Six Sigma - The Customer Angle

The foundation of Six Sigma is customer satisfaction and cost reduction by using various metrics and statistical tools. This is a customer-focused approach equipped with strategies and discipline at all levels of administration, planning and production. Six Sigma is aimed at achieving only 3.4 defects per million opportunities.

Voice of the Customer

Six Sigma places highest priority on customer data input which provides the much-needed insight into what the customers need and what he or she is thinking about the products already on the market as a measure of performance. The design team needs to understand the requirements of the customer and predict whether the proposed (or the existing) design meets customer expectations.

How Is Customer Satisfaction Ensured?

All business activities are customer centric. Even the best product may not sell if it possesses useless value for the customers. A point in the case is the satellite phone Irridium? that Motorola developed some time ago. Although it was the first and the best in its class, it failed in the market because the customer did not find any value in that particular product.

1. Customer's Experience Of Defects and Costs: Customers have a different perspective about quality and cost. The variation in satisfaction levels across different market segments and regions needs to be analyzed as a first step towards reaching goals. In Six Sigma, customer input, however scattered it may be, when analyzed can be categorized making way for an in-depth understanding of company goals.

2. Product Relevance: The relevance of any product to the customer stems from its utility, cost and quality. A robust design is not just strong but simple, flexible and idiot-proof. It consistently produces a high level of performance despite huge variations in manufacturing and customer needs. Anything not adding value will not get customer attention.

3. Adjusting Process Capability to Customer Requirements: The need for adjusting the process capability is basically considered in DMAIC (a Six Sigma methodology for existing products), without putting significant burden on the cost. This begins with estimation of financial impact, feasibility studies of the technicalities involved and market uptake. The outcome of these studies will guide any process adjustments.

4. Controlling Process Variations: The uncertainties of processing are the variation that needs to be tackled as a critical step in achieving the 3.4 defect threshold. Uncertainties arise mainly due to a huge number of key elements in a process, outdated process steps and lack of control. Variability surrounding a product or process can be rooted out at the design and analytical stages.

5. Removing Roadblocks: The roadblocks for Six Sigma implementation can sometimes be within the organization, such as trans-jurisdictional roadblocks which sometimes threaten the effective implementation of Six Sigma. The Black Belts need Champions' intervention in removing these roadblocks.

6. Hitting the Finish line: Taking Six Sigma to its logical conclusion is no small matter, even for cash rich corporations. The millions of dollars that it takes for Six Sigma implementation and the long cycle for the results to show can unsettle even the strongest organizations. Finishing the task, despite allotment of huge funds, accessibility to knowledge base, depends primarily on the commitment level of senior leadership and a dedication to customer satisfaction.

Tony Jacowski is a quality analyst for The MBA Journal. Aveta Solution's Six Sigma Online offers online six sigma training and certification classes for lean six sigma, black belts, green belts, and yellow belts

Communication In Six Sigma

Deploying Six Sigma means entering a period of significant change in your organization. Productivity and morale almost always suffers in times of great change. The requirements of change and adaptation and the very human fear of the unknown add to stresses of the work environment. In these times, communication becomes more important than ever.

Communication throughout a Six Sigma project is very important because the power and scope of Six Sigma demands a significant commitment from everyone in the organization. Six Sigma successes require clear and open communication at all levels to transcend departmental barriers that would otherwise cause confusion. In addition, any change in an organization will meet some resistance, either intentional or just because of inertia. When management can effectively communicate that it is behind that change and can communicate the positive aspects of the change, resistance can be countered and overcome.

Company leadership must be willing to give Six Sigma teams all of the tools and information necessary to apply Six Sigma concepts to their day-to-day activities. It is crucial in Six Sigma projects to clarify the rationale, expectations, goals, and sequence of steps in the process. Six Sigma teams with clear, written goals accomplish far more in a shorter period of time than teams without them could ever imagine. This is true everywhere and under all circumstances. Documentation of the Six Sigma process is the opportunity to resolve any misunderstandings of the deployment. A schedule is developed that outlines the strategy to take the process from its current state to one that is within statistical control and in line with the company's Six Sigma goals. Roles need to be clearly defined in how individuals contribute to the schedule and strategy. Employees assess how they can contribute to the organization through the information they receive. A team's quality goals should be set to tie in with the overall company quality improvement goals. This happens only when the team has the knowledge they need.

Lack of clarity in communicating business information is probably more responsible for frustration and underachievement than any other single factor. It is unfortunately way too easy to not realize that communication is falling short of your organization's needs. Often senior managers sincerely believe they are adequately communicating with employees. However, managers can easily underestimate the number of issues on which employees need information and how much information they need.

