Six Sigma

Six Sigma

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Six Sigma

Six Sigma is a management framework that has , in the past fifteen years evolved from a focus on process improvement using statistical tools to a highly disciplined process that helps in developing and delivering near-perfect tools and services . The Greek letter `Sigma ' is used as a statistical term to denote standard deviations i .e . it measures how far a given process deviates from perfection . The central theme of Six Sigma is that if the number

of `defects ' in any process can be measured , then it is possible to systematically figure out how to eliminate these defects and get as near to `zero defects ' as possible . The Six Sigma methodology therefore provides the techniques and tools to improve the capability and reduce the defects in any process

The goal of Six Sigma is to achieve perfection . It allows only 3 .4 defects per million opportunities for each product or service transaction . Robert W Galvin , the person who headed the Motorola team which first conceptualized and developed the Six Sigma methodology comments on how the concept developed

We quickly learned if we could control variation , we could get all the parts and processes to work and get to an end result of 3 .4 defects per million opportunities , or a Six Sigma level . Our people coined the term and it stuck . It was shorthand for people to understand that if you can control the variation , you can achieve remarkable results (Bertels 2003 , pp . 1 - 2

Emergence of Six Sigma

Six Sigma was developed in Motorola under the leadership of Robert W Galvin in the mid-1980s . It was however Bill Smith , a senior engineer and scientist within Motorola 's Communications Division , who is credited with inventing Six Sigma . Smith had observed that Motorola 's final product tests were not capable of predicting the high level of system failure rates that Motorola was experiencing . The identified the cause behind this as the increasing complexity of the system and the high number of opportunities for failure . He believed that Motorola needed to acquire a higher level of internal quality . He formulated the Six Sigma Standards , and persuaded the then CEO Galvin to set Six Sigma as a quality goal . At that time , Smith 's way of viewing reliability of a whole process as the mean time to failure and of measuring quality by process variability and defect rates was entirely new . Motorola had however always been the pioneer in improving productivity and quality In the Eighties it was the hub of presentation of quality and productivity improvement programs by a number of renowned experts in the field such as Joseph M Juran , Dorian Shainin , Genichi Taguchi and Eliyahu Goldratt . Mikel Harry , who later became the president of the Six Sigma Academy , was drawn by the effort of these pioneers , and worked with Smith on the Six Sigma initiative

Motorola won the first Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award in 1989 for being successful...