Walt Kelly's "Pogo" got it right a long time ago: We have met the enemy, and he is

us. It's unfortunate that the quality community hasn't recognized that evaluative methods and tools don't improve quality. Organizations improve quality by using methods and tools consistently to emphasize planning and refine their designs, not by appraising quality. Quality is only improved when the organizational culture is committed to change and is willing to make quality a priority characteristic or a metric throughout the entire organization. There are no shortcuts or silver bullets. If quality matters, it should be a way of life. It's a travesty to see so many resources being wasted in the name of quality when it's still viewed as an appraisal system. Twenty years ago, quality-methodology innovation and implementation were second to none, yet quality was (as it still is) a problem. This remained true even when the quality "gurus" (Joseph M. Juran, W. Edwards Deming, Armand V. Feigenbaum, Philip Crosby and others) introduced innovative ideas to address quality in the planning stages--that is, building quality into design, not simply monitoring it at the manufacturing level. Similarly, ISO 9000 and QS-9000 had flashy introductions but fell short on delivery. They created a generation of overwhelming paper trails but offered no major quality breakthroughs. Organizations fell in love with the process but forgot the purpose of ISO 9000, which is to increase the effectiveness of quality systems. We reinvent the wheel with each new quality fad, but we give it a new name in the hope that the name will help us beat the competition. Unfortunately, the more we change, the more we stay the same. We've supposedly reduced the use of in-house inspections because they're a waste of time and resources, but third-party inspection houses constitute a booming industry. Now a new wave of quality methodology, Six Sigma, is "revolutionizing" many organizations. That's a shame--most consultants know it's simply a repackaging of old concepts, but they play along because it's highly marketed, and, for the short-term, there's a great deal of money to be made. Six Sigma presents absolutely nothing new to the quality field of defect prevention. It's little more than an old appraisal methodology that focuses on problems after they've already occurred. Some claim it subverts the old paradigm of horizontal integration by focusing on vertical integration, but (although vertical integration, or executive accountability, is an important issue that's worth exploring) Six Sigma is not a revolutionary concept. Six Sigma is a marketing ploy that has mesmerized many quality professionals for at least two reasons. First, it offers easy money, because both the training and qualification are controlled as though the concepts are unique and innovative and can only be understood, taught and implemented in one way. In reality, many consultants

who promote the Six Sigma methodology lack consistency in their training materials and course content, and they themselves lack a knowledge base to build on. Second, Six Sigma sounds impressive because some major corporations claim exceptional returns on their Six Sigma investments. Although it's true that some companies--and they constitute a small percentage of the whole--have had exceptional returns on investment, they only experienced such a tremendous turnaround because they attacked the simplest, easiest-to-solve problems first, and their quality levels were so low that anything they tried would have been a success. Two of the leading proponents of Six Sigma, Mikel Harry and Richard Schroeder, define Six Sigma in their book Six Sigma: The Breakthrough Management Strategy Revolutionizing the World's Top Corporations as "a business process that allows companies to drastically improve their bottom line by designing and monitoring everyday business activities in ways that minimize waste and resources while increasing customer satisfaction." Obviously, quality improvement and cost efficiency should be inherent in the design process, but can't this be attained with other proven initiatives? For example, organizations that follow the benchmarking process can improve their bottom line by at least 30 percent. Whatever the initiative, if top management is sloppy in defining quality expectations and is not held accountable for bad decisions, quality will suffer. Harry and Schroeder argue that those in the financial community are impatient for results and only the Six Sigma approach will satisfy them. It's na ve to assume that the financial community is unaware of the dangers of the abandonment and misuse of otherwise sound programs designed to improve productivity, effectiveness and employee morale. It's unlikely that this relatively new phenomenon will take over the executive culture and revolutionize organizations' bottom lines--it didn't work when the goal was at three sigma; how in the world is it going to work at the six sigma level? The following is a list of some of the highly useful programs that have been introduced but have been implemented inappropriately because of organizational issues or internal culture wars: Failure mode and effect analysis (FMEA) can help identify problems before they occur. It can save billions of dollars if applied properly and appropriately. A recent case in the automotive industry, a product liability suit worth more than $5 billion (a far cry from the average $175,000 savings per Six Sigma project), exemplifies the importance of FMEA. The eight-discipline approach to problem solving is the workhorse of the automotive industry. If it's done properly, not only will problems be resolved, but they will be resolved for good. Millions of dollars, not mere thousands, are waiting to be saved.

