Six Sigma

Six Sigma

Some say, Robert Galvin invented Six Sigma in the 1880’s, instead, he applied methodologies that had been available since the 1920’s developed by luminaries such as: Shewhart, Deming, Juran, Ishikawa, Ohno, Shingo, Taguchi, and Shainin.

The idea behind Six Sigma is you can measure how many defects you have in a process, you can systematically figure out how to eliminate them and as close to zero defects as possible. We use this highly disciplined Six Sigma process to help us focus on developing and delivering near-perfect products and services. Once data has been acquired, you then can identify and eliminate the root cause of defects and secure a flawless performance. The higher the sigma value, the less variation and fewer defects the process will have.

Six Sigma describes how a process is performing. Six Sigma begins with the customer, and a defect is defined as anything outside of the customers specifications. First, an organization takes it’s strategic goals and values to that of their customer’s needs and expectations and align them in what is called metrics. For each organization that seeks to achieve total customer satisfaction, quality experts regard Six Sigma as the strategic imperative. To achieve Six Sigma, a process must not produce more than 3.4 defects per million opportunities, and they have secured a 99.9966% success rate.

The fundamental objective of the Six Sigma methodology is the implementation of a measurement based strategy that focuses on process improvement through the use of two Six Sigma sub-categories, DMAIC and DMADV. The Six Sigma DMAIC, which stands for, define, measure, analyze, design, and control, is an improvement system for existing processes falling below specification and looking for incremental improvements. The Six Sigma DMADV process, which stands for, define, measure, analyze, design, and verify, is an improvement system quality levels. Six Sigma implementation focuses on the process, whether it is