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AFOES CONSULTANTS
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Frequently Asked Questions: Six Sigma Back to FAQ |
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1. What is Six Sigma? |
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Six Sigma has been defined in a variety of
manners since inception at Motorola in 1987. There are three basic categories
that Six Sigma fall into: a quality initiative that is focused on financial
results for a business, a statistically based process improvement method, and
a statistical measure of process/product capability. Six Sigma is all of
these and has been evolving since it was first developed. A process engineer
concerned about his company's failure to maintain market share due to product
non-conformances had the original thought. Dr. Mikel Harry and other
statisticians then validated the concept with mathematical and statistical
modelling. Six Sigma was born. Six Sigma - The Initiative The Six Sigma initiative is the latest quality
and management improvement movement to hit a variety of industries. This
movement started at Motorola where it was focused primarily on the reduction
of quality defects to sustain their semiconductor business. It was then
adopted across all areas of Motorola, seen as a valuable improvement
initiative for all product lines. AlliedSignal made the next significant change
to the Six Sigma methodology as they focused it on projects with significant
financial impact. The methods were applied not only to manufacturing process
improvement but also to the development and commercialisation of new
products. General Electric, after seeing how Six Sigma
benefited AlliedSignal, adopted the practices and made the next significant
contribution to the evolution of Six Sigma by applying it to more
non-manufacturing businesses. Insurance, leasing of buildings, and credit
services all saw tremendous benefits through improving their processes and
yielded millions of dollars in the process. Six Sigma is continuously evolving in its
application to different aspects of business, in a variety of industries.
It's not just for manufacturing anymore... Six Sigma - The Method Most people in the Six Sigma deployment world
know the initials DMAIC - Define,
Measure, Analyze, Improve, and Control. These are the five phases of the
commonly accepted and followed process improvement roadmap used in Six Sigma.
In each phase, there are a number of Subjective and Objective tools and
techniques used to focus the Project Leader on the critical aspects of the
process that impact the output of the process, and ultimately, the customer.
Subjective tools include Process
Mapping, Failure Mode and Effect Analysis (FMEA), and Quality Function
Deployment (QFD). Objective tools include statistical tests, Design of
Experiments, and Capability Analysis to mention only a few. Project Leaders are instructed in the proper
timing and application of the multitude of Subjective and Objective tools and
methods, always focusing on improving the process to provide financial and
strategic benefit to the company. Six Sigma has expanded to include Design, Technology, Marketing, and
Business Process areas of the company as well as Manufacturing/Operations.
Though many of the Objective tools remain the same, their timing and
application change dependent on the functional area they are applied to. Design
for Six Sigma (DFSS) is focused on the development of a product,
not on the process to create the product. The Product Development Cycle is
the roadmap followed for DFSS, where the Objective and Subjective tools are
applied accordingly during the appropriate Stage of the product development
cycle. The focus is the development of products that are designed to meet
customer needs and expectations with a high degree of capability through
understanding the process and supplier capability to produce the product.
This incorporates the design for reliability, manufacturability and
serviceability. Six Sigma - The Metric The measure Six Sigma, or
six standard deviations, is a statistical representation of the variation of
a process as it is compared to the acceptable tolerance window provided by
the customer. A standard deviation, represented by the Greek symbol sigma (s), is
a measure of variability. If one measures a normally distributed process or
product, approximately 99.73% of the values would be within +/- 3 standard
deviations of the mean, or average, value. Six Sigma means that the customer
specification limits (what they are willing to accept) are 6 standard
deviations (hence, Six Sigma) on either side of the average value. With this
level of performance, the customer will only observe 3.4 parts per million
(PPM) outside of their specification limits. |
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2. How Six Sigma can
be applied to my Organization? |
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Many have thought that Six
Sigma applies to manufacturing because it was fundamentally focused on defect
reduction, quality improvement and cost reduction. The reality is that Six
Sigma applies to ANY process. Processes exist in every business, industry and
walk of life. Businesses that have seen millions of dollars in bottom-line
benefits include: Law firms Transportation companies Chemical processing plants Energy supply facilities Financial institutions Health care providers Universities Government agencies Automotive and electronic
assembly facilities Insurance providers Leasing companies Military organizations Textile production Each of these entities has
one thing in common: they all complete their business through the use of
processes. Six Sigma can be utilized to improve any process, the key is
determining which process (es) would benefit the company through the
application of Six Sigma. Identifying and improving Core and enabling
processes is paramount to the effective and efficient application of Six
Sigma. This may include processes like: Financial transactions Logistics and scheduling Order processing Customer call centres Design functions Supplied goods receipt Inventory management Manufacturing processes Customer service Marketing and advertising Quality auditing and control
Six Sigma has shown to be
instrumental in improving a variety of processes in a multitude of
industries. Odds are that it could be applied to your business too. |
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3. What is the trend
in Six Sigma? |
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Six
Sigma was first implemented in the Manufacturing processes of electronics
manufacturers. Many manufacturing oriented companies continued to apply the
successful techniques but the efforts became less beneficial over time since
the focus was constantly on cost reduction and productivity improvement on
the manufacturing floor. Soon many chemical and continuous process companies
adopted Six Sigma and saw tremendous impacts, but still focused in
production. The
vision for Six Sigma is not only about bottom-line savings. Within the last
two years a new phenomenon within Six Sigma has emerged that goes beyond the
focus for savings. Design for Six Sigma (DFSS) was incepted to focus on
stimulating top line growth by focusing on critical aspects of company
centric design processes. It all begins with a robust process for extracting
the voice of the customer, processing it into a quantitative specification
for design requirements, and then applying the best tools to creating the
best products and services that fulfil customer expectations. In fact,
companies have seen DFSS not only create superior bottom-line savings by enhancing
the design process, but they have seen extraordinary growth from the types of
products that not only fulfil customer standards and uses, but they also
fulfil customer's unrealized latent expectations. Some
companies have gained the vision that Six Sigma, when applied to
non-manufacturing or Business Process areas, can yield significantly larger
gains than in the manufacturing areas. Significant
improvements in Inventory Turns, Throughput, Cash Flow, Schedule Attainment
and Customer Retention measures have been achieved in areas of both
manufacturing and service industries. In
the past decade, the companies implementing Six Sigma were typically only the
large corporations with large consulting budgets. Today, regional programs
and corporate programs are available to assist any size company in successful
implementation of Six Sigma in their business. So
where is Six Sigma application headed? Marketing, technology development,
customer cantered business development are but a few of the pioneering areas
Six Sigma is infiltrating. As the Six Sigma maturity level of a business
increases, the need for expanded application of improvement techniques
becomes more relevant. AFOES Consultants continues to innovate in these
pioneering areas and they seek excellence for all their customers. |