F-08
Manohar Menon, CPIM
Six Steps to Six Sigma
“You can choose not to change, but you can’t do
it here.” - Jack Welch
INTRODUCTION
Sigma is a statistical expression that indicates how
defect free a product or process is. For example,
if a product or service takes 10 processing steps
to complete, each step is an opportunity to make
a defect. To do this 100,000 times would mean a
million opportunities to make defects.
From a statistical viewpoint, a six sigma
process has a defect level of 3.4 per million
opportunities. By comparison, most processes
that we are familiar with operate at the two or
three sigma performance level, which means
that for every million opportunities, between
308,000 to 66,800 defects are produced. After its
introduction as a methodology by Motorola in the
1980s, six sigma has evolved as a breakthrough
management strategy for improving process
performance, customer satisfaction, and
bottom lines.
This paper presents a practical, six-step
approach to successful implementation of six
sigma in your sphere of activity.
KEY CONCEPTS
Why Six Sigma?
Ninety-nine point nine percent, until recently a
respectable quality goal, would mean
• 50 newborn babies dropped accidentally at
birth every day.
• No electricity for an hour every week.
• 1.68 hours of no transmission on TV every
week.
• 2 unsafe plane landings a day at O’Hare
airport.
• 22,000 checks deducted from wrong bank
accounts every hour.
Variation
Everyone hates variation. When you wait at an
airport baggage claim waiting for your baggage
2005 International Conference Proceedings, © 2005 APICS—The Association for Operations Management
to arrive, would it make a difference to know
whether it would take five minutes or 20 min-
utes? Six sigma treats variation as an enemy of
quality and focuses on reducing the variation in
processes.
Defect
Variation produces defects or parts that are out
of specification. Any item or event that does not
meet the customer’s expectations is a defect. At
a fast-food counter, if you expect service in five
minutes and you get it in 10 minutes, you would
call it a defect.
Critical to Quality Characteristics
(CTQs)
You don’t want to measure defects that are not
important to the customer. The term CTQ iden-
tifies characteristics that the customer feels has
the most impact on quality.
Unit
The item produced or being serviced is called a
unit. For example, when making a financial re-
port, the unit would be a report. For a print shop,
the unit could be a brochure.
Defects per Unit (DPU)
DPU is a universal measure of quality. It is equal
to the number of defects found at any review
point.
It is important to remember that DPU is a
count of defects and not a measure of the size
of the defects in a unit. The same product or
service could have different DPUs for different
defects. For example:
• function: finance
• product: financial report
• defect: inaccurate entry
• # of defects: 60
• unit: each entry
• # of units (entries): 60,000
• DPU = 60/60000 = 0.001.
• function: finance
• product financial report
• defect: not delivered on time
1

• # of defects: 6
• unit: each report
• # of units: 600
• DPU = 6/600 = 0.01.
When summed for a number of steps for
a given process, DPU is called total defects per
unit (TDU).
Given the same design margins and
processes, a product or service with 1,000 parts
or steps will have twice the DPU of one with
500.
Opportunities for Error
The opportunity for error for a financial report
to be not delivered on time is one. The opportu-
nity for error for the same report to have inac-
curate entries is two for the data entry operator.
The opportunity for error for an inaccurate fi-
nancial report to be delivered to the board of
directors is one.
Defects per Million Opportunities
(DPMO)
DPMO = DPU x 1,000,000
opportunities for error in one unit
The DPMO for inaccurate entries for the
financial report is 0.001 x 1000000/2 = 500.
In manufacturing environments, DPMO is
also referred to as ppm (parts per million).
DPMO allows a common metric to be used
to compare different processes.
Sigma
Sigma can be easily determined from the DPMO
derived from a conversion table. For the example
above, the sigma value would be 4.75. Sigma val-
ues thus found could be used to benchmark the
process being studied. For example, the domestic
airline fatality rate is around 0.43 DPMO. This is
better than six sigma.
The difference between four and six sigma
is hundredfold. This should not discourage us,
as the rigorous application of the six steps to six
sigma methodology will lead us there.
SIX STEPS TO SIX SIGMA
The six steps are
1. Identify the product you create or the
service you provide.
2. Identify the customer(s) for your product or
service, and determine what they consider
important.
2005 International Conference Proceedings, © 2005 APICS—The Association for Operations Management
Six Steps to Six Sigma
3. Identify your needs to provide the product/
service so the customer will be satisfied.
4. Define the process for providing the product
or service.
5. Mistake-proof the process and eliminate
wasted effort.
6. Ensure continuous improvement by
measuring, analyzing, and controlling the
improved process.
During the presentation, the following will
be interactive sessions.
Step 1: Identify the product or service
you provide.
List the products or services you provide. Prod-
ucts or services are defined as tangible outputs
from your processes. Your team is probably mea-
sured on these outputs. From the list of prod-
ucts or services, choose the core one. Improving
this product or service will have a significant im-
pact on increasing customer satisfaction. Order
fulfillment and the creation, preparation, and
delivery of the order to the customer would be
an example of a core process. It is important to
remember that core processes may extend across
departments.
Step 2: Identify the customer(s) for your
product or service and determine what
they consider important.
For the product or service you chose in step
one, identify the customer. The question to be
asked is, “For whom do you work?” The custom-
er could be internal or external. The customer
could be a single individual, a process step, or a
group of persons.
It is important to distinguish between
immediate customers and end users.
Once the customer is identified, determine
the CTQs for the customer. Tune in to the voice
of the customer! The question here is, “For
your product or service, what is important to
the customer?” While this may be fairly evident
in some cases, understanding what customers
really want will require sensitivity, as well as
persistence. CTQs may center on the usability or
effectiveness of the product or service.
CTQs need to be spelled out precisely. For
example, “speedy delivery” should be substituted
with “delivery within five days of purchase order
receipt.” Where practical, the agreements should
be mutually agreed upon.
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 Six Steps to Six Sigma

