Six Sigma

Six Sigma

Sigma is a letter in the Greek alphabet that is used to show the standard deviation from mean or simply a measure of variation in a process. Six sigma is a strategy used for the improvement of any process. Six sigma seeks to find and eliminate causes of defects and errors, reduce cost of operations and improve productivity of the organization [1], [2].

A company using six sigma level can easily meet the expectations of the customer as six sigma focuses on improvement of the product that are important to customer. Six sigma analyzes data using statistics to control the variation in a process. Once the variation in a process is controlled then we can easily reduce the causes of defects [3].

In simple words the aim of Six Sigma is

It creates knowledge by investigation of the process. It creates a commonsense of the process by improvement program that it implements in the organization. When you share your experiences with others it give them knowledge of how to deal with a customer and how to perform your works more efficiently [3], [6].

Background of six sigma

The six sigma has emerged as a proven strategy for successful business performance in recent years but it has a long history of quality management to get to the present form. In the early 1900s W. Tailor’s work put forward a new philosophy of production management. His theory was to separate planning and execution of projects. Planning was the job of managers and engineers while execution of the task is done by supervisor and workers. He gave the idea to divide a system into subsystems for increasing efficiency of the process [2], [6], [7].

During the 1950s, the Japanese manufacturing companies use works of Dr. W. Edwards Deming and Dr. Joseph M. Juran to increase their quality of the products and acquire competitiveness in the world. Dr. W. Edwards Deming put forward the improvement cycle of ‘Plan-Do- Check-Act’, often known as the PDCA cycle. Dr. Armand Feigenbaum is the one who initiate the concepts of total quality control [1], [6],

We define the goals that we want to achieve and requirements of the customer. When we are designing a new process, our main goal is to design a process which give us products according to the requirements of the customers, CTQs to the customer and strategy of the enterprise [1], [2], [4].

2. Measure

Here we determine things that are most important to the customer. We translate voice of the customer to the project goals and then by keeping in view of these goals a measurement system is prepared which provide us that how much a process is performed to meet CTQs [1]–[3].

3. Analyze

We analyze the things we need for better quality and were placed in the specification of our design. The performance of similar best designed processes was also determined and the process design is also analyzed. It is also analyzed that our design is meeting the project goals or not [2], [3].

4. Design

The main objective of the design phase is reach a design of the process which have the parameters to produce a product according to all the CTQ requirement of the customer so that a quality product is produced [2], [3], [6], [9].

5.