Chapter 20 Six Sigma Management

Six Sigma (a registered trademark of the Motorola Corp.) is the relentless and rigorous pursuit of the reduction of variation in all critical processes to achieve continuous and breakthrough improvements that impact the bottom line of the organization and increase customer satisfaction. It is an organizational initiative designed to create manufacturing, service and administrative processes that produce approximately 3.4 defects per million. Opportunities (DPMO).

Relationship between the Voice of the Customer and the Voice of the Process
Six Sigma management promotes the idea that the distribution of output for a process (the Voice of the Process) should take up no more than half of the tolerance allowed by the specification limits (the Voice of the Customer) This assumes that the measurement data is from a stable and normal distribution of output whose mean can shift by as much as 1.5 standard deviations over time.

 The following figure shows the Voice of the Customer as spoken in the language of a nominal value, m, and the lower and upper specification limits, LSL and USL, for a quality characteristic. This assumes
Distribution of process output is measurement data The process is stable The distribution is normal The process average is on nominal The distance between nominal and either specification limit is 3 times the process standard deviation

If these five conditions are met we all the process a 3sigma process. A 3-sigma process will produce 2,700 defects per million opportunities.

3-sigma Process LSL USL

An Example of a 3-sigma Process

The number of days to complete a month accounting report is stable and normally distributed with an average of 7 days and a standard deviation of 1 day. The lower specification limit is 4 days and the upper specification limits is 10 days.

 Next we see a quality characteristic represented by measurement data that:

Is stable Is normally distributed Has a process output that can shift by as much as 1.5 standard deviations on either side of nominal Has a distance between nominal and either specification limit of 3 standard deviations of process output.

This is a 3-sigma process with a 1.5 sigma shift in the mean. This process will generate 66,811 defects per million opportunities or 93.33189% of its output between the specification limits.

Accounting process with process average shifts of 1.5 standard deviations.

 Next we see a scenario where the voice of the process takes up only half the distance between the specification limits. The process mean remains the same, but the process standard deviation has been reduced to one halfday

Output for the monthly accounting process with the standard deviation reduced to one-half day through process improvement activities.

 Next we will see the voice of the customer and the voice of the process for a quality characteristic that:
Is represented by measurement data Is stable Is normally distributed Has a process average that can shift by as much as 1.5 standard deviations on either side of nominal Has the distance between nominal and either specification limit is 6 standard deviations of the process output.

This is a process that will generate 3.4 defects per million opportunities, or 99.99966% of its output within specification limits in the near future.

Six sigma accounting process with a 1.5 sigma shift in the mean