Six Sigma

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• Six Sigma is the measure of quality that strives for
near perfection. It is a disciplined, data-driven
methodology focused on eliminating defects. A Six
Sigma defect is defined as anything that falls
outside of a customer's specifications. Six Sigma is
a reference to a statistical measuring system,
equivalent to just 3.4 defects per every million
opportunities
• Six sigma incorporates the basic principles and
techniques used in business, statistics and
engineering.
• Six sigma focuses on improving quality ( i.e,
reducing wastes) by helping organizations produce
products and services better, faster and cheaper.
• It focuses on defect prevention, cycle-time reduction
and cost savings. It identifies and eliminates cost
which provide no value to customers.
• Companies operating at three or four sigma typically
spend between 25 and 40 percent of their revenues
fixing problems.
• Intense competitive pressures – especially from
rapid globalization.
• Greater consumer demand for high quality products
and services, little tolerance for failures of any type.
• Top management (and stockholder) recognition of
the high costs of poor quality.
• The availability and accessibility of large data bases
and the increasing ability to explore, understand,
and use the data.
• Six-sigma pioneer Motorola started the quality
program in the year 1987. It took five full years to
see significant results of six- sigma.
 Key Six Sigma concepts
• Critical to quality (CTQ): Attributes most crucial for
the customer.
• Defect: Failing to deliver what the customer wants
• Process capability: what one’s process can deliver
• Variation: what the customer sees and feels
• Stable operations: ensuring consistent, predictable
processes to improve what the customer sees and
improve
• Design for six sigma: designing to meet customer
needs and process capability
• Defects per unit (DPU) = number of defects
discovered  number of units produced
 Sigma and % Accuracy
Defects per Million %
Accuracy Opportunities (DPMO)
One Sigma 697,672 30.85%
Two Sigma 308,772 69.15%
Three Sigma 66,811 93.32%
Four Sigma 6,210 99.38%
Five Sigma 232 99.977%
Six Sigma 3.4 99.9997%
Seven Sigma 0.02099.999998%
 Cost of poor quality

Fig. 1 Cost of poor quality versus Sigma level

Cost of poor quality
as % of earnings

30%

20%

10%

0%
3 4 5 6 7

Sigm a Le ve l
Selecting the right projects for SIX SIGMA

• Assure that the importance of the projects is evident or

can be readily demonstrated.

• Assure the projects are viable and doable in a short time.

• Assure that the success of the projects can be readily

quantified.
 Six Sigma Quality: DMAIC Cycle
• Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, and Control DMAIC
• Developed by General Electric as a means of focusing effort
on quality using a methodological approach
• Firms striving to achieve six-sigma generally adopt DMAIC
cycle.
• DMAIC are the typical steps employed in “continuous
improvement” (a.k.a. Kaizen) concept which seeks to
continually improve all aspects of production (parts,
machines, labor, processes, etc)
• Overall focus of the methodology is to understand and
achieve what the customer wants
• A 6-sigma program seeks to reduce the variation in the
processes that lead to these defects
Six Sigma Methodology (DMAIC)
Define

Measure

Control

Analyse
Improve

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 DMAIC Steps

1. Define

1. Define 2. Measure 3. Analyze 4. Improve 5. Control

• Identify Critical to Quality characteristics (CTQ).

• The customer’s perception about quality attributes are

updated from time to time by conducting customer surveys.
Key Questions:
• What are the problems?
• What is its criticality and importance to the customer?
• What is the benchmark?
• How should resources be allocated?
• What are the independent and dependent variables
affecting the project?
• Is the voice of customer being captured directly?
Key Issues:
• Which team is to handle the issue?
• What will they accomplish?
• What is the clear definition of project scope, including
operational details?
• What are the various milestones of the project?
• What are the roles of team members?
• What are Critical to Quality (CTQ) parameters?
• Identification of critical success factors (CSF)
Important tools used:
• Brainstorming

• Quality Function Deployment (QFD) –

– method to transform user demands into design quality, to deploy the
functions forming quality, and to deploy methods for achieving the
design quality into subsystems and component parts, and ultimately to
specific elements of the manufacturing process. QFD is designed to
help planners focus on characteristics of a new or existing product or
service from the viewpoints of market segments, company, or
technology-development needs.
– The technique yields graphs and matrices.
– The house of quality matrix is the most recognized form of QFD. It is
utilized by a multidisciplinary team to translate set of customer
requirements and benchmarking, into an appropriate number of
prioritized targets to be met by a new product design
 House of Quality
Interrelationships Customer
requirement
priorities

Technical requirements

Voice of
the Relationship
customer matrix

Technical requirement
priorities Competitive
evaluation
 Building the House of Quality

• Step 1 : List customer requirements (CR)

• Step 2 : List technical descriptors/characteristics (TD)
• Step 3: Compare the relationship between CR and TD

• Step 4 : Develop an interrelationship between each of

technical descriptors
• Step 5 : Implement competitive assessment
• Step 6 : Develop prioritized customer requirements

• Step 7 : Develop prioritized technical descriptors

Customer wants and ratings
How the product will satisfy
customer wants
Identify relations between
our hows
 Benefits of QFD
– It facilitates identification of the causes of customer
complaints and makes it easier to make prompt
remedial actions.

