Six Sigma- Basic Introudction

Six Sigma- A word quite common in every sector of companies nowadays but still a puzzle for "n" numbers of the people working in industry including me also prior to the introductory certification course completed by me of Six Sigma...

By means of this article i would like to share my thoughts on the introductory portion of Six Sigma Approach.

"What is the Purpose of Six Sigma and its origination"???

The very basic and simplest answer to this question is to make customer happier and increase profit. The whole approach of six sigma is to improve manufacturing process by eliminating defects.Six sigma approach was first developed by Motorola in 1986 with the objective of improvement of manufacturing process and correspondingly profits for company.

In the last few decades more of world class companies like GE,Allied Signal,Johnson & Johnson,Honeywell and many more has Opt for the six sigma approach.

One most common example whenever any body talk about Six sigma is Landing capability of a pilot on landing strip that means how close he can land the plane each and every time close to the target line.

"What are the Current Leadership Challenges"?

- Delighting Customer

- Reducing Cycle times

- Technology Advances

- Retaining People

- Reducing Costs

- Responding Quickly

- Flexibility

-Growing oversea market

- Retaining to the Best employer in the market is the main challenge 

Classic Examples of Six Sigma:

Motorola: -5 fold growth in sales 

                - Profit climbing by 20% pa

                - Cumulative savings of $14 billion over 11 years

General Electric- $2 billion savings in just 3 years

Betchle Corporation- $200 million savings with investments of $30 million..

Note: Initial investment has to be done by company in implementation of Six sigma at workplace ,later on in turn big benefits are observed in terms of increase profit and more quality product.

Six Sigma Philosophy:

@ Know what important to customer (CTQ)

@Reduce Defect (DPMO) 

@Center Around target (Mean)

@ Reduce variation (High Standard Deviation)

Note: DPMO level of 3.4 is equivalent to six sigma level of a process.

How to choose an Six Sigma Project?

To understand how organization can work on the identification of Six sigma project, refer the below flow chart (below chart is taken from the website :sixsigmatraining.org only for refernce purpose)

After the identification of Project the work whole Six sigma process is depends upon the 'DMAIC" theory..

D stands for Define the problem

M stands for Measure the criticalilty of problem

A stands for Analyze means collect the concern data and analyze it to find the root cause of problem

I stands for Improve means after analyze the core issues work towards to improve it

C stands for Control means sustain the improvement implemented and do it regular monitoiring.

There are diferent categories of courses in six sigma approach i.e. yellow belt,Green belt,black belt and master black belt.

Six sigma itself is a very deep and vast topic which can be feel by pratical Apporoach only.The basic objective of this article is to share just abcd of six sigma approach....

Note: In six sigma the sigma stands for the standrad deviation which is an statistical term to meaure the deviation in a process from its average value..

Im my opinion if any organization takes serious interest in six sigma process approach,the return vll be only procees improvement and many fold profits....