Industrial Scientific Corporation
Industrial Scientific Corporation
Oakdale, PA

Six Sigma: an Executive Summary

Six Sigma clarifies both business strategy and the metrics that reflect success. By providing a framework for prioritizing resources, it raises the effectiveness of leaders throughout your organization. They, in turn, manage rapid, sustainable improvements.

Six Sigma helps companies grow market share, improve customer retention, develop new products and services, accelerate innovation, and manage changing customer requirements.

Why “Six Sigma?” For many years, statisticians, mathematicians, and engineers have used the Greek letter sigma (σ) to represent statistical variation. In the manufacturing context, “six sigma” is often used as a scale for levels of variation — in other words, a very high standard of quality: no more than 3.4 defects per million opportunities (DPMO). In Six Sigma terms, a defect is anything that could reduce customer satisfaction.

Six Sigma’s original focus emphasized defect reduction and cycle-time improvement in manufacturing. Since Motorola introduced it in 1987, Six Sigma has evolved, and today it can be regarded as a metric, a method, and a management system. As users have adapted it to new processes, they have, in some cases, de-emphasized both the literal 3.4 DPMO standard and the need for strict defect scorekeeping. Process metrics and structured methodologies, however, retain their central roles.

A Six Sigma project goes through five phases that make up the DMAIC model:

  • Define opportunity
  • Measure performance
  • Analyze opportunity
  • Improve performance
  • Control performance

In any application, Six Sigma helps organizations focus on:

  • Understanding and managing customer requirements
  • Aligning key processes to meet those requirements
  • Using rigorous data analysis to minimize process variation
  • Driving sustainable process improvement

As a result, organizations are better able to concentrate on strategic issues and top-down solutions that:

  • Align business strategy with critical improvement efforts
  • Mobilize teams to attack high-impact projects
  • Accelerate improved business results
  • Govern sustained improvement efforts