Value engineering/value analysis is the financial workhorse of marginal profitability. If done properly, it can save billions of dollars from design through manufacturing. Robust designs, in conjunction with design for manufacturability parameter and tolerance methodologies, will optimize designs and maximize profits every time, all the time. However, they must be done early in the planning stages. Harry and Schroeder further define Six Sigma as "a disciplined method of using extremely rigorous data-gathering and statistical analysis to pinpoint sources of errors and ways of eliminating them." Again, this is nothing new--quality professionals have tried for at least the last 30 years to come up with quality metrics and methodologies to do precisely that. Most of their efforts have been wasted not due to weak tools or methodologies or statistics but due to lack of management support. Quality gets discussed but is seldom internalized; it's usually placed on the back burner and serves only to use management power that already exists in the concepts of conformance and nonconformance and cost of quality. Quality plays second fiddle in any organization that focuses on corrective actions, and that's exactly what Six Sigma is: another prescriptive corrective action. As long as management isn't rewarded for cost avoidance, nothing will change. Table 1 illustrates that the Six Sigma breakthrough is nothing more than a repackaging of the automotive methodologies of advanced product quality planning (APQP), problem solving and statistical process control (SPC). I challenge anyone to find any differences between the benefits of the Six Sigma model and the Quality Operating System that Ford Motor Co. introduced in the early 1990s. There aren't any. Not only is Six Sigma startlingly similar, but APQP is actually more precise because it ties all deliverables of a particular phase to a timing milestone.
Table 1: Alternate Means of Achieving Six Sigma Goals

The vertical integration of the top executives differs among the methodologies in Table 1, but that's a cultural issue within the organization. It's this cultural issue that prevents quality from being central in any organization. We give quality a great deal of lip service because it's "the right thing to do," but we all know that it's typically an afterthought--how else can we explain the fact that we have so much warranty cost and so many customer complaints even after so many quality programs have been implemented and so many millions of dollars have been spent in the name of quality? The answer, of course, is lack of management commitment and appropriate cultural environment for quality to grow and become part of the status quo. Because timing, production and cost are the true driving forces, we keep regurgitating old tools and methodologies to divert attention from the real problems. Defects per unit (DPU) and defects per million opportunities (DPMO) are good examples of repackaged old tools. In fact, anybody who has done any attribute charting will recognize them as the u-chart. Further, the concept of a "defect" takes us back at least 20 years--we don't talk about defects in modern quality; now we address our problems as nonconformities.

The automotive industry recognized the concept of the 1.5-sigma shift in the mid1980s, evaluated it and deemed it unacceptable. Furthermore, the amount and type of shift are matters of discovery, not of assumption. Six Sigma proponents don't understand that modern-day quality is a planningoriented activity rather than an appraisal activity. Modern-day quality focuses on optimization of resources through robustness rather than by defining defects in a particular way. They don't understand that training in specific tools and specific methodologies won't have favorable results unless the personnel trained in the tools and methodologies are allowed to utilize them in the improvement process on a consistent basis. Furthermore, by focusing on specification limits, Six Sigma dismisses Genichi Taguchi's loss function, which targets uniformity around a nominal with no references to specifications. Indeed, Six Sigma takes us backward. Many programs and processes have been tried over the years. Some have been successful, some have been failures and still others are lingering. No one knows what affect the marketing blitz surrounding Six Sigma will have in the quality world. However, one thing is certain: Six Sigma is getting management's attention by promising to focus on bottom-line results. Let's hope it works this time and doesn't end up being just another flavor of the month. To succeed despite all of the methodology's shortcomings, users must accept that the major contributing factor is not so much the methodology itself but the politics of the organization's internal culture. Will Six Sigma work in manufacturing? No one knows for sure. But let's look at the automotive industry--usually an early adopter of new quality methodologies. No one is na ve enough to believe that the automotive industry' problems will be resolved with this new methodology. After all, for the last 20 years, the top five warranty items have been the same. We know what the problems are, but no one is willing to fix them. We know that recent figures in warranty costs for the U.S. automotive companies are hovering at about $5 billion annually per company, yet no one is really addressing these issues. We've come to accept the notion of short-term Six Sigma as 0.001 DPMO and longterm Six Sigma as 3.4 DPMO. We've forgotten that, in practical terms, there's nothing outside of three sigma. We don't need the Six Sigma methodology to save millions of dollars annually by avoiding tuning engines and then detuning the same engines when we couple them with the transmissions. We need to invest in improving the transmissions rather than wasting funds in engines.

