Six Sigma and Change

By Laurenda Whisenhunt (TNU 2008)

Six Sigma

Six Sigma is a process designed to help with the production of higher quality products and services. The process measures how far a given process has deviated from perfection. The concept behind Six Sigma is to identify the problems during the process of production or services then concentrate on how to eliminate the errors or problems. The goal of Six Sigma quality is to reduce the errors in the process by as much as no more than 3.4 errors or defects per million opportunities.

The overall goal of Six Sigma is to implement a strategy that is measurement-based that will indicate where improvements and changes need to be made. There are two Six Sigma methodologies that can be used to apply the process to producing a higher quality of products and services, DMAIC and DMADV.

DMAIC (a process designed for improving falling below established goals and specifications)

* Define

* Measure

* Analyze

* Improve

* Control

DMADV (a process designed to create new products and processes at Six Sigma levels of quality)

* Define

* Measure

* Analyze

* Design

* Verify

Six Sigma-What is Six Sigma? 11 Sept. 2008, http://www.isixsigma.com/sixsigma/six_sigma.asp

History of Six Sigma

Mathematicians and engineers have used the term sigma since the 1920’s. The term is a symbol. The term represents a unit of measurement in the quality of product variation. During the 1980’s, engineers at Motorola Inc. captured the term Six Sigma as a term applied to an in-house initiative for cutting back on the number of defects in production processes.

Throughout the 1990’s, the popularity of the Six Sigma process grew rapidly and had saved General Electric more than three quarters of a billion dollars. During this time, Six Sigma had become a transferable branded corporate management initiative and methodology. Since 2000, Six Sigma has become a favorable methodology by many corporations concerned with the improvements of their services and products. Many Six Sigma organizations have spawned because of the work begun by Motorola Inc. in the 1980’s.

Six Sigma http://www.businessballs.com/sixsigma