Six Sigma is a vision and philosophical commitment to offer the highest quality, lowest cost and most timely services and products. Six Sigma is metric driven and demonstrates quality levels at 99.9997% performance for products and service processes. Six Sigma allows a benchmark of our product and process capability for comparison to ‘best in class’ and most importantly provides practical application of statistical tools and methods to help measure, analyze, improve, and control process and therefore services and products.


Six Sigma is not just about statistics, not a quality program, not only for technical people, not used when the solution is known and not used for “firefighting”.


Six Sigma Reduces dependency on “Tribal Knowledge” and permits decisions to be based on facts and data rather than opinion. Six Sigma can help attack the high-hanging fruit (the hard stuff) and eliminate chronic problems (common cause variation). The results are improved customer satisfaction, a disciplined approach to problem solving, a positive change to company culture and creates a competitive advantage.


Using Six Sigma Motorola reduced in-process defect levels by a factor of 200, reduced manufacturing costs by $1.4 billion, increased employee production on a dollar basis by 126% and increased stockholders share value fourfold. AlliedSignal had a $1.4 Billion cost reduction, a 14% growth per quarter, a 520% price/share growth, reduced new product introduction time by 16% and achieved a 24% bill/cycle reduction. General Electric, a committed user of Six Sigma, in a three-year period added an annual savings of $6.6 Billion to its bottom line.


Six Sigma attacks performance variation and results in a new quality and cost paradigm that equates higher quality through reduced product service variability to reduced costs and improved profitability. A process variation of 4 sigma produces 6,210 defects per million opportunities whereas a variation of 6 sigma produces only 3.4 defects per million opportunities.


The Six Sigma process is worked through five main phases. These are: (1) to define the process, problem or objective; (2) to measure factors affecting the process, problem or objective; (3) to objectively analyze the results of the measurements; (4) iterate and improve to a solution set; and (5) finally control the process.


To successfully implement the Six Sigma process requires significant management commitment philosophically as well as financially. Generally each Six Sigma project needs a chartered team to review the business case for the Six Sigma initiative, to develop the problem and goal statements, establish the team members and define their roles and responsibilities. Action plans, budgets and schedules must also be developed.


The Definition Phase

The define phase begins with a Project Review of the Project Charter and scope to define the process to be used. The next steps is then to define and prioritize customer requirements. Tools and methods to support this phase include; SIPOC Models, Kano Analysis, Customer Surveys, CTQ Diagrams; Customer Requirements Analysis, QFD, Literature Search and Review, and Standards and Regulatory Review.


The Measurement Phase

The measure phase means identifying measurements and variations, determine data types, develop a data collection plans, perform measurement system analysis, conduct data collection and the perform a capabilities analysis. Proper measurement and analysis should result in determining the effectiveness and efficiency of the existing process, its sigma level and the calculated cost of poor quality. Tools and methods to support this phase include; SIPOC-RM, CTQ-R, Check Sheets, MSA and Basic Statistics. The results should begin to reveal levels of customer satisfaction, effectiveness and efficiency of process, base line sigma for yield, DPMO and CPk as well as the cost of poor quality.


The Analysis/Evaluation Phase

The analysis and evaluation phase is a disciplined process of data and process analysis used to formulate and test hypotheses. Tools and methods used include: Run Charts, Pareto Charts, Relation Diagrams, Histograms, Scatter Diagrams, CE Diagrams, Process Analysis, Hypothesis Testing, Chi-square Analysis, T-Test Analysis, ANOVA Correlation Analysis and Regression Analysis. The results of this phase drives project reviews and validation of root case statements.


The Improvement Phase

The improvement phase generates and validates a number of improvement alternatives. It creates a “should be” process map and updates a FMEA. The improvement phase also details cost to benefits analysis. Tools and methods include; brainstorming, creative and innovative exercises, criteria weighting, change management and DOEs encompassing fractional factorials, Taguchi techniques, response surface and half fractions. The results generate validated pilot studies and plans for the control phase.


The Control Phase

The control phase develops a control strategy and plan to update process, products or procedures and develop new training and metrics.The control phase also contains plans to monitor results and provide corrective actions as needed. The results are implementation, monitoring and control of change including improvement fully implemented and process re-baselined, a quality plan and control procedures institutionalized, owners of the process fully trained and running the process, any required documentation done, history binder completed, closure cover sheet signed and score card developed on characteristics improved and reporting method defined.


Design for Six Sigma

Design for Six Sigma is a further refinement and development of the original Six Sigma process. It is a customer driven design with Six Sigma capability that predicts design quality up front. Top down requirements flowdown and are matched by capability flowup that provide for cross-functional integrated design involvement. This drives quality measurement and predictability improvement in early design phases utilizing process capabilities to make final design decisions. Further, the Design for Six Sigma monitors process variances to verify Six Sigma customer requirements are met.


Lean Six Sigma

Lean Six Sigma is a variation of Six Sigma that accommodates and values time in the Six Sigma process. Lean focuses on maximizing process velocity and provides tools for analyzing process flows and delay times at each activity in the pro
cess. Lean centers on the separation of “value-added” from “non-value-added” work with tools to eliminate the root cause of non-value-added activities and their cost. Further, Lean provides a means for quantifying and eliminating the costs of complexity.


 

Aviation Management Associates, Inc.

    Six Sigma, Design for Six Sigma and Lean Six Sigma