We don't need the Six Sigma methodology to save millions of dollars annually by avoiding reducing the unsold automobiles sitting on the parking lots; instead, we need to produce vehicles that meet customer requirements rather than plant counts. We don't need the Six Sigma methodology to improve efficiency and productivity in our products; rather, we need to stop issuing "letters of deviation" and "waivers" from our specifications (especially at the product submittal warrant stage). Every time these deviations occur, we are introducing mistakes and "off specifications"--that is, nonconforming--parts. A recent study by Prescient Technologies on more than 3,300 product models from aerospace, automotive, consumer products and electronic industries worldwide showed that more than 90 percent failed company-defined standards. We are continually building products with nonconformances from the getgo without anyone being held accountable. We don't need the Six Sigma methodology to improve throughput and timing. Rather, we need to stick to the milestones of timing and follow the guidelines of APQP. We need management's commitment for consistency and concern for improvement. We don't need the Six Sigma methodology for transactional problems such as paying suppliers within 90 days to 120 days; rather, we need to recognize that suppliers have to be paid on timely basis. So, what are we to do with this Six Sigma phenomenon? We need to recognize it for what it is--an appraisal tool that does nothing for prevention--and use it only when it's appropriate and applicable. It's not a panacea, and it won't bring spectacular results in most organizations. A better way to report progress on a breakthrough project is to exhibit the before-and-after pictures without any financial report manipulations. We all must understand that some cases require problem solutions rather than root-cause solutions. We need problem solvers utilizing statistical thinking, not root-cause problem solvers dealing in high-level statistical analysis. This is especially true with transactions. To solve actual problems, it takes more than one method, one observation, one study or one experiment. To demonstrate improvement, one must wait to see the process developing and confirm the results based on verification of the "fix." Storytelling alone won't do it. We need to invest a great deal of thought and set achievable measurables on a good target to track the improvement.
References

Deming, W.E. Out of Crisis. MIT CAES: Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1982. Harry, M. and R. Schroeder. Six Sigma: The Breakthrough Management Strategy Revolutionizing the World's Top Corporations. Doubleday: New York, 1999. Neave, H.R. The Deming Dimension. SPC Press: Knoxville, Tennessee, 1990.

Prescient Technologies: www.prescient tech.com/press-releases/AuditQAFinal Web.html, 2000. Shewhart, W. Economic Control of Quality of Manufactured Product. D. Van Nostrand Co.: New York, 1931. Taguchi, G. Introduction to Quality Engineering. Asian Productivity Organization: Japan, 1986.
About the author

D.H. Stamatis, Ph.D., ASQ Fellow, CQE, CmfgE, is president of Contemporary Consultants and specializes in quality science and statistics. He is the author of 12 books and numerous articles and has presented papers on quality at both national and international conferences. E-mail him at dstamatis@qualitydigest.com .

What is Six Sigma?

Six Sigma is a business initiative, not a quality initiative. Six Sigma is an umbrella term for a philosophy and way of running a business that improves quality and productivity and increases profits. There are three major components to Six Sigma:

The environment or culture of the organization as established by the senior leaders in the organization The improvements tools such as SPC, design of experiments, process mapping, data display and analysis, problem-solving, and root cause analysis, and The infrastructure which includes systems that support the use of the tools.

