SIX SIGMA

Six Sigma

Six Sigma

Introduction

In this day and age of intense competition, quality has to be a prerequisite; not an afterthought. Also, this quality should not only be in the products coming out of the factory but also in delivery, processing of orders and in taking down orders. Even fields like marketing, sales and advertising have to become more efficient. As Taguchi, the Japanese pioneer in the field of quality control said," Quality is the sum total of the losses incurred by the society due to a defective product, improper delivery & wrong order processing (Pyzdek 2009)."

To take care of this the concept of quality control was developed. Companies have been practicing this for quite a few years now. Various management theories and standards have also come up to deal with this. The most popular of these are ISO and TQM (Total Quality Management). The problem with these are that although they looked good in theory, could not deliver as per their promises. Due to their shortcomings a new concept was developed by Motorola engineer Bill Smith in 1986 ,and which has become a mantra in management circles today: SIX SIGMA.

What is six sigma?

Simply speaking, Six sigma is the measure of the standard deviation of a process from a mean or expected value. Carl Frederick Gauss (1777-1855) first used it as a measure of standard.

In terms of production a process is to work at a six sigma level if it produces no more than 3.4 DPMO (defects per million opportunities). These opportunities are not always in the form of manufacturing. They may be in processing of orders, delivery, after sales service etc.

Six sigma is a management philosophy that was first developed in Motorola (USA) in 1986.It is used to control waste management, and improving the efficiency of a company. In this various steps are taken to try to reduce the errors in a process to a level of 3.4 in one million opportunities. It is done using different methods that would be explained later(Pande 2001).

WHY SIX SIGMA?

The first question arising in anyone listening about a new management concept like Six sigma is Why? Why should we change to another quality management system when TQM and ISO are working fine?

The answer is because Six sigma is not just a quality management system but a philosophy of doing business. If properly and perfectly implemented it gives a yield of 99.9997%, which is phenomenal.

With a little knowledge of the market we know that as competition rises the companies have to lower their prices. (Eg.the present telecom war in the country) This means lower profit margins that may not be enough to sustain the company and fuel its growth(Keller 2001). Thus, the application of a system like six sigma, which increases the efficiency to almost 100%, becomes very important for a business concern.

Implementation of Six Sigma

There are two different avenues, which are taken care of and improved upon by Six sigma. They are the two basic units of any ...