How do you know what is important to employees and what to tell them? You need to put yourself in the position of the employees. If you were that person, what would be important for you to know to do your job? What would you be worried about in the current situation? What information would help you deal with change? How would you want to be told? You can't answer those questions yourself. You need input from the very people you are trying to understand. Communication is a two-way street?listening as well as talking. Asking a few individuals what is being said, what people are worrying and wondering about.

Also be aware that the way a person receives news can dramatically affect how he or she feels about it, so you need to choose the medium very carefully. E-mail can be perceived as cold and unfeeling, although it is useful for routine updates that don't have emotional overtones. Many messages are better delivered in person, either to individuals or to the team as a whole.

Communication skills take practice. Always be sure the message remains honest, clear and compassionate. Have integrity and build trust. Don't say what you don't mean. Don't promise anything that you cannot or will not fulfill. Above all, follow through on your commitments and promises. Nothing turns employees off more than feeling betrayed. Sincere, caring, and constant communication will form the basis for building employee engagement throughout Six Sigma deployment.http://www.6sigma.us Peter Peterka is the principal Six Sigma Consultant in practice areas of DMAIC and DFSS.Peter has over 15 years experience including implementation ofSix Sigma in Healthcare

Design For Six Sigma

Design for Six Sigma (DFSS) is the application of Six Sigma principles to the design of products and their manufacturing and support processes. Whereas Six Sigma by definition focuses on the production phase of a product, DFSS focuses on research, design, and development phases. DFSS combines many of the tools that are used to improve existing products or services and integrates the voice of the customer and simulation methods to predict new process and product performance.

DFSS can be compared to DMAIC (Design, Measure, Analyze, Improve, Control) and often the acronym DMADV (Define, Measure, Analyze, Design, Verify) is used to describe the strategy of DFSS. The precise phases or steps of a DFSS methodology are not universally defined. Most organizations will implement DFSS to suit their business, industry, and culture. DFSS methodology, instead of the DMAIC methodology, should be used when:

* A product or process is not in existence at your company and one needs to be developed
* The existing product or process exists and has been optimized (using either DMAIC or not) and still doesn't meet the level of customer specification or six sigma level
DFSS is a way to implement the Six Sigma methodology as early in the product or service life cycle as possible. It is a strategy toward extraordinary ROI by designing to meet customer needs and process capability. DFSS can produce the same order of magnitude in financial benefits as DMAIC. But it also greatly helps an organization innovate, exceed customer expectations, and become a market leader.

DFSS is the Six Sigma approach to product design?namely, designing products that are resistant to variation in the manufacturing process. Using DFSS means designing quality into the product from the start. You are preventing wasteful variation before it happens, thus being able to identify and correct problems early when the solution costs are less. A successful DFSS implementation requires the same ingredients as any other Six Sigma project: a significant commitment and leadership from the top, planning that identifies and establishes measurable program goals and timeline, and the training and involvement of everyone.

Planning for DFSS requires collecting the necessary information that will allow for error free production of defect-free products and processes that satisfy the customer profitably. DFSS attempts to predict how the designs under consideration will behave and to correct for variation prior to it occurring. That means understanding the real needs of your customers and translating those needs into vital technical characteristics of the product and ultimately into critical to quality (CTQ) characteristics of the product and process. You can then use design of experiments (DOE) to develop a robust design that optimizes efficiency and reduces defects.

Valid and reliable metrics to monitor the progress of the project are established early in the project, during the Measure phase if using DMADV. Key inputs are prioritized to establish a short list to study in more detail. With a prioritized list of inputs in hand, the DFSS team will determine the potential ways the process could go wrong and take preemptive action to mitigate or prevent those failures. Through analysis, the DFSS team can determine the causes of the problem that needs improvement and how to eliminate the gap between existing performance and the desired level of performance. This involves discovering why defects are generated by identifying the key variables that are most likely to create process variation. Failure Mode and Effect Analysis (FMEA) and Anticipatory Failure Determination (AFD) can be used for both the design of the product and the design of the process.

DFSS provides a structured way to constructively use the information learned from these analyses. Armed with real data produced by the DFSS process, you can develop competent manufacturing processes and choose processes that are capable of meeting the design requirements. Further analysis can verify and validate that the product design will meet the quality targets. This can be accomplished through peer reviews, design reviews, simulation and analysis, qualification testing, or production validation testing.