Why do companies implement Six Sigma? How can Six Sigma help companies improve quality and productivity? How does Six Sigma work? What are some mistakes companies make when they use Six Sigma? How can my company get started using Six Sigma? What is the best way to teach people how to use Six Sigma? Why do companies implement Six Sigma? The reason that companies should use Six Sigma is to increase profitability. Sometimes however, the impetus to get started on a Six Sigma process is brought on by customer demands. Return to top How can Six Sigma help companies improve quality and productivity? Six Sigma as a philosophy will create a heightened awareness of the need for on-going and everlasting quality improvement efforts. Six Sigma as a process will provide employees with the tools and skills they need to embrace the Six Sigma philosophy. By striving to achieve a six sigma level of quality, companies reduce costs related to scrap, rework, inspection, and customer dissatisfaction. Return to top

How does Six Sigma work? Six Sigma starts at the top of an organization and requires constant attention by senior managers who are responsible for establishing the Six Sigma culture. In addition, senior management must enable the creation of an infrastructure to support Six Sigma improvement projects. Return to top What are some mistakes companies make when they implement Six Sigma? Here are the top reasons why Six Sigma does not work:

Thinking that six sigma is just using the tools and ignoring the improvement cultural component. Seeing Six Sigma as a temporary activity rather than a way of on-going business operations. Not understanding the power and importance of data and statistics.

Assigning responsibilities to implement Six Sigma without giving the authority and training necessary to carry through on Six Sigma efforts. Not measuring processes or ignoring the story the measurers are telling. Not linking compensation to six sigma performance.

Return to top How can my company get started implementing Six Sigma? The first step in implementing Six Sigma is learning how it works and buying into the philosophy. While there are many resource available to satisfy this need, one of the best references is a book called Six Sigma: The Breakthrough Management Strategy Revolutionizing the World's Top Corporations by Mikel Harry. Return to top What is the best way to teach people how to use Six Sigma? Six Sigma covers a broad range of topics beginning with a general overview of what six sigma is and then going into specific detailed topics related to the environment, tools, and infrastructure of six sigma. Resource Engineering has developed computer-based training programs to support Six Sigma efforts including the Six Sigma Start-Up. One of the foundations of the Six Sigma philosophy is statistics and statistical process control. SPC Workout is a computer-based training program on the use and application of SPC in manufacturing. Another cornerstone of the Six Sigma philosophy is preventing problems from occurring rather than waiting for them to occur and then having to detect them and eliminate them. Mistake-Proofing is a Six Sigma tool that helps teams identify and implement solutions that make it impossible to make mistakes. Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA) is a natural precursor to Mistake-Proofing as it provides a means for analyzing failure potential and prioritizing potential failures based on severity, chance of occurrence, and ability to detect the failure before it occurs. Resource Engineering has computer-based training programs on both Mistake-Proofingand FMEA. Accurate measurements and a reliable measurement system is also a critical part of the Six Sigma formula. Gage Mentor teaches people how to use and manage gages and other measuring equipment.

six sigma

six sigma training, history, definitions - six sigma and quality management glossary
Six Sigma is now according to many business development and quality improvement experts, the most popular management methodology in history. Six Sigma is certainly a very big industry in its own right, and Six Sigma is now an enormous 'brand' in the world of corporate development. Six Sigma began in 1986 as a statistically-based method to reduce variation in electronic manufacturing processes in Motorola Inc in the USA. Today, twentysomething years on, Six Sigma is used as an all-encompassing business performance methodology, all over the world, in organizations as diverse as local government departments, prisons, hospitals, the armed forces, banks, and multi-nationals corporations. While Six Sigma implementation continues apace in many of the world's largest corporations, many organizations and suppliers in the consulting and training communities have also seized on the Six Sigma concept, to package and provide all sorts of Six Sigma 'branded' training products and consultancy and services. Six Sigma has also spawned manay and various business books on the subject. Six Sigma, it might seem, is taking over the world. Interestingly while Six Sigma has become a very widely used 'generic' term, the name Six Sigma is actually a registered trademark of Motorola Inc., in the USA, who first pioneered Six Sigma methods in the 1980's. The original and technically correct spelling seems to be Six Sigma, rather than 6 Sigma, although in recent years Motorola and GE have each since developed their own sexy Six Sigma logos using the number six and the Greek sigma character s. Six Sigma is now a global brand and something of a revolution. But what is Six Sigma?...

six sigma definitions

The answer is that Six Sigma is lots of things.

