Six Sigma

The real power of Six sigma is simple because it combines people power with process power.

What is main work of Six Sigma?

 In football, you've got two ways to win games. The first thing is making more spectacular plays, like long passes and big runs and great interceptions. That’s the stuff that makes the highlight films. But you can also win games by making fewer mistakes: fewer penalties, fewer fumbles, fewer interceptions. It might not be as spectacular as all the big plays, but it’s just as important to bottom line. And the thing is, while you need spectacular players to make spectacular plays, anyone and everyone can focus on making fewer mistakes.

            Companies can make money in two ways. They can make more money by coming up with great inventions, hiring some real starts, or buying other companies. But good companies also focus on not making mistakes: not wasting time or materials, not making errors in production or service delivery.

What is Six Sigma?

It is a management philosophy focused on eliminating mistakes, waste and rework. It is not a “Do Better” program.  It establishes a measurable status to be achieved and embodies a strategic problem solving method to increase customer satisfaction and dramatically enhance the bottom line. It gives you discipline, structure and a foundation for solid decision making based on simple statistics. It also maximizes your return on investment and your Return on Talent – your people.

            So , Sigma is like a measurement, used to determine how good or bad the performance of process is; in other words, how many mistakes a company makes, doing whatever it does, from manufacturing steel to delivering the morning paper.

Implementation of Six Sigma....?

If we want to improve something, we have to know where we stand and where we want to go or else it isn't going to happen. But when we define those things in anything but numbers, the goal quickly becomes subjective and fuzzy. Numbers bring clarity.

Trying to improve something without having a goal- a numerical goal- is like trying to lose weight without having some scales.

Misconceptions about Six Sigma: Improving quality costs more Money

 Quality saves money, because there are fewer throw outs, fewer warranty payouts and fewer refunds. And doing that all that in turn increases the profits.

Six sigma is a management philosophy that covers a lot more than just defect rates.

There is also ISO 9000, which helps to document the work but doesn't seem to help much toward improving product or process quality.

Why goal is important?

Most of us try to promote continual improvement. These are just like “Can u please do your job a little better?” Another can be football coach yelling whose game plan consisted of yelling, “work harder!  Play Better! Good Luck!” without telling you what to do or giving you the help you need to do it!

Some companies try to focus only on the end product, where they try to identify bad biscuits and throw them out but that will take you till three or four Sigma not six. Rather try to find out why the bad biscuits are happening.

Six sigma doesn't try to manage the problem, it tries to eliminate it.

Six sigma is the role everyone plays. This is the people power side of equation. Any good football coach will tell you the same thing: every player must have a specific role, clearly defined with consequences for not coming through and rewards for doing their particular job well and that goes for everyone, from goalkeeper to the reserve.

Source :- "The Power If Six Sigma" By Subir Chowdhury