It begins with a focus on improving performance of the organization, and then in turn produces better quality outputs of the products or services it produces.
At a high level, Six Sigma is all of these;
- A Management System or Style
- A measure of deviation or variability
- A process quality goal or objective
- A statistical measure of performance
- Non-conformance level of 3.4 Defects per Million (DPM) opportunities
Here’s a working example to help us understand to what extent Six Sigma can improve quality…
Imagine a company that produces widgets. For a batch of 50,000 widgets, if the company was able to achieve a 99% quality rating of all they produced, the batch of 50,000 widgets would still have 410 widgets with defects. For the same batch of 50,000 widgets, if the company was able to achieve Six Sigma quality, the batch would only have two (2) widgets with defects! This is all based on point 5 above, a non-conformance level of 3.4 defects per million (DPM) opportunities.
If you like the idea of high quality, low defects, and eliminating waste, here’s the key elements you need to make Six Sigma work;
- Are you truly able to listen to your customers?
- Are the customers needs truly your first priority?
- Are people your focus? Do you train, empower, and involve them?
- Do you establish performance standards and use exception reporting?
The DMAIC Improvement Cycle is at the core of Six Sigma;
(These are collaborative team tasks – not pushed down from management)
- Define; the goal, potential resources, scope, timeline, voice of the customer, Critical To Quality (CTQ) etc.
- Measure; establish a baseline in order to determine if improvements have actually been made
- Analyse; root cause analysis, root cause selection, data collection plan, process mapping, Venn diagram etc.
- Improve; Focus on the simplest and the most effective changes, use Tools/Techniques such as Thinking Hats, Design of Experiments, PDCA cycles, Monitor ‘improvements’ using Effects Analysis or FMEA etc
- Control; focus on sustainable success, update documentation, etc
If you’d like to learn more about quality management and how to improve the quality of your products, services or internal projects, speak with one of our consultants today. We offer free initial consultations and no obligation advice. Let’s get the conversation started! Contact us today.