First, Six Sigma is arguably a very clever way of branding and packaging many aspects of Total Quality Management that exist in their own right, regardless of the development of Six Sigma. Read the section about Total Quality Management and 'Excellence' and you will understand this. Six Sigma is lots of different things because it had different meanings over time, and also because it is now interpreted in increasingly different ways. And Six Sigma is still evolving. The UK Department for Trade and Industry says Six Sigma is: "A data-driven method for achieving near perfect quality. Six Sigma analysis can focus on any element of production or service, and has a strong emphasis on statistical analysis in design, manufacturing and customer-oriented activities." June 2005. Here's the DTI fact-sheet on Six Sigma - please note this is Crown copyright.

Motorola Inc., who first developed the methodology in the mid-late1980's and who provide extensive Six Sigma training and consultancy services, provide the following definitions:

six sigma according to motorola

"...Six Sigma has evolved over the last two decades and so has its definition. Six Sigma has literal, conceptual, and practical definitions. At Motorola University (Motorola's Six Sigma training and consultancy division), we think about Six Sigma at three different levels: As a metric As a methodology As a management system Essentially, Six Sigma is all three at the same time." "...Six Sigma as a Metric: The term "Sigma" is often used as a scale for levels of 'goodness' or quality. Using this scale, 'Six Sigma' equates to 3.4 defects per one million opportunities (DPMO). Therefore, Six Sigma started as a defect reduction effort in manufacturing and was then applied to other business processes for the same purpose.."

"...Six Sigma as a Methodology: As Six Sigma has evolved, there has been less emphasis on the literal definition of 3.4 DPMO, or counting defects in products and processes. Six Sigma is a business improvement methodology that focuses an organization on: Understanding and managing customer requirements Aligning key business processes to achieve those requirements Utilizing rigorous data analysis to minimize variation in those processes Driving rapid and sustainable improvement to business processes.." "..At the heart of the methodology is the DMAIC model for process improvement. DMAIC is commonly used by Six Sigma project teams and is an acronym for: Define opportunity Measure performance Analyze opportunity Improve performance Control performance.." "...Six Sigma Management System: Through experience, Motorola has learned that disciplined use of metrics and application of the methodology is still not enough to drive desired breakthrough improvements and results that are sustainable over time. For greatest impact, Motorola ensures that process metrics and structured methodology are applied to improvement opportunities that are directly linked to the organizational strategy. When practiced as a management system, Six Sigma is a high performance system for executing business strategy. Six Sigma is a top-down solution to help organizations: Align their business strategy to critical improvement efforts Mobilize teams to attack high impact projects Accelerate improved business results Govern efforts to ensure improvements are sustained.." "..The Six Sigma Management System drives clarity around the business strategy and the metrics that most reflect success with that strategy. It provides the framework to prioritize resources for projects that will improve

the metrics, and it leverages leaders who will manage the efforts for rapid, sustainable, and improved business results.."
Copyright 1994-2005 Motorola, Inc.

General Electric (GE), the first large-scale adopters and advocates of Six Sigma after Motorola, and considered by most experts to have been responsible for Six Sigma's rapidly achieved high profile, provide the following definitions of Six Sigma:

six sigma according to general electric

"...Six Sigma is a highly disciplined process that helps us focus on developing and delivering near-perfect products and services. Why 'Sigma'? The word is a statistical term that measures how far a given process deviates from perfection. The central idea behind Six Sigma is that if you can measure how many 'defects' you have in a process, you can systematically figure out how to eliminate them and get as close to 'zero defects' as possible. To achieve Six Sigma Quality, a process must produce no more than 3.4 defects per million opportunities. An 'opportunity' is defined as a chance for nonconformance, or not meeting the required specifications. This means we need to be nearly flawless in executing our key processes." "...At its core, Six Sigma revolves around a few key concepts. Critical to Quality: Attributes most important to the customer Defect: Failing to deliver what the customer wants Process Capability: What your process can deliver Variation: What the customer sees and feels Stable Operations: Ensuring consistent, predictable processes to improve what the customer sees and feels Design for Six Sigma: Designing to meet customer needs and process capability..."
Copyright General Electric Company 1997-2005