The benefits of DFSS are more difficult to quantify and are more long-term. It can take over six months after the launch of the new product before you will begin to see the true measure of the project improvements. However, the eventual return on investment can be profound. This is especially true when the organization can use the DFSS project as a template for fundamental changes in the way it develops new products and processes across the organization.Peter Peterka is the principal Six Sigma Consultant in practice areas of DMAIC and DFSS. Peter has over 15 years experience including implementation ofSix Sigma in Healthcare.

Six Sigma

Created by Ronald Munro

Six Sigma is a proven approach focusing on reduction of defects and increasing product or service efficiency. Most companies use some form of quality control to accomplish this task.

Quality control does several things for a business. It creates a better product or service for the company to market. By having better quality companies are able to better manage their resources and compete in the market place. Quality control also helps to better manage items like waste or employee hours.

Here are 6 Ways to approach increasing quality in an organization:
1. Facilitate a more rapid progression towards quality through the use of repetition to build the behavioral and management skills your managers and allow them to more readily develop those skills.

2. Reduce management and supervisor frustration by developing a positive, results-oriented attitude within each manager, thereby creating a more positive and motivating organizational environment.

3. Develop overall management and leadership skills such as open and honest communication, delegation skills, coaching, planning, problem solving, time management, leadership and motivation.

4. Provide a system of goal setting and action planning with managers so as to permit the achievement of managements objectives in conjunction with the Quality Management System.

5. Crystallize and communicate organizational objectives while monitoring progress and providing a systematic approach to effective time management toward reaching these goals and objectives. This will raise the level of each managers success and reducing frustration.

6. Integrate the goals of the organization with the personal goals of the managers, thus creating an environment of motivation and mutual commitment.

As you can see there are many areas quality control can help in any business. There are many forms of quality control and many programs all ready setup to provide businesses resources in order to proceed with implementing some form of quality control such as Six Sigma, ISO 9000, ISO 9001 and ISO 2000 and these are just a few. Some companies create their own form of quality control. But each and everyone relies on statistics to carry out these programs.

Six Sigma is an overall enterprise improvement methodology that uses data to monitor, control, and improve operational performance by eliminating and preventing defects in products and associated processes.
Six Sigma emphasizes producing better, faster, and lower cost product and services than the competition and stresses breakthrough improvement, for improved bottom line results. Six Sigma is also a process used to translate customer needs into a set of optimal tasks that are brought into harmony with one another.

By examining the optimal process, Six Sigma can have a powerful effect on the quality of products, the performance of customer services and the professional development of employees. The most important quality-improvement techniques stress employee motivation, change in corporate culture and employee education. Organizations known for product and service quality strongly believe that employees are the key to that quality.

In doing the quality control many aspects of statistics that we learned such as mean, average, expectation, variance and standard deviation would be used in order to carry out this process. Also many places use graphs in order to better visually represent the data. No quality control program could exist without statistics.
Created by Ronald Munro

Six Sigma is a proven approach focusing on reduction of defects and increasing product or service efficiency. Most companies use some form of quality control to accomplish this task.

Quality control does several things for a business. It creates a better product or service for the company to market. By having better quality companies are able to better manage their resources and compete in the market place. Quality control also helps to better manage items like waste or employee hours.

Here are 6 Ways to approach increasing quality in an organization:
1. Facilitate a more rapid progression towards quality through the use of repetition to build the behavioral and management skills your managers and allow them to more readily develop those skills.

2. Reduce management and supervisor frustration by developing a positive, results-oriented attitude within each manager, thereby creating a more positive and motivating organizational environment.

3. Develop overall management and leadership skills such as open and honest communication, delegation skills, coaching, planning, problem solving, time management, leadership and motivation.

4. Provide a system of goal setting and action planning with managers so as to permit the achievement of managements objectives in conjunction with the Quality Management System.

5. Crystallize and communicate organizational objectives while monitoring progress and providing a systematic approach to effective time management toward reaching these goals and objectives. This will raise the level of each managers success and reducing frustration.

6. Integrate the goals of the organization with the personal goals of the managers, thus creating an environment of motivation and mutual commitment.

As you can see there are many areas quality control can help in any business. There are many forms of quality control and many programs all ready setup to provide businesses resources in order to proceed with implementing some form of quality control such as Six Sigma, ISO 9000, ISO 9001 and ISO 2000 and these are just a few. Some companies create their own form of quality control. But each and everyone relies on statistics to carry out these programs.

Six Sigma is an overall enterprise improvement methodology that uses data to monitor, control, and improve operational performance by eliminating and preventing defects in products and associated processes.
Six Sigma emphasizes producing better, faster, and lower cost product and services than the competition and stresses breakthrough improvement, for improved bottom line results. Six Sigma is also a process used to translate customer needs into a set of optimal tasks that are brought into harmony with one another.

