What Is A Six Sigma?

Six Sigma is a disciplined, statistical-based, data-driven methodology for process improvement. It is a continuous improvement approach by eliminating defects from product, process, or service. Six Sigma was developed by Bill Smith at Motorola based on quality management fundamentals in 1986, and then it became a popular management approach in the early 1990s by the work contributed by Jack Welch at GE (DMAIC). Over the past ten years, the world’s top corporations have used it to increase their profits collectively by more than $100 billion. Now-a-days many companies around the world have adopted Six Sigma as a way of doing business. In India, in certain corporations, Six Sigma proficiency on your resume is now a prerequisite to moving into a management position.

The word sigma represents the population standard deviation of a process. Sigma is a measure of the variation in a data set collected about the process. We call this SD (standard deviation) in the sample set. If a given defect is defined by specification limits separating it from pass to fail outcomes of a process, then a six sigma process has a process mean of six standard deviations from the nearest specification limit. This provides enough cushion between the process natural variation and the specification limits.

Six-Sigma has evolved over time. It is more than just a quality system like TQM (Total Quality Management or ISO (International Organization for Standardization). It’s a way of doing business. Six-sigma can be seen as a vision; a philosophy; a symbol; a metric; a management tool; a goal; a problem-solving methodology.

Six sigma is not just a quality improvements methodology but also provides better value to customers, investors, stakeholders, and employees. Six Sigma is a technique of solving a business problem that ultimately helps in improving quality, improving productivity, or reducing the cost of production. By controlling the amount of variation within the allowable specification limits of a process, the frequency of out-of-control conditions reduces.

There are four categories of quality costs – External failure cost (warranty claims cost, service providing cost), Internal failure cost (the costs of labor, material associated with scrapped parts and rework cost), Cost of appraisal, and inspection (these are materials for samples, equipment, inspection cost, quality audits, etc.), and the Cost related to improving poor quality of the process (quality planning, process planning, process control, and process training).

Usually, if a company is at the 3-Sigma level (failure 6.7%) which means its 25-40% of annual revenue is being taken by the price of quality. Thus, if an organization improve its quality by one-sigma level, then its net income will increase by about 10%. Furthermore, when the level of process complexity increases (e.g., the output of one sub-process becomes the input for another sub-process), the rolled throughput yield of the process get decreases, then the final outgoing quality level can decline, and also the cost of quality will increase.

We at Sigma Tech Zone, our experts study the business process and requirements and likewise customize the business services to deliver the required output. The Sigma Tech Zone trained professionals will enable clients’ skills to achieve their business goals. Our expert team holds unmatched credentials across different industries verticals. The specialists hold black belts and MBA degrees from world-class institutes in India and overseas.

Six Sigma is a metric that helps the organization to set up a system, a culture, and a process for improvement. It engages employees in improving the services of the organization. The high-defined approach drives the entire process of selecting the right projects in the organization for enhances the capability of the organization. Thus, Six Sigma will help in identifying and providing the right training to the commending people for obtaining the best results from the given opportunities.

Benefits of Six-Sigma:

1. To Reduces Operational Costs
2. To Improve Efficiency or Timeliness
3. To Improve Customer Services
4. To Improve Accuracy, Controls, and Policy Compliance
5. To Improve Cash Flow
6. To Improve Regulatory Compliance.