six sigma according to isixsigma

The Isixsigma organisation, which seems to be the biggest online 'community' of Six Sigma practitioners, was founded in 2000, and is owned and run by a number of 'quality professionals'. Isixsigma provides the following main definition of Six Sigma (which actually serves as an introduction to several other very detailed Six Sigma definitions contained in the Isixsigma resources): "...Six Sigma is a rigorous and disciplined methodology that uses data and statistical analysis to measure and improve a company's operational performance by identifying and eliminating 'defects' in manufacturing and service-related processes. Commonly defined as 3.4 defects per million opportunities, Six Sigma can be defined and understood at three distinct levels: metric, methodology and philosophy..." July 2005.

six sigma history

Here's a brief history of Six Sigma, and the Six Sigma name. Additionally, comments I've received about Six Sigma contain aspects of Six Sigma history. Since the 1920's the word 'sigma' has been used by mathematicians and engineers as a symbol for a unit of measurement in product quality variation. (Note it's sigma with a small 's' because in this context sigma is a generic unit of measurement.) In the mid-1980's engineers in Motorola Inc in the USA used 'Six Sigma' an an informal name for an in-house initiative for reducing defects in production processes, because it represented a suitably high level of quality. (Note here it's Sigma with a big 'S' because in this context Six Sigma is a 'branded' name for Motorola's initiative.) (Certain engineers - there are varying opinions as to whether the very first was Bill Smith or Mikal Harry - felt that measuring defects in terms of thousands was an insufficiently rigorous standard. Hence they increased the measurement scale to parts per million, described as 'defects per million', which prompted the use the the 'six sigma' terminology and adoption of the

capitalised 'Six Sigma' branded name, given that six sigma was deemed to equate to 3.4 parts - or defects - per million.) In the late-1980's following the success of the above initiative, Motorola extended the Six Sigma methods to its critical business processes, and significantly Six Sigma became a formalised in-house 'branded' name for a performance improvement methodology, ie., beyond purely 'defect reduction', in Motorola Inc. In 1991 Motorola certified its first 'Black Belt' Six Sigma experts, which indicates the beginnings of the formalisation of the accredited training of Six Sigma methods. In 1991 also, Allied Signal, (a large avionics company which merged with Honeywell in 1999), adopted the Six Sigma methods, and claimed significant improvements and cost savings within six months. It seems that Allied Signal's new CEO Lawrence Bossidy learned of Motorola's work with Six Sigma and so approached Motorola's CEO Bob Galvin to learn how it could be used in Allied Signal. In 1995, General Electric's CEO Jack Welch (Welch knew Bossidy since Bossidy once worked for Welch at GE, and Welch was impressed by Bossidy's achievements using Six Sigma) decided to implement Six Sigma in GE, and by 1998 GE claimed that Six Sigma had generated over threequarters of a billion dollars of cost savings. (Source: George Eckes' book, The Six Sigma Revolution.) By the mid-1990's Six Sigma had developed into a transferable 'branded' corporate management initiative and methodology, notably in General Electric and other large manufacturing corporations, but also in organizations outside the manufacturing sector. By the year 2000, Six Sigma was effectively established as an industry in its own right, involving the training, consultancy and implementation of Six Sigma methodology in all sorts of organisations around the world. That is to say, in a little over ten years, Six Sigma quickly became not only a hugely popular methodology used by many corporations for quality and process improvement, Six Sigma also became the subject of many and various training and consultancy products and servicesaround which developed very many Six Sigma support organizations.