By examining the optimal process, Six Sigma can have a powerful effect on the quality of products, the performance of customer services and the professional development of employees. The most important quality-improvement techniques stress employee motivation, change in corporate culture and employee education. Organizations known for product and service quality strongly believe that employees are the key to that quality.

In doing the quality control many aspects of statistics that we learned such as mean, average, expectation, variance and standard deviation would be used in order to carry out this process. Also many places use graphs in order to better visually represent the data. No quality control program could exist without statistics.

BBA Northwood University
Disabled American Veteran

 

The Six Sigma Method And Design Of Experiments

Six Sigma is becoming a proven approach for businesses and organizations to improve their performance. The spectrum of companies actively engaging in Six Sigma today is wide from industrials like Celanese, Caterpillar, GE, Honeywell, and 3M to service/retail organizations like Starwood Hotels, Sears, and Home Depot. Six Sigma has even started in the financial industry with Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase initiating major deployments in the past two years. Probably the most exciting area is in the public and healthcare sectors with success stories emerging from city government and John Hopkins Medical.

Six Sigma is becoming a proven approach for businesses and organizations to improve their performance. The spectrum of companies actively engaging in Six Sigma today is wide from industrials like Celanese, Caterpillar, GE, Honeywell, and 3M to service/retail organizations like Starwood Hotels, Sears, and Home Depot. Six Sigma has even started in the financial industry with Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase initiating major deployments in the past two years. Probably the most exciting area is in the public and healthcare sectors with success stories emerging from city government and John Hopkins Medical.

So what is all this excitement about? Havent these quality tools been around for years? Is it just the fact that people have strange names like Champion, Green Belt, Black Belt and for the chosen few, Master Black Belt? Okay, if it is not the names then what? Six Sigmas success revolves around the fundamental elements needed for any successful organization. Six Sigma starts with a vision of delivering products and services to customers with no defects from the eyes of the customers. For companies it is vital to deliver these products and services at a profit. Once the organization has created their own vision of Six Sigma, the business leaders need to define their organizations objectives in numerical terms. These high-level metrics, often called big Ys in Six Sigma, are the foundation for identifying project ys that Six Sigma Belts will execute projects on. With big Ys in hand, business leaders called Six Sigma Champions breakdown these organizational level Ys into smaller ys a project leader called a Green Belt or Black Belt can work from.

So whats next, do business leaders take a hands-off management by objectives (MBO) approach of, I dont care how you do it as long as you get results!? For Six Sigma organizations the answer is a loud NO. Champions do care how projects are executed and have appointed highly trained Master Black Belts to assist and mentor project leaders in applying the Six Sigma method to manage their projects. I believe this is the key to Six Sigmas success. In a past life I participated in a high-level meeting with executives from the world leader in the production of a product we all know. The purpose of the meeting and visit was to evaluate a critical new product design. All of the high-tech executives were dressed in dark Italian business suits complemented with gold and diamonds. I listened closely to each question these executives asked. I never once heard how much?, when? or even why? every question was by what method?. Methodology is what Six Sigma is about.

Six Sigma Methods

There have evolved two key methods for carrying out Six Sigma projects. The first method is the most well-defined and works best if you have a problem with an unknown solution in existing products, processes or services. This method is called DMAIC or Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control. The newest method, which is in the developing stages, is called Design for Six Sigma or DFSS. The goal of DFSS is to develop a new product, process or service that is defect-free in the eyes of the customer. A number of consulting companies have invented roadmaps for DFSS like IDOV (Identify, Design, Optimize and Validate) and DMADV (Design, Measure, Analyze, Design and Verify).

Six Sigma and Design of Experiments

Once an organization has decided on the method and the project ys, Belts are marched off to training waves bringing management-approved projects to class. DMAIC Green Belt training is normally two one-week sessions separated by one month. Black Belt training waves are extended by two additional months with two more weeks of training. The emphasis during the extended two weeks of Black Belt training is often on learning more details about advanced tools such as Design of Experiments (DOE).

