Six SigmaWhen Bill Smith at Motorola developed a set of practices which were aimed at improving business processes in 1966, little did he know that two words which he came up with at that time would stir quite a revolution four decades since. Six Sigma, needs no introduction especially to those of you who have been associated with Quality Management at some level across any vertical. What is Six Sigma's core principle? Six Sigma's biggest strength in quality management is that it allows integration of process improvement to ensure that the business objectives are met. Every event is measured as an opportunity and every error is marked as a defect. A business process attains Six Sigma level of quality standards, when there are only 3.4 defects per million opportunities (3.4DPMO). Six Sigma attests the ability of business processes which are highly capable to produce desired outputs when the specifications are mentioned clearly. Who are the predecessors to Six Sigma? Though Six Sigma is the industry leader in developing a set of practices for business processes, it takes precedence to existing standards like Total Quality Management(TQM), Zero Defect etc. Like both of them, Six Sigma strives towards development and implementation model for quality improvement. How can I get my business process to a Six Sigma level? As a business manager, you would first need to determine the project scope. There are different methodologies or approaches used to have your business process attain Six Sigma level. If you have an existing process in place for which you have measurable data on a historical basis, you should use the classical DMAIC(Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control) methodology on the business process. If you wish to engineer a new process, you would need to use the DMADV(Define, Measure, Analyze, Design and Validate process). To get the process right, you would need to focus on aspects like collection of data - how would you collect the data, data authenticity - is the data which you will be collecting accurate, measuring data on a continual basis, reporting - how would you report data and deviations. All this should be considered and written down in the Six Sigma Project charter which should be signed off by the Project Champion. The most important fact about any Six Sigma initiative is that it can never be achieved by one person alone. The entire team or the organization needs to work for it as one team. To that effect, as a business manager or a business owner, you must communicate about the Six Sigma initiative to the core team members and the organization and lay out their individual roles and responsibilities. If all these factors are given due consideration and if the business processes are implemented properly by the team, one can attain Six Sigma Quality level for the business process. |