What is Six Sigma?

The Greek symbol ‘sigma’ denotes standard deviation and hence is a measure of variation. Six Sigma
as a process aims to reduce variation in the product or services. The term Six sigma can be defined in
multiple ways such as a metric which demonstrates a quality level at 99.99967 percent performance
or a benchmark for product and process capability on a quality basis or a tool to help define,
measure, analyze, improve and control the processes; it can also be defined as a commitment,
Process capability or management philosophy, In simple terms Six Sigma is a quality control
methodology which focuses on reducing variations, defects, cost and cycle time to enhance
customer satisfaction. Six sigma as a metric permits not more than 3.4 defective parts per million. In
mathematical terms Six Sigma denotes six times standard deviation from mean in the normal
distribution curve and within those Lower specification limit and Upper specification limit 99.99967%
of output lies which are non-defective.

Six Sigma Origin and Evolution – the contribution of the quality Gurus
The term Six Sigma was coined by Bill Smith, an engineer in Motorola, during his tenure Motorola
was suffering from immense quality issues, they were manufacturing high amount of defective
products. In the 1970s Motorola started experimenting problem solving through statistical analysis,
and in 1981 Motorola started Six Sigma to achieve its goal of improving the quality by ten time
within five years. The official launch of Six Sigma was in 1987, when Motorola announced their goal
of improving quality by 10 times by the year 1989 and improving the quality by 100 times by 1991.
Motorola achieved Six Sigma performance in 1992 and it began a new era for the electronic giant
and other companies such as General Electric also adopted this practice. General Electric launched
Six Sigma in their organization in 1996 and by 2003 they made green belt certification a mandatory
criteria for promotion to managerial level. Six Sigma may have come into existence in the 20 th
century but the tools that it uses have been developed constantly from the 18 th century by the
quality Gurus. Some of the notable quality Gurus whose ideas and tools are most widely used by the
Six Sigma teams worldwide are Dr. W Edward Deming for his PDCA cycle and Statistical process
control, Dr. Joseph M Juran who was the first to apply the principles of Vilfredo Pareto an early
Quality Guru for quality related issues and Dr. Kaoru Ishikawa who gave us cause and effect diagram
also known as fishbone diagram.

Six Sigma Organization

A Six Sigma organization or team consists of Apex Council, Champion or sponsor, Process Owner,
Master Black belt, Black belt, Green belt and team members with each of them having their
specialized role.

The Apex Council is the top management who are accountable for Six Sigma business results, they
plan and actively participate in the implementation of Six Sigma by setting clear measurable
objectives.

The Champion or Sponsor is the one who oversees a Six Sigma project and is accountable to the
Apex council. Being in Senior Manager Position it is the duty of the champion to find resources for
the team, help overcome roadblocks and identify and recruit other key players.

The Process Owner acts as the functional head to implement process through Black belts and Project
teams. They provide resource and help resolve conflicts and are accountable to the Apex council.
They are responsible for holding the gains and setting goals and timeline for the project.
The Master Black Belt takes the responsibility of Six Sigma Coach by advising and mentoring Black
belts and teams. They communicate with champions and apex council. They establish and adhere to
schedule for projects by gathering and analyzing data on team activities and documenting overall
progress of Six Sigma.

The Black Belts acts as facilitators, they are implementation experts with the ability to develop,
coach and lead multiple cross-functional process improvement teams. They help teams learn and
understand Six Sigma tools and techniques through regular project reviews and they train and
develop green belts.

The green belts acts as project team leaders and execute Six Sigma as part of their daily job. They
keep the project team focused on the project goal and take up dual responsibility of being process
experts as well as trained resource on Six Sigma and quality tools. It is their responsibility to manage
conflict and seek intervention of Process Owner/Champion if necessary.

Team members are process experts with good knowledge of product, process and customer. They
are responsible for improvement by actively collecting data and participating in the improvement
process.

Two approach for Six Sigma: DMAIC vs DMADV

The two most widely used Six Sigma methodologies are DMAIC and DMADV, while both the
methodology share common characteristics and steps, they differ in the type of business process
they can be implemented in. DMAIC is implemented on an ongoing business process to reduce or
eliminate defects while DMADV is used to understand and build an efficient business model to
minimize defects and satisfy customers.

Different steps of DMAIC methodology

DMAIC is the abbreviation for Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control. In the define phase
we select the performance characteristics which are critical in meeting customer requirements. The
second phase is the measure phase which is a data collection step to determine how the process
currently performs. It is required to know the current performance or baseline of the process before
moving to the analyze phase of DMAIC. The analyze phase tries to find the root cause of the
problem, one of the biggest challenge for a team is not to jump to conclusions as it will waste both
time and resource, the analyze phase requires knowledge of many Six Sigma tools for an efficient
analysis such as Pareto charts, Fishbone or Ishikawa diagram, Scatter Graphs, NVA analysis etc. The
improve phase focuses on fixing the root cause identified during the analysis phase, in this phase the
team refines their countermeasures and implement pilot process changes and then measure the
change to determine if there is any measurable improvement. The final step in the methodology is
control which focuses in sustaining the improvement, they set up a monitoring plan to track the
success of the updated plan and work on countermeasures in case of dip in the performance.

Different steps of DMADV methodology

DMADV stands for Define, Measure, Analyze, Design and Verify. The Define phase of DMADV is very
different from DMAIC, in DMADV the define phase focuses on what the customer needs which can
be determined from multiple primary or secondary source data and surveys such as industry
research or historical data from the research conducted by the organization, the primary goal is to
have a product design which can satisfy customer demands. The second phase called the measure
phase focuses on creating a specification keeping in mind what the customer wants, the
specification defines the product or services in a measurable way. The Analyze phase of the project
is where the team comes up with ideas as to whether there are better ways to achieve the desired
results, they come up with alternatives, analyze those alternatives and incorporate those
alternatives which shows improvement to overall process. The next step in the DMADV methodology
is the design phase, based on the insight from analyze phase new product or services are designed
and analysis step is repeated for revision to gain new characteristics for the product or services. The
last step of DMADV methodology is verify, in this step the end result is measured and it is
determined whether the customer’s requirement has been met or not or the product or service is
according the required specification, this is an ongoing process even after the release of the product
and it is continuously in place in form of customer feedbacks to improve the product or services
offered.

What Six Sigma achieves

Six sigma is not just a measure of quality level, the practice of Six Sigma affects the whole system for
any given product or service making it more robust. The practice ensures customer satisfaction by
reducing process variation and eliminating waste. Six Sigma reduces rework, addresses key
requirement of the organization and provides competitive advantage. General Electricals, Wipro,
Microsoft and Motorola are some of the examples of organizations which practices Six Sigma.