About Us | Defining Six Sigma
Currently, most companies operate at Three or Four Sigma. This translates into about 6,200 - 67,000 defective parts or transactions per million! That's simply not good enough in today's economy. Winning and keeping customers requires near perfect performance. The bottomline is that companies operating at Three or Four Sigma spend up to 25% of their revenues fixing defects. This is known as the "cost of poor quality".The Six Sigma approach identifies and eliminates defects with a structured, data-driven, problem-solving method of using rigorous data-gathering and statistical analysis. The statistical representation of Six Sigma describes quantitatively how a process is performing. To achieve Six Sigma, a process must not produce more than 3.4 defects per million opportunities. A Six Sigma defect is defined as anything outside of customer specifications.
Six Sigma differs from traditional quality improvement programs in its focus on input variables. While traditional process improvement methods depend upon measuring outputs and establishing control plans to shield customers from organizational defects, a Six Sigma program demands that problems be addressed at the input root cause level, thereby eliminating the need for unnecessary inspection and rework processes.
Three Key Characteristics of Six Sigma
- Leadership Commitment
Achieving Six Sigma is not easy - it requires serious commitment in the form of time, effort, and resources. For a company to be successful, such commitment must come first from the top executive leadership of the organization and must be practiced by everyone. - Managing Decisions with Data
It is not enough to run a business based on one's experience or "tribal knowledge." Decisions must be based on data versus the typical "I think", I feel", or "In my opinion" practices that often exist today. With the maturation of the information economy, data is available to virtually everyone in the organization, along with the tools for analyzing that data. Properly using data to Measure, Analyze, Improve, and Control performance forms the foundation of the Six Sigma methodology. - Training and Cultural Change
Improved performance does not and will not happen automatically. High-caliber training is required. Disciplined implementation must follow, and people at all levels have to change the way they go about doing their jobs. In short, new ways of thinking, communicating, and operating must pervade the entire organization. You also need a methodology. DMAIC/DFSS provide a structured problem solving roadmap and tools towards obtaining the results you expect.
