Quality Management Using Six Sigma

While looking to enhance quality levels, a group of Motorola engineers designed a set of quality management tools that utilized statistical data as an approach toward the reduction of defects, and the improved maintenance of quality (Reddy & Hutton, 2013). Focusing on process improvement and variation reduction, Six Sigma uses a measurement-based strategy to improve quality, based on a systematic methodology known by its acronym - DMAIC (iSixSigma, 2012). Once problematic issues are recognized, the DMAIC model strives toward finding a long-term solution through the five phases of defining systems. By measuring key aspects of the current process for data collection, analyzing the collected data and verifying cause and effect relationships, improving current processes from data analysis, and controlling operations to prevent impact in any future process disruptions (Wallace & Webber,

1. Six Sigma is a management philosophy that sets objectives, collects data and analyzes results as a way to remove wasted expenses from its processes and help reduce the number of defective products produced. Six Sigma uses quality measures to strive for near perfection by eliminating errors and variables.

Six Sigma is a business instrument for the betterment of a process. It is a controlled approach and methodology for obviating defects in any process such as manufacturing, businesses and any product or service. Six Sigma has been gaining tremendous popularity in industry today. However, academics have conducted limited research on this rising phenomenon. Interpreting Six Sigma primarily requires giving out a conceptual definition and describing an underlying theory. This topic uses Grounded theory approach and meager literature available to suggest an initial definition and theory of Six Sigma. This paper indicates that although tools and techniques on the topic are similar to earlier approaches of quality management, it provides a structure which is more detailed. This emerging structure for quality management attempts to improve the quality of the yield of a process by identifying and obviating the defects and causes lowering variability in business processes. Also one of the important areas touched upon is the conceptual understanding of Six Sigma. Each Six Sigma project executed inside an

Six Sigma simply means a measure of quality that strives for near perfection. Six Sigma is a disciplined, data-driven approach and methodology for eliminating defects in any process. In another meaning Six Sigma is a highly disciplined process that helps us focus on developing and delivering near-perfect products and services.

Six Sigma is a set of tools, processes and techniques that aid in the improvement of any

The creation of a consistent culture of safety and quality in an intensive care unit can be a major challenge. Many healthcare organizations are embracing the Six Sigma strategy to reduce variability and decrease risk for central line-associated bloodstream infections. This process is known as the Define-Measure-Analyze-Improve-Control (DMAIC) process. The five steps required are as follows: 1) define the project goal and identify issues to address; 2) measure the current trends to obtain baseline data; 3) Analyze root cause(s) of problem; 4) improve the process, while removing barriers; and 5) control the process through monitoring (Loftus, Tilley, Hoffman, Bradburn, & Harvey, 2015).

Six Sigma is a business metrics that seeks to identify and eliminate causes of errors or defects as well as failures in business processes by focusing on output that are critical to customers (De Feo, Barnard 2004). It is also a measure of quality that strives to eliminate defects using the application of statistical methods. In this case, a defect is defined as anything that could lead to customer dissatisfaction. Six Sigma’s statistical quality control is the method used to measure variability in a product for evaluation and corrective actions. When the product metrics exceeds the bounds of acceptability, based on statistical inference, the product can be rejected with reasonable assurance that does not meet requirement. It aims to identify and eliminate waste in order to increase speed and flow from start to finish. It also identifies the critical steps, and deleting those not required or nonessential. There are so many metrics process in today’s business industries but the metrics that Six Sigma’s statistical thinking can also be defined as a thought process. In which it recognize the variation is all around us and present in everything we do. The Six Sigma’s interconnected processes and identifying, characterizing, quantifying, controlling and reducing variation provide opportunities for improvement within any organizations or firms. That is to say,

Six Sigma is a quality improvement philosophy and a methodology and collection of statistical techniques used to implement that philosophy. Six Sigma’s focuses on reducing or removing identifiable sources of changes in order to decrease the number of defects in a product. Six Sigma was developed by Bill Smith and was used to standardize the way in which defects are tallied (Meredith, 2013). As a new way of doing business, six sigma can have a significant impact on the end result of business. There are many way six sigma can be applied. For example, the scientific component of methodology is a structure approach that takes

The Six Sigma methodology can be described as a management philosophy that focuses on developing and delivering near perfect products services. The approach uses the DMAIC structure and a set of improvement tools to identity causes of variation and to develop improvement strategies that reduce opportunities for defects and variation in process (Galli & Handley, 2014). DMAIC is the acronym for Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control. The central idea behind Six Sigma is that if the defects of a process can be measured, then solutions

The concept of Six Sigma was developed in the early 1980’s at Motorola Corporation (Harry and Schroeder, 2000). Six Sigma can be defined as a statistical measure of the performance of a process or product (Kumi et. al., 2006). It is used as a quality control mechanism, which seeks to reduce defects or variations in a process to 3.4 per million opportunities thereby optimizing output and increasing customer satisfaction (Sambhe, 2012). Sigma is representing the standard deviation, a unit of measurement that designates the distribution or spread about the mean of a process (Six Sigma Academy, 2002). In addition, the Six Sigma uniquely driven by close understanding of customer needs, disciplined use of fact, data, and statistical analysis, and diligent attention to managing improving, and reinventing business processes (Pande, P., et. al. 2000). The Six Sigma methodology uses statistical tools to identify the factors that matter most for improving the quality of processes and generating bottom-line results. The Six Sigma DMAIC (Define, Measure,

Making a comparison with a simple standpoint, the six sigma’s methodology is used to incremental improvement of existing processes, as it is the six sigma main tool, DMAIC. This tool is a strategy based on statistical quality, which gives much importance to data collection and accuracy of the data as a basis for improvement.

Many Greek symbols are used for statistical representations including σ, pronounced and written as sigma. This symbol refers to a standard deviation from the mean in statistics, and it is often used in quality specification measurements. Thus, six sigma (6σ) refers to six standard deviations from the mean. Literally speaking, six sigma is a statistical measure of variability. However, in the context of quality and process improvement, six sigma refers to a statistical- and factual-based approach to quality and process improvement. In fact, “some argue that Six Sigma is an advanced quality improvement

In this paper, we will be discussing about DMADV (Define, Measure, Analyze, Design, and Verify) Six Sigma framework. Six sigma generally will be implemented with DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, and Control) to analyze the core problems in different scenarios. DMAIC can be solved for different sizes of the problem, and also the project time and cost will vary. DMAIC focuses primarily on the development of a new service, product or process and is especially useful when implementing new strategies and initiatives because of early identification of success and thorough analysis. The DMADV methodology should be used when:

industry. Walter Shewart developed his first statistical theory about quality control. He made his first sketch of a modern control chart, which is later on, developed by Deming in the 1940’s. It was the first time when this statistical theory began to be applied to manufacturing process. However there was little use of these techniques till the beginning of 1950’s.

The project demonstrates a medium-strength application of Six Sigma tools. The project started with the organization surveying the internal organization to gather VOC information. The Likert scale was applied to identify the levels for the survey. The COPIS chart was used to map the processes of all service steps. A variety of tools to narrow the focus and statistically validate which factors contribute most to the level of process variation. Graphs and charts