– It is a useful tool in improving product quality.

– It is a useful tool for competitive analysis of product

quality.

– It stabilizes quality.

– It cuts down on rejects and rework at the production

• Pareto analysis –
– a statistical technique in decision making that is used for
selection of a limited number of tasks that produce significant
overall effect. It uses the Pareto principle – the idea that by
doing 20% of work, 80% of the advantage of doing the entire job
can be generated. Or in terms of quality improvement, a large
majority of problems (80%) are produced by a few key causes
(20%).
Steps to identify the important causes using Pareto
analysis
• Step 1: Form an explicit table listing the causes and their frequency as a
percentage.
• Step 2: Arrange the rows in the decreasing order of importance of the
causes (i.e., the most important cause first)
• Step 3: Add a cumulative percentage column to the table
• Step 4: Plot with causes on x- and cumulative percentage on y-axis
• Step 5: Join the above points to form a curve
• Step 6: Plot (on the same graph) a bar graph with causes on x- and percent
frequency on y-axis
• Step 7: Draw line at 80% on y-axis parallel to x-axis. Then drop the line at
the point of intersection with the curve on x-axis. This point on the x-axis
separates the important causes (on the left) and trivial causes (on the right)
• Step 8: Explicitly Review the chart to ensure that at least 80% of the causes
are captured

• Project management fundamentals to ensure scope

• Process mapping
Category Number of Percentage Cumulative
Complaints Percentage
Cockroaches 962 43.2 43.2
Rooms temperature 505 22.7 65.9
Lighting 350 15.7 81.6
Storge space 127 5.7 87.3
Stereo noise 97 4.4 91.7
Television broadcasting 83 3.7 95.4
Water 54 2.4 97.8
Towels 32 1.4 99.2
Furniture 15 0.8 100.00
TOTAL 2225
 Pareto Chart

3000

Percent
Number of Complaints

100
2000

50
1000
962

505
350
0 0
cock light stereo water furn

temp store tv towel

Category
 Cause-and-Effect Diagram
 This diagram is also called as Fishbone diagram, Ishikawa
diagram. The fishbone diagram identifies many possible causes for
an effect or problem. It can be used to structure a brainstorming
session. It immediately sorts ideas into useful categories.

 The cause –and-effect diagram is the brainchild of Kaoru Ishikawa

 Steps in Constructing a Cause and
Effect Diagram
1. Write the issue (problem or process condition) on the center right side of the
Cause and Effect Diagram.
2. Identify the major cause categories and write them in the four boxes on the
Cause and Effect Diagram. You may summarize causes under categories
such as: Methods, Machine, Manpower, Materials, Measurement,
Environment
3. Brainstorm potential causes of the problem. As possible causes are
provided, decide as a group where to place them on the Cause and Effect
Diagram. It is acceptable to list a possible cause under more than one major
cause category.
4. Review each major cause category. Circle the most likely causes on the
diagram.
5. Review the causes that are circled and ask, “Why is this cause?” Asking
“why” will help get to the root cause of the problem.

6. Reach an agreement on the most probable cause(s).

 Effect Cause
METHODS MACHINERY

Re-design
screen
Office layout
Effect on other office
NEW OFFICE
WORKING
METHOD
Training
Remove old forms

Design new forms Teamwork

MATERIALS MANPOWER
2. Measure 5.0
Control

1. Define 2. Measure 3. Analyze 4. Improve 5. Control

• Important processes influencing CTQs are

identified and performance measurement
techniques are established for these processes.
• Define performance standards
• Measure current level of quality. It precisely
pinpoints the area causing problems.
• Identify all potential causes for such problems.
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Key questions:
• What are the performance variables and their impact?
• What is the gap between benchmark and existing
status?
• What is the performance capability of the
process/processes?

