CHAPTER -5

SIX SIGMA QUALITY LEVEL

Six Sigma is a quality discipline that focuses on product and service excellence to create
a culture that demands perfection on target, every time. It is a mathematical term
(Sigma is a Greek word) that represents a measure of standard deviation or variability
within a given population around the mean. It represents population that falls within plus
or minus six standard deviations. Six Sigma methodologies, provides the techniques
and tools to improve the capability and reduce the defects in any process.

It was started in Motorola, in its manufacturing division, where millions of parts are made
using the same process repeatedly. Eventually Six Sigma evolved and applied to other
non manufacturing processes. Today you can apply Six Sigma to many fields such as
Services, Medical and Insurance Procedures, Call Centers.

Motorola company’s engineers in 1980, decided to measure the defects per million
opportunities, instead of traditional quality levels – measuring defects in thousands of
opportunities. They developed this new standards and created methodology and necessary
cultural changes associated with it.

Six Sigma focuses first on reducing variation and then on improving process capabilities.

A common goal of Six Sigma programme is
critical processes. Quantitatively it means
‘opportunities’. An opportunity is defined
Statistically, Six Sigma ensures that 99.9997%
of acceptable quality
to minimize variation within all of our
fewer than 3.4 defects per million
as a “chance for non-conformance”.
of all products produced in a process are

It aims for the businesses to adjust its culture towards accepting a near perfect operation
in executing key processes. Such a cultural change will directly contribute towards
customer satisfaction and increased productivity. Motorola on successful implementation
of Six Sigma programme documented more than US$16 Billion in savings.

Six Sigma can also be defined as a process focused methodology, designed to

improve business performance through improving specific areas of a strategic
business process.

Six Sigma methodologies improve any existing business process by constantly reviewing
and re-tuning the process. To achieve this, Six Sigma uses a methodology known as
DMAIC (Define opportunities, Measure performance, Analyze opportunity, Improve
performance, Control performance).

Six Sigma is in short a powerful tool that can help an organization to design, operate, and
control every process in such a manner that no process yields more than 3.4 defects for
every million opportunity. Concept of Six Sigma is applicable to the service and
manufacturing industries, to all functions – production, marketing, personnel, etc. and all
the processes such as manufacturing, pay roll or dispatch operations.

Six Sigma experts (Green Belts and Black Belts) evaluate a business process and
determine ways to improve upon the existing process. The process of improvements are
over seen by Six Sigma Master Black Belts.

If a given process fails to meet the criteria, it is re-analyzed, altered and tested to find out
if there are any improvements. If no improvement is found, the process is re-analyzed,
altered and tested again. This cycle is repeated until you see an improvement. Once an
improvement is found, it’s documented and the knowledge is spread across other units in
the company so they can implement this new process and reduce their defects per million
opportunities.

Six Sigma experts can also design a brand new business process using DFSS (Design
For Six Sigma) principles. Typically its easier to define a new process with DFSS
principles than refining an existing process to reduce the defects. The Six Sigma
improvement process used to develop new products or processes is DMADV (Define,
Measure, Analyze, Design, Verify)

Six Sigma incorporates (1) The basic principles and techniques used in Business,
(2) Statistics, and Engineering. These three form the core elements of Six Sigma.

Six Sigma (1) Improves the process performance, (2) Decreases variation and (3)
Maintains consistent quality of the process output. This leads to defect reduction and
improvement in profits, product quality and customer satisfaction.

Six Sigma methodology is also used in many Business Process Management initiatives
these days. These Business Process Management initiatives are not necessarily related to
manufacturing. Many of the BPM’s that use Six Sigma in today’s world include call
centers, customer support, supply chain management and project management.

METHODOLOGY: Let us first understand some of the terms associated with the
implementation of Six Sigma.:
SPONSOR – is business executive leading the organization.
CHAMPIONS – Business leaders who lead Six Sigma by sponsoring projects.
Champions are trained to select the projects keeping in view business goals. They are
responsible for Six Sigma strategy deployment and vision.
BELTS – They are project leaders selected and mentored by the Champions.
PROCESS OWNER – they are owner of the process product or service being improved.
MASTER BLACK BELTS – they are coach Black Belts having expertise in statistical
tools.
BLACK BELTS – they are experts working on 3 to 5 projects per year, project being
worth $2,50,000.
GREEN BELTS – works with black belts on projects.
Six Sigma methodology has evolved out of decades of research and is a proven strategy
for improving all aspects of an organization’s structure. As mentioned before core of Six
Sigma methodology is DMAIC. The leaders chosen by the company called Six Sigma
Black Belts and Green Belts have to go through rigorous training to seek out defects and
eliminate them.
DEFINE: Define all the parameters to be included in the Six Sigma process. They can
be team which will work on improvements, customers of the process, their needs and
requirements, define problem in concrete measurable terms with an operational
definition. Define customers and requirements critical to quality. Develop problem
statements.
MEASURE: Once the project has a clear definition with a clear measurable function the
process is studied to determine the key process steps and key process inputs for each
process. After the key input list is ready the Belt will consider the potential impact each
input has with respect to the project variations. Inputs are prioritized to establish a short
list to study in more detail. With this list Belts will determine the potential ways the
process can take place. How the input can go wrong? Once the reason for input failure is
determined, preventive action plans are worked out.
ANALYZE: Through analysis the team can determine the cause of the problem that need
improvement.
IMPROVE: This step consists of generating, selecting and implementing of solutions.
Pilot studies may be carried out and potential improvements validated, corrected and re-
evaluated till Six Sigma goal of 3.4 defects per million opportunities is achieved.
CONTROL: Define and validate monitoring system to control that improvements
achieved with the above process are sustained for long time.
Once benefits are realized, cost savings generated and profit growth due to changes are
ensured, proper documentations for the improved system should be finalised and properly
documented before closing the Six Sigma project. The project report should be circulated,
due credits to the concerned persons to be given and success celebrated.

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