Six Sigma

Six Sigma was pioneered by Bill Smith at Motorola in 1986 and it is a methodology to manage process variations that cause defects and to eliminate those defects. Defects are defined as unacceptable deviation from the mean or target. The objective of Six Sigma is to deliver high performance, reliability, and value to the end customer. Texas Instruments, Scientific-Atlanta, and Allied Signal are a few of the companies that practice Six Sigma.

The Greek letter sigma is sometimes used to denote variation from a standard. The philosophy behind Six Sigma is that if you measure the number of defects are in a process, you can find a method to to systematically eliminate them and get as close to perfection as possible. To achieve Six Sigma, the defects per million opportunities cannot be more than 3.4 where an opportunity is defined as a chance for nonconformance.

All Six Sigma processes are executed by Six Sigma Green Belts or Six Sigma Black Belts, which are then overseen by a Six Sigma Master Black Belts.

Six Sigma DMAIC is a data driven quality strategy using to improve the processes. DMAIC is an acronym for Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, and Control.

Following these five interconnected phases ensures the best possible results.

  • Define the customer, their critical to quality issues, and the the process improvement goals
  • Measure the performance of the involved process and collect the required data
  • Analyze the collected data to determine root causes of defects and opportunities for improvement
  • Improve the target process by fixing and preventing problems and
  • Control the improvements to ensure that variances are corrected before they result in defects.

Six Sigma on the Internet

  1. Six Sigma Definition - What Is Six Sigma
  2. Six Sigma from Wikipedia
  3. Six Sigma Benchmarking
  4. Design for Six Sigma
  5. Roadmap to Successful Six Sigma Implementation

Books about Six Sigma

  1. Yang & El Haik, Design for Six Sigma, McGraw-Hill, 2003, ISBN 0071412085
  2. Subir Chowdhury, The Power of Design for Six Sigma, Dearborn Trade, 2002, ISBN 079316060X
  3. Subir Chowdhury, Design for Six Sigma, Dearborn Trade, 2002, ISBN 0793152240
  4. Stamatis, Six Sigma and Beyond: Design for Six Sigma, Volume VI, CRC Press, 2002, ISBN 1574443151

Software

  1. MINITAB
  2. The Six Sigma Tool Box
  3. PowerSixSigma
  4. SPC for Six Sigma