Key issues are:

• What does the customer really want?
• Validation of measurement schemes
• Development of key input, process and output measures
Important tools used:
• Process mapping
• QFD
• Cause and effect matrix
• Creativity techniques
• ANOVA
3. Analyse

1. Define 2. Measure 3. Analyse 4. Improve 5. Control

• Analyze the process to determine the most likely causes

of defects
• Define performance objectives
• Identify variation sources
3.0
Analyze

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Key questions:
• What are the success factors?
• What is the performance goal?
• What are the sources of real variation?
• What is the target percentage for improvement?

Key issues:
• What is the company’s capability to make /deliver?
• What is the characterization of the problem?
• Selection of performance variable and their
quantification.
Important tools used:
• Gap analysis
• Process map analysis
• Data stratification
• Advanced analytical tools
• Regression analysis
• ANOVA
• Tests of hypothesis
4. Improve

1. Define 2. Measure 3. Analyse 4. Improve 5. Control

• Screen potential causes

• Discover variable relationships among causes and effects
• Pursue a method to resolve and ultimately eliminate problems. It is
also a phase to explore the solution how to change, fix and modify the
process.
• Carryout a trial run for a planned period of time to ensure the revisions
and improvements implemented in the process result in achieving the
targeted values.

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Key questions:
• How is the interaction between various factors studied?
• How are operating limits and new process capability
established?
• How is optimum solution selected?
• How is implementation planned?

Key Issues:
• What really affects the company’s ability to
make/deliver?
• How is performance improvement verified?
• Action plans
• Generation of solutions to address root causes and the
criteria to screen and select
• Establishment of operating tolerances

Important tools used:

• DOE (Design of Experiments) techniques
• Tests of hypothesis
• Confirmation or validation studies
 1. Define 2. Measure 3. Analyse 4. Improve 5. Control

• Monitor the improved process continuously to ensure

long term sustainability of the new developments.
• Share the lessons learnt
• Document the results and accomplishments of all the
improvement activities for future reference.

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 Six Sigma Training Programmes
Champions and Sponsors
• High level individuals
• Champions must be proficient in four areas (business
and operation interface, project selection, pace
mediation, result implementation)
• Mostly it is led by a full time high level champion
• Sponsors are the owners of processes and systems that
help initiate and coordinate six sigma improvement
activities in their areas of responsibilities.
Master Black Belt
• Responsible for strategic deployment of six sigma.
• Provide mentoring and support to Black Belts, Green
Belts, and Six Sigma teams to use the improvement
tools.
• Develop, maintain and revise Six Sigma curriculum,
delivering classroom training and serving as liaisons with
external agencies in the delivery of Six Sigma training.
• Networking with other Master Black Belts.
Black Belt
• A professional who can explain Six Sigma philosophies
and principles including supporting systems and tools.
• Demonstrate team leadership, understand team
dynamics and assign roles and responsibilities to team
members.
• Have a thorough understanding of DMAIC model
• They receive 160 hours of training and 1 to 1 Project
Coaching from Master Black Belts & Consultants.
Green Belt
• Project leaders capable of forming & facilitating Six
Sigma Teams and managing Six Sigma Projects from
conception to completion
• They receive 5 days of classroom training in conjunction
with Six Sigma Project covering Project Mgt., Quality
Mgt. Tools, Quality Control Tools, Problem Solving and
Descriptive Data Analysis
• They operate in support or under the supervision of
Black Belts, analyses and solves quality problems and
involved in Quality Improvement Projects.
Yellow Belt
• It’s an introductory training in the fundamentals of Six
Sigma, provides an overall insight to the Techniques of
Six Sigma, its metrics and methodologies
• They have basic knowledge of Six Sigma but does not
leads project on its own.
• Responsible for development of Process Maps to
support Six Sigma projects
• May often be responsible for running smaller process
improvement projects using the PDCA methodology.
 Six Sigma Implementation
• Step 1
– All top level management should be on board.
– Adequate financial and managerial resources are available.
– Systems are developed for establishing close communication
with customers, employees and suppliers.
– Policies and guidelines should be established.
– Training needs assessed and training programmes conducted.
• Step 2
– Define project scope and goals based on customer feedback
and needs (through surveys).
– Set goals for the whole organization or specific level of
organization that needs improvement.
• Step 3
– Analyze the system to identify defects and problems.
– Measure the defects in the current system and performance
– Identify the possible causes of problems
– Explore possible solutions and assess their possible effect on
the organization
– Use statistical data analysis
• Step 4
– Improve system by finding ways to do things faster, cheaper or
better.
– Use management planning tools to put the improvement projects
into place
– Test the improvement with statistical data
• Step 5
– Control the new process by modifying systems and measuring
processes to continue to achieve results.
– Use customer feedback and statistical tools
– State what was done to improve performance
– Document methods to recognize and solve future problems