six sigma central concepts

You will gather from the definitions and history of Six Sigma that many people consider the model to be capable of leveraging huge performance improvements and cost savings. None of this of course happens on its own. Teams and team leaders are an essential part of the Six Sigma methodology. Six Sigma is therefore a methodology which requires and encourages team leaders and teams to take responsibility for implementing the Six Sigma processes. Significantly these people need to be trained in Six Sigma's methods - especially the use of the measurement and improvement tools, and in communications and relationship skills, necessary to involve and serve the needs of the internal and external customers and suppliers that form the critical processes of the organization's delivery chains. Training is therefore also an essential element of the Six Sigma methodology, and lots of it. Consistent with the sexy pseudo-Japanese 'Six Sigma' name (Sigma is in fact Greek, for the letter 's', and a long-standing symbol for a unit of statistical variation measurement), Six Sigma terminology employs sexy names for other elements within the model, for example 'Black Belts' and'Green Belts', which denote people with different levels of expertise (and to an extent qualifications), and different responsibilities, forimplementing Six Sigma methods. Six Sigma teams and notably Six Sigma team leaders ('Black Belts') use a vast array of tools at each stage of Six Sigma implementation to define, measure, analyse and control variation in process quality, and to manage people, teams and communications. When an organization decides to implement Six Sigma, first the executive team has to decide the strategy - which might typically be termed an improvement initiative, and this base strategy should focus on the essential processes necessary to meet customer expectations.

This could amount to twenty or thirty business process. At the top level these are the main processes that enable the organization to add value to goods and services and supply them to customers. Implicit within this is an understanding of what the customers - internal and external - actually want and need. A team of managers ('Black Belts' normally) who 'own' these processes is responsible for: identifying and understanding these processes in detail, and also understanding the levels of quality (especially tolerance of variation) that customers (internal and external) expect, and then measuring the effectiveness and efficiency of each process performance notably the 'sigma' performance - ie., is the number of defects per million operations (pro-rate if appropriate of course). The theory is entirely logical: understanding and then improving the most important 'delivery-chain' processes will naturally increase efficiency, customer satisfaction, competitive advantage, and profitability. Easily said - tricky to achieve - which is what the Six Sigma methodology is for. Most practitioners and users of Six Sigma refer to Motorola's early DMAIC acronym (extended since to DMAICT) as a way of reinforcing and reminding participants what needs to be done:

six sigma DMAIC and DMAICT process elements

D - Define opportunity M - Measure performance A - Analyse opportunity I - Improve performance C - Control performance, and optionally: T - Transfer best practice (to spread the learning to other areas of the organization)

Motorola emphasises that in order for Six Sigma to achieve 'breakthrough improvements' that are sustainable over time, Six Sigma's 'process metrics' and 'structured methodology' must be extended and applied to 'improvement opportunities' that are directly linked to 'organizational strategy'. It is difficult to argue with the logic. There is little point in measuring and improving things that have no significant impact on the strategically important organizational processes. Six Sigma team leaders (Black Belts) work with their teams (team members will normally be people trained up to 'Green Belt' accreditation) to analyse and measure the performance of the identified critical processes. Measurement is typically focused on highly technical interpretations of percentage defects (by a which a 'sigma' measurement is arrived at - see the one-to-six sigma conversion scale below), and a deep detailed analysis of processes, involving organizational structures and flow-charts. Many other tools for performance measurement and analysis are used, for example the 'balanced scorecard' method, and 'process mapping', etc., depending on the processes and systems favoured by the team leaders and project statisticians, and what needs to be measured and analysed. Six Sigma does not stipulate specifically what analytical methods must be used - the organization and particularly the team leaders decide these things, which is why implementation and usage of Six Sigma varies so widely, and why Six Sigma will continue to evolve. Any analytical tool can be included within Six Sigma implementation. Six Sigma experts and commentators commonly refer to typical failure rates of organizations that have not put particular pressure on their quality performance levels. Aside from anything else this at least helps to put the 'Sigma' terminology into a simpler mathematical context: It is said that many ordinary businesses actually operate at between three and two and sigma performance. This equates to between approximately 66,800 and 308,500 defects per million operations, (which incidentally is also generally considered to be an unsustainable level of customer satisfaction - ie., the business is likely to be in decline, or about to head that way). Bear in mind that an 'operation' is not limited to the manufacturing processes - an 'operation' can be any process critical to customer satisfaction, for example, the operation of correctly understanding a customer request, or the operation of handling a customer complaint. Six Sigma is not restricted to engineering and production - Six Sigma potentially covers all sorts of service-related activities. What matters is that the operation

is identified as being strategically critical and relevant to strategy and customer satisfaction. A measurement of four sigma equates to approximately 6,200 DPMO, or around 99.4% perfection. This would arguably be an acceptable level of quality in certain types of business, for instance a roadside cafe, but a 99.4% success rate is obviously an unacceptable level of quality in other types of business, for example, passenger aircraft maintenance. A measurement of five sigma equates to just 233 defects per million opportunities, equivalent to a 99.98% perfection rate, and arguably acceptable to many businesses, although absolutely still not good enough for the aircraft industry. Here's a simplified one-to-six sigma conversion scale:

one to six sigma conversion table

'Long Term Yield' (basically the percentage of successful outputs or operations) % 99.99966 99.98 99.4 93.3 69.1

