of line fallout and model the potential problems.
Perform measurement system analysis - determine precision, accuracy,
repeatability and reproducibility of each instrument or gauge used in order to
ensure that they are capable.

Analyze Phase: Analyze the system to identify ways to eliminate the gap between
the current performance of the system or process and the desired goal. In this
phase, project teams explore underlying reasons for defects. They use statistical
analysis to examine potential variables affecting the outcome and seek to identify
the most significant root causes. Then, they develop a prioritized list of factors
influencing the desired outcome.

Isolate and verify the critical processes - narrow the potential list of
problems to the vital few. Identify the input/output relationship which directly
affects specific problems. Verify potential causes of process variability and
product problems.

Perform process and measurement system capability studies identify and define the limitations of the processes. Ensure that the processes
are capable of achieving their maximum potential. Identify and remove all
variation due to special causes. Determine what the realistic specifications
are. Determine confidence intervals. A process is to be considered capable
when it is in control, predictable, and stable.

Improve Phase: In this phase, project teams seek the optimal solution and develop
and test a plan of action for implementing and confirming the solution. The process
is modified and the outcome is measured to determine whether the revised method
produces results within customer expectations.

Conduct design of experiment - select design of experiment factors and

levels. Plan design of experiment execution. Perform design of experiment to
find out the most significant factor.
Implement variability reduction designs/assessments - implement
permanent corrective action for preventing special cause variations.
Demonstrate process stability and predictability.

Control Phase: Control the new system. On-going measures are implemented to
keep the problem from recurring. Institutionalize the improved system by modifying
policies, procedures, operating instructions, and other management systems.

Specify process control method - establish on-going controls for the

process based on prevention of special cause variation using statistical
process control techniques.
Document the improvement processes - record all the processes/steps in
improvement phase using the decision tree and reaction plan.

Statistical Meaning of Six Sigma

In Six Sigma, the common measurement index is DPMO (Defects Per Million
Operations) and can include anything from a component, piece of material, or line
of code, to an administrative form, time frame or distance. A sigma quality level
offers an indicator of how often defects are likely to occur, where a higher sigma
quality level indicates a process that is less likely to create defects. Consequently,
as sigma level of quality increases, product reliability improves, the need for testing
and inspection diminishes, work in progress declines, cycle time goes down, costs
go down, and customer satisfaction goes up.
To have a more comprehensive understanding about sigma quality level, it will be
explained from two perspectives of process capability: short-term and long-term
process capabilities.
Short-term process capability
A part or item is classified as defective if the desired measurement, denoted by X, is
outside the customer-supplier specification limit (USL) or lower specification limit
(LSL). In addition to specifying the USL and LSL, a customer would also specify a
target value, which typically is the midpoint between the USL and LSL. From a shortterm process capability view, after sampling data from the process, a six sigma
process that produces the parts is normally distributed (see Figure 2.1). Table 2.1
displays short-term process capability in various sigma levels.

Table 2.1: Short-Term Process Capability at Various Sigma Quality Levels

Sigma Level

% Good

PPM/DPMO

95.45

45500

99.73

2700

99.9937

63

99.999943

0.57

99.9999998

0.002

Figure 2.1: Short-Term Six Sigma Performance for a Single Process

Long-term process capability

Due to the nature of the process, when dealing with the situation of a long-term
process, shifts and drifts in the mean of the distribution of a component value occur
for a number of reasons as do changes in other parameters of the distribution: for
example, tool wear is one source of a gradual drift, differences in raw material or
change of suppliers can cause shifts in the distribution.
A solution proposed by D.H. Evans (Statistical Tolerancing: The State of the Art Part
III, Shifts and Drifts 1975) focuses on high production rates, and low cost
components. Evans suggests that one should use 1.5s as the standard deviation to
calculate the percentage of out of tolerance responses. Thus with this principle in
hand, one can make a rational estimate of the long-term process capability with
knowledge of only the short-term process capability (see Figure 2.2). Table 2.2
displays long-term process capability in various sigma levels.
Figure 2.2: Long-Term Six Sigma Performance for a Single Process (Shifted
1.5)

Table 2.2: Long-Term Process Capability in Various sigma Levels

Sigma Level

% Good

PPM/DPMO

69.15

308,537

93.32

66,807

99.379

6,210

99.9676

233

99.99966

3.4

REFERENCE:
Six Sigma retrieved July 11, 2016 from
http://www.pqa.net/ProdServices/sixsigma/W06001001.html#Statistical
_Meaning_of_Six_Sigma
Six Sigma: Strategy and Methodology retrieved July 11, 2016 from
http://www.esixsigma.org/