What is Six Sigma ? Six Sigma stands for Six Standard Deviations (Sigma is the Greek letter used to represent standard deviation in statistics) from mean. Six Sigma methodology provides the techniques and tools to improve the capability and reduce the defects in any process.
It was started in Motorola, in its manufacturing division, where millions of parts are made using the same process repeatedly. Eventually Six Sigma evolved and applied to other non manufacturing processes. Today you can apply Six Sigma to many fields such as Services, Medical and Insurance Procedures, Call Centers. Six Sigma methodology improves any existing business process by constantly reviewing and re-tuning the process. To achieve this, Six Sigma uses a methodology known as DMAIC (Define opportunities, Measure performance, Analyze opportunity, Improve performance, Control performance). Six Sigma methodology can also be used to create a brand new business process from ground up using DFSS (Design For Six Sigma) principles. Six Sigma Strives for perfection. It allows for only 3.4 defects per million opportunities for each product or service transaction. Six Sigma relies heavily on statistical techniques to reduce defects and measure quality. Six Sigma experts (Green Belts and Black Belts) evaluate a business process and determine ways to improve upon the existing process. Six Sigma experts can also design a brand new business process using DFSS (Design For Six Sigma) principles. Typically its easier to define a new process with DFSS principles than refining an existing process to reduce the defects. Six Sigma incorporates the basic principles and techniques used in Business, Statistics, and Engineering. These three form the core elements of Six Sigma. Six Sigma improves the process performance, decreases variation and maintains consistent quality of the process output. This leads to defect reduction and improvement in profits, product quality and customer satisfaction. Six Sigma methodology is also used in many Business Process Management initiatives these days. These Business Process Management initiatives are not necessarily related to manufacturing. Many of the BPM's that use Six Sigma in today's world include call centers, customer support, supply chain management and project management. Key Elements of Six Sigma Customer requirements, design quality, metrics and measures, employee involvement and continuous improvement are main elements of Six Sigma Process Improvement. The three key elements of Six Sigma are: Customer Satisfaction Defining Processes and defining Metrics and Measures for Processes · Using and understanding Data and Systems · Setting Goals for Improvement Team Building and Involving Employees Involving all employees is very important to Six Sigma. The company must involve all employees. Company must provide opportunities and incentives for employees to focus their talents and ability to satisfy customers. Defining Roles: This is important to six sigma. All team members should have a well defined role with measurable objectives. What are be doing out here in Guwahati Refinery ? We have hired consultant M/s TQMI, New Delhi for giving the training to Black belts, Green Belts and Champion. After that we have selected 5 BBs and 17 GBs for doing project with the help & guidance from M/s TQMI. Out of 22 projects we are able to complete 17 projects in time and is awaiting certification. The projects were both related to technical improvements and system improvements ( Finance( customer delight), Materials ( shortening procurement time), Mantainence ( downtime of machineries ). After COmpletion ? The completed projects are sent to M/s TQMI for forwarding to MOTOROLA UNIVERSITY for certification. What we have achieved ? Already one person from Digboi refinery has qualified as BLACK BELT. So he can take up projects for system improvements. SO HOPING FOR THE RESULTS !! _______________________________________________ assam mailing list [email protected] http://assamnet.org/mailman/listinfo/assam_assamnet.org