Defects Per Million 'Processs Opportunities Sigma' (DPMO)

3.4 233 6,210 66,807 308,538

6 5 4 3 2

30.9

691,462

You can see from the conversions above that the sigma scale is exponential. The difference between the DPMO equating to each whole number more than doubles as you move up through the scale. By my rough calculation, 'seven sigma' would equate to about 2 defects per 100 million opportunities (correct me if I'm wrong), which is perhaps a little over-demanding even for the aircraft industry, and that's perhaps why nobody bothers much with anything over six sigma. Motorola and many other devotees of Six Sigma are increasingly at pains to point out that Six Sigma is nowadays far less concerned with the mathematical theory of the Sigma calculations, and a lot more concerned with the model's broader performance improvement methods, nevertheless, Six Sigma's complexity and variable interpretations are not helped by the difficulty in penetrating the original mathematical reasoning behind the essential Six Sigma metric: just exactly why does Six Sigma equate to 3.4 defects per million? What are the calculations which take us from 3.4 PPM +interpretations vary apparently. (If you can explain this in simple language, and less than a couple of hundred words, please do, and I'll gladly add the explanation to this page). There is also difficulty in phrasing a single simple definition of Six Sigma. For example, the task of creating a Six Sigma 'elevator speech' (in other words explain Six Sigma inside 30 seconds) continues to challenge many of the Six Sigma enthusiasts who frequent the growing Six Sigma web forums. If you have a good Six Sigma 'elevator speech' please send it, and I'll gladly add it to this page.

six sigma elevator speech

Here is a suggested Six Sigma elevator speech (thanks Steven, Jun 2010): "Sigma is the symbol of standard deviation, a measurement of deviation of a sample from the population average. Each sigma you depart from the average, the event, in this case failure, becomes more an more improbable. At 6 sigma, the probability is about 3.5/million. But this is just the statistical side of Six Sigma. The bulk of the work in a Six Sigma project would be in defining failures, measuring deviations, and other activities which ultimately

lead to product quality. In fact, Six Sigma is used as a term for a management style, with the ultimate goal of high levels of customer satisfaction." Can you offer a better Six Sigma elevator speech than this? If so please send it. See also the Six Sigma elevator speech funny story below.

Aside from its definitions, the Six Sigma concept now has a life of its own, open to a range of interpretations, beyond the control and reach of the early Six Sigma originators. I heard someone say once that Six Sigma is a bit like Naomi Campbell - an attractive, seductive, yet highly complex model. (Also, sexy, expensive, and has been known to fall over...) Advocates of Six Sigma, which include many highly respected people such as Jack Welch, are in no doubt that Six Sigma can produce immense results, and quickly too. You will see claims that Motorola saved in excess of $16bn resulting from implementing Six Sigma. The Six Sigma model may or may not be the most popular ever, but ultimately - as with any business methodology - it relies not on how it is defined, it relies instead on how well people use it.

six sigma - other points of note

First and simply, Six Sigma is a quality improvement methodology. Six Sigma has also become a generic 'brand' for a set of concepts that many organizations have used, and continue to use, to improve quality, and to provide quality and performance improvement services and training. In this respect Six Sigma has captured corporate imagination. Six Sigma is an immensely popular vehicle for initiating and supporting the process of organizational change. Six Sigma has become an industry in its own right. See the names of some of the major US organizations that have adopted Six Sigma in recent times.

Six Sigma is a very flexible concept: to an statistical engineer Six Sigma might be a production quality metric; to a customer service employee, or a CEO, Six Sigma can represent a corporate culture. The expression Six Sigma was first used in the context of quality improvement by American Motorola engineers in the mid 1980's.