In April, Discovery Shoppe Book Club read the leadership book titled Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done. One of the key principles highlighted in the book as an ingredient for effective management and eventual execution in organisations is a tool called “Six Sigma”.

This article is an attempt to delve deeper into the “Six Sigma” concept; to find out what it is, its advantages, and the methodology involved.

By Ikenna Mesharch | Discovery Shoppe Book Club

In each book, Discovery Shoppe Book Club seeks to expand on newly learned words and concepts, as well as write reflective articles. It can be complex, abstract, strong, soft, or simple. All the time we want you to read, learn, explore... and discover!

Six Sigma, which was developed as a quality management process was first practiced by Bill Smith in the year 1986 while working for the American company, Motorola. Over the years, it has evolved into a refined and sound body of principles and methods aimed at business transformation through well-defined processes. It gained prominence after Jack Welch made it central to his business strategy at General Electric in 1995 and ever since it has been adopted by several companies and organisations.

In the wake of the 21st century, about two-thirds of Fortune 500 organisations had begun Six Sigma initiatives with the aim of cost reduction and quality improvement (De Feo & Barnard, 2005). It is a set of management tools and techniques used to determine what slows down a manufacturing process. It is a data-driven approach that utilizes empirical and statistical methods in eliminating delays, improving and fixing glitches in the manufacturing process (Kurmar, 2021).

According to Jack Welch, Six Sigma is a quality program that improves your customer’s experience, lowers your costs, and builds better leaders. It is a process that statistically expects 99.99966% of all opportunities to produce some feature of a part to be free of defects. Theoretically, the concept of Six Sigma is derived from “sigma” a statistical term for measuring process deviation from the process mean. The idea is to measure the standard deviation in a normal distribution curve, where one sigma represents a single standard deviation from the mean. The process that achieves six sigmas is classified as a process that will have an extremely low defect rate below 3.4 defects per million opportunities (DPMO).

Ultimately, Six Sigma aims to reduce the timeframe of processes, minimize defects in manufacturing at any point and reduce the variability of processes in an organization.

THE SIX SIGMA METHODOLOGY

Six Sigma has two major methodologies; DMAIC and DMADV.

The phases in the DMAIC method are Define, Measure, Analyse, Improve, and Control. It is the most widely used methodology and it focuses on improving existing products in an organisation.

Define: In this phase, issues being faced as well as possible opportunities for improvement and customer requirements are highlighted.
Measure: At this point, an evaluation of the current process's performance in its unaltered state is done. Questions asked include; What are the metrics of the project? How can these metrics be improved and how can such improvements be quantified? Some metrics that are measured include:

The number of features of a part produced in a day;
The time taken to produce them;
The number of defects detected in each process.

Analyse: This phase analyses the process to determine its influencing variables. The efficiency and efficacy of the process are determined at the point in the methodology.
Improve: Changes are made to the manufacturing process while ensuring that defects are addressed.
Control: Finally, regular adjustments are made to control new processes and future performances.

DMADV, also known as DFSS (Design for Six Sigma) is used especially for creating new products from scratch. The phases involved include:

Define: This phase seeks to outline the requirements of the customers based on indicators such as industry research, historical data, and input from customers.
Measure: Here, customer requirements are used to create the necessary specifications. This allows for data collection and comparison for the product.
Analyse: In this phase better ways of achieving desired results are defined and possible areas of improvement are ascertained and tested.
Design: Based on learnings from the previous phases, the new product is designed. Analysis of the new design is performed by focus groups. Further changes are therefore made based on their feedback.
Verify: In this final phase, a check is executed to know if the end result meets or exceeds customers' requirements. Customer feedback is also compiled to be incorporated into future designs.

Works Cited

De Feo, J. A., & Barnard, W. (2005). JURAN Institute's Six Sigma Breakthrough and Beyond - Quality Performance Breakthrough Methods. Tata McGraw-Hill Publishing Company Limited.

Kurmar, P. (2021, May 3). Retrieved April 25, 2021, from http://www.simplilearn.com

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