So where does Design of Experiments fit into Six Sigma? Six Sigma is about understanding and controlling the variation of key process variables known as inputs or xs in order to obtain improved results on project outputs or ys. In Design of Experiment terms these inputs or xs are often referred to as factors and the outputs are referred to as responses. In nearly all Six Sigma projects the relationship of the project ys takes on the form of y=f(x1,x2,...xn). Wait a minute, isnt this what Design of Experiments is all about? Of course, for almost 100 years Design of Experiments has been proven to be one of the best known methods for validating and discovering relationships between responses and factors. In Six Sigma terms it is discovering the relationship between outputs called ys and inputs called xs. Todays Six Sigma Belts are primarily taught to focus their use of Design of Experiments in the Improve phase of DMAIC and the Optimize phase of IDOV. For DMAIC Six Sigma training the most common experimental designs taught are factorial and fractional factorial designs. Some curriculums introduce response surface designs and optimization designs at a high level. DFSS includes the experimental designs taught in all levels of DMAIC training and often expands to include the concept of robust designs. As an alternative to the classical approach, there are also a number of consulting companies teaching Taguchi designs as the
preferred method for robust design.

Final Remarks

Six Sigma looks as though it is here to stay and even in todays slow economy one of the few areas where there still are a number of new positions. The Six Sigma process is a great step toward creating learning organizations with its well-defined roadmaps and management structure. As with most new methodologies Six Sigma will mature and grow as it expands into new areas such as DFSS. As Six Sigma professionals learn more about the power of properly planned experiments, Design of Experiments will be integrated into most phases of the Six Sigma roadmap and not just considered an advanced tool for the improvement and optimization phases. Experienced practitioners of statistical methods like Design of Experiments should learn the language of Six Sigma and help integrate new methods into the Six Sigma process to improve its effectiveness. Peter Peterka is the leading consultant for www.6sigma.us. Peter has eleven years of experience performing as a Master Black Belt, working with numerous companies, including 3M, Dell, Dow, GE, HP, Intel, Motorola, Seagate, and Xerox. You can signup for Peter's Six Sigma Certification at www.6sigma.us.

The 6 Steps to Six Sigma

Step 1

Get the proper level of Six Sigma expertise at the executive level of the company. If the top leaders don’t understand the advanced six sigma principles, the company has no shot to attain total quality. This will probably require a hefty budget, entailing the hiring of several high-priced consultants for long periods of time. The consultants need to observe and gather data about the companies operations, and show the executives how to interpret the data.

Step 2

Get the staff involved. The ones in the trenches are the most knowledgeable about the day-to-day operations, and the day to day’s are where most costs are spent. This means getting people like the shop foreman, the line supervisor, and the office manager involved in the training. Not only do they need to understand the thinking behind six sigma, but they also need to buy into the benefits. Since they’re the ones carrying out the orders and directing the vast majority of employees, if the trench-level staff isn’t aligned with management, the company is sunk.

Step 3

Measure the data - quantify the number of defects per unit. This applies not only to manufacturing, but to services as well. It’s easier to measure defects on an assembly line. You just divide the number of defective units by total output (that’s really simplified, but you get the point). Services are more vague.

This is why it is vital to get input from your customers. Ask them how things are going from their perspective. Is there anything they would like to see you improve on that would make their experience more favorable? You’re looking to increase overall quality. Nobody knows your faults better than your customers.

Everything must be measured and quantified into actual numerical data. How long does it take the average customer order to ship? What percentage of customers is satisfied with your performance? What is the average employee break time? How long does it take the customer service department to answer the phone? Once enough data is gathered to answer questions like these, the six sigma process and the path to quality improvement can begin.

Step 4

Now you must analyze all of the data that has been collected so far and identify the difference between perfection and your current operating efficiency level. The goal is to constantly close the gap between the two. Again, as stated in Step 2, staff buy-in is extremely important. If management does not show a link between "total quality improvement" and "workplace improvement," then all the data collection will go to waste. The staff will not willingly take the extra steps (which often require harder, more detailed work) if they are not being rewarded. Some companies use bonuses to provide incentive, other companies offer prizes for attaining goals or add employee perks based on improvement levels.

Step 5

Now is the time for improvement. Changes in procedure and operations should have been in place, and more data should be collected to gauge the level of overall quality improvement. Either the hired consultants or an internal team of Six Sigma Black Belts should supervise the data collection. Again, this step will be expensive. Gathering the vast amount of data needed to accurately assess performance takes a great deal of time, resources, and capital. But without proper data and measurement, you will never know if the changes are working or not.

Step 6

After improvement begins, the constant chore of ongoing control must be monitored. Unforeseen variables will arise. Employees may turn over, competitors might introduce new products, your facility may undergo changes, and many other things could happen which will impact the overall quality of your business. Top level Black Belts need to be constantly analyzing data to gauge the impact of any future changes, spot possible trends, and formulate actions to keep on the path of consistent and eternal improvement.

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