All you need to know about Six Sigma" in process improvement

Speeding up productivity of our business is a major requirement to remain competitive

in a global economy that changes everyday. Our company survives if we are certain that
processes produce value. Indeed, they need to be designed and implemented to be
measured in terms of effectiveness and efficiency. Is in this context where Six Sigma
emerges as methodology that supports our organization on the path of business process
excellence. Sigma () is a letter taken from the Greek alphabet mainly used in statistics
as a measure of the amount of variation or dispersion of a set of data values.
Accordingly, Six sigma methodology aims to eliminate most of defects at various
levels (manufacture, transaction, product, service), based on a normal distribution curve
intended to be six standard deviations among the mean and any specific limit. Six
sigma processes expects to produce a feature free of deficiencies with a certainty of
99.99966%.
Poor quality costs
A commonly used concept when referring to poor quality costs in any industrial process
is that they are only caused by defective products. This is partly true. Making sure that
high-quality products are produced is an important amount of the total poor quality
costs. Poor quality costs could be grouped in the following categories:
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Internal faults: defective products, redesigning, rework and shortage in

materials.
External faults: returned products, guarantees, penalties, environmental costs.
Prevention costs: quality planning, failure proofing, education and training.
Assessment costs: field testing, service audits, inspections.

The Six Sigma design framework compares businesses, products, processes and
services. Furthermore, it provides tools that quantify company quality, and, at the same
time, is a guidance tool to achieve our company objectives. Six Sigma mission is then
to provide accurate information which would be helpful to achieve maximum quality in
products and services. Another important characteristic of the program is the building of
trust among participants, since business activity is founded on information, ideas and
experience, which helps to raise quality and administrative management. Six Sigma is
defined at operation and management levels. At the operations level, statistical tools are
used to measure variables of the industrial processes to identify failures. At management
level, it analyzes processes used by employees to improve quality of products, processes
and services.
Six sigma roles and resources
Six sigma uses a specific convention for members of their team; therefore, its
philosophy is based on a group work effort. As Six Sigma has a strong component of
statistics and lean manufacturing it is essential for the participants to have previous
knowledge, along to the experience acquired in other successful projects.

Champion: middle or senior level executive. He or she sponsors a specific

project and negotiates availability of resources.
Black Belt: professional working as a team leader on the projects. He or she
knows and applies Six Sigma methods and tools.
Master Black Belt: successful Black Belt experienced on managing several
projects. He or she is an expert in Six Sigma tools and methodology, is in
charge of training Black Belts and maintaining the course of action, leads
cultural change.
Green Belt: part-time worker who leads smaller projects. He or she has a little
training in methods and basic statistical tools.
Finance Controller: he or she is in charge of establishing measurements to lead
the financial success of projects, also estimates and approves project results and
quantify benefits of the projects.
Process Owner: he or she is responsible for the business process that is the
target, maximizes the performance of this process at a high level.

Tips for Managing Six Sigma projects

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High level managers must be trained on Six Sigma to guarantee their

commitment. Their leadership would be essential for the performance of the
project.
A mentoring process is a must. It ensures that guidance is done well, corrections
are regular and projects finish on time. The financial return on training
investment would be around 15 times and can be done by appropriate project
definition and money allocation.
Adequate consultants are needed to successfully training of all Belts. It would be
preferred a Black Belt or Master Black Belt who has experience on Six Sigma
projects rather than an academic with no practical experience.
Not only black or green belts involvement in projects is required, supervisors
and operators need to be trained in the use of tools and techniques. In this way,
they will see the results on their own and will aspire to get a Six Sigma
certification.
It is necessary that Six Sigma planning is included on the business plan of the
company. Finance departments should ensure financial validation of the project
and proper tracking until project is completed.
Six Sigma tool has the ability to direct and determine the effectiveness of
process control, so evidence of better results as a result of data-driven processes
need to be shared at all levels of the company.

Images
https://www.flickr.com/photos/rudolfgetel/7164120540/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/conifer/21912344132/