Step 3: Identify your needs to provide At a basic level, this step could focus on
the product/service so the customer
will be satisfied. • Simplifying key tasks.
Just as your customer has some critical require- • Combining process steps.
ments, you too have some critical requirements • Providing written work instructions or
associated with each of your inputs. In this step, training.
the supplier of your inputs is identified, as well • Standardizing procedures and formats.
as the elements of those inputs that are critical • Defect-proofing.
to you. For example, if you make widgets, then • Eliminating all non value-added activities.
the quality of the raw material may be a critical • Eliminating queues, decision points,
input. Your supplier would be purchasing. There storage, and handling.
may be more than one aspect of your input that’s
critical. For example, the raw material quality, as At an advanced level, several analytical tools
well as the dimensions of the material, may be could be used:
critical to your processing requirements.
Present these requirements to your suppliers • histograms
and reach an agreement on how each requirement • run charts
will be fulfilled. • scatter diagrams
• Pareto analysis
• checksheets
Step 4: Define the process for providing
• cause and effect diagrams (fishbone or
the product or service.
Ishikawa diagrams)
Process mapping is probably the best resource • control charts.
for this step. The current process needs to be
mapped in as much detail as possible. The steps Other tools that have seen extensive use in
are six sigma projects are failure mode and effect
analysis (FMEA) and design of experiments
• Identify operations that make up the process. (DOE).
• Identify the sequence in which operations All these would help to
are performed and the inputs and outputs of
each. • Confirm the key variables and quantify
• Identify all the steps performed within each their effect on the CTQs.
operation. • Identify the maximum acceptable range of
• Identify all queues (wait times) and storage the key variables and system for measuring
points in the process. deviations.
• Identify all places where work is inspected. • Modify the process to stay within an
• Represent the way mistaken or incomplete acceptable range.
work is identified and redone.
• Use standard symbols. Step 6: Ensure continuous improvement
• Walk through the process. by measuring, analyzing, and
controlling the improved process.
Step 5: Mistake-proof the process and The steps are
eliminate wasted effort.
Step four often reveals areas where improvement • Document improvements and changed work
could be implemented right away. For example, methods (and keep them brief, like cake
disconnects (points where handoffs are poorly recipes).
handled), bottlenecks (where requirement ex- • Establish meaningful measures of
ceeds capacity), and decision or inspection points performance and charts (sigma levels and
(delays) become obvious with process mapping. DPMOs are common).
This stage calls for a review of the CTQs • Define responsibilities for process
identified in step two. Any part of the process ownership.
that does not help to achieve a CTQ parameter • Constantly measure and report performance.
needs to be improved. The targets would usually • Celebrate successes!
be defect reduction or cycle time reduction.

2005 International Conference Proceedings, © 2005 APICS—The Association for Operations Management 3
 Six Steps to Six Sigma
“A journey of a thousand miles must begin with ABOUT THE AUTHOR
a single step” – Lao Tzu.
Manohar Menon is a mechanical engineer with
more than 19 years of experience in production
Good luck with yours!
and quality management, planning, product de-
velopment, and lean management.

2005 International Conference Proceedings, © 2005 APICS—The Association for Operations Management 4