It is human tendency to strive for perfection. But, in all fields, we find that it is very difficult, elusive & nearly impossible to achieve perfection, inspite of aiming at it & trying very hard. Defects or errors still occur, though we would like to have zero defects or zero errors. Hence, let us settle such that these are minimized substantially, & if not zero, at least as close to zero as possible. Six Sigma, is a system of reducing defects & errors in products & services, reducing cycle time, improving quality of products & services, & thus customer satisfaction. For this, every person in the company must be involved, & it should be applied to all departments/aspects/interactions, & also the outside connections. Six Sigma (Sigma, a greek alphabet, denotes standard deviation, a statistical measure of deviation), is a broad-based & integrated quality control approach. It improves performance & communication at all levels, viz. employee, customer & vendor, & it is done by the simple procedure of solving of the problems. Successful use of Six Sigma technique is expected to give, upto a maximum of 3.4 defects per million or 99.9997% yield. The customers will obviously be extremely pleased, with such an achievement.
The present book is one of "The getting started in series" books & in its eight Chapters, it discusses step by step, as to what is Six Sigma, how it works, & how can we use it for our benefit. The author explains the meaning of Six Sigma; points of view of the customers; defects in products & services; improving process systems; achieving consistency etc. In one of the Chapters, the author talks about the participants in the Six Sigma programme, in which persons are given specific responsibilities. The author has stated seven such areas. These are, leadership team, which sets the objectives of the process; sponsor, normally a senior manager who is a problem solver; implementation leader, who oversees the complete efforts of the team; coach, who is a guide & expert for the team for its various works; team leader, who looks after & manages the daily works of this team & keeping it on schedule; team member, who is a member of this group; process owner, who gets the improved procedure. Further, based on martial arts, belt colours have been given to the participants in Six Sigma. One who has black belt, has achieved highest skill & is an expert in this technique, & normally he gets the job as team leader. One having Master Black belt, is not a formal member of the team, but functions as its coach. One having green belt, is less experienced than black belt, & is either a team-member or the team-leader. In another Chapter, the author describes the basic elements of the system, followed in such projects, viz. DMAIC (define, measure,analyze,improve,control). In the define phase, the team is put together, the stake holders are listed & analyzed, project goals are developed, Suppliers-Inputs-Process-Output-Customer (SIPOC)chart is prepared. The measure phase has three parts viz. data collection, data evaluation & failure-mode-and-effects-analysis (FMEA). The analyze phase has five parts viz. analysis of source, process, data, resource & communication. In the improve phase, wherever defects have occurred or may occur, improvements are to be made. In the control phase, we have to ensure that the modified processes continue to work, as desired. This is done through quality control, standardisation, control methods & alternatives & responding when defects occur etc. A customer having a problem, not only remembers the problem faced by him, but also the way, he is treated by those, who are expected to attend to the problem. Therefore, whereas high standards of performance are necessary, we also need high standards in our dealings with people, including customers. Therefore, every one in the organisation should understand this technique, its importance, its implications, its benefits & their role in the whole scheme of things, to make the company more profitable.
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