What is Six Sigma ?

Sigma is the Greek symbol used for Standard Deviation of a population. Is achieving a high quality level of 3.4 defects per million opportunities.

Max Zornada (2005)

1 Sigma

2 Sigma

3 Sigma

4 Sigma

4.5 Sigma

5 Sigma

6 Sigma

Accept %

68.26

95.45

99.73

99.9937

99.99932

99.999943

99.9999998

Defect %

31.74

4.55

0.27

0.0063

0.00068

0.000057

0.0000002

DPMU

3,17,400

45500

2700

63

6.8

0.57

0.002

Sigma level

Mean

68.26%

95.45% 99.73%

1 3 99.9999998% (6 sigma )

3 quality (99.7% quality) means

Our heart fails to beat 100 times a day 2 unsafe landings at Delhi airport every month 60 babies are dropped at birth every day in India No electricity for 7 hours every month in major cities like New York, Tokyo, Singapore etc.

Max Zornada (2005)

Practical meaning of Sigma level

3 4 5 6

- 1.5 misspelled words per page in a book - 1 misspelled word in 30 pages of a book - 1 misspelled word in a set of encyclopedia - 1 misspelled word in all the books in a small library

Max Zornada (2005)

Example for 6 Sigma

Example for 6 Sigma

Mumbai dubbawale
2,00,000Tiffin Boxes 4,00,000 transactions every day. Error Rate : 1 in 16 million transactions That is 1 mistake reported in 40 days
S

Swiss Transportation
Almost zero defect
Max Zornada (2005)

The Six Sigma Approach DMAIC

Control by standardising solution and monitoring performance.
Define the problem or opportunity. Control Define

Improve by implementing potential solutions.

Improve

6s Measure

Analyse

Measure the current performance and capability

Analyse to identify root causes.

Max Zornada (2005)