Here is how DMAIC would be applied to this goal.ĭEFINE: Identify something within your control that you can do to help reach the goal. It can be both easy and effective to ask groups of employees to work together to improve safety in their workplace behaviors, and to define and display that effort. Even ignoring Six Sigma math, DMAIC can help employees connect business results to something over which they have control or influence, and work to ensure their impact is positive.Īn example: Let’s say a company goal is to improve safety. The acronym DMAIC, widely applicable, logical, and improved by practice, represents the following: Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control. Let’s turn from the quantitative implications of Six Sigma to its thought process. Six Sigma is a methodology for doing just that, leading to a predictable process that allows less than 3.4 defects per million opportunities (3 to 4 over/under weight packets of sugar in every million we fill). For employee satisfaction, customer service and for cost control, we must improve our filling process. It is our process, not our employee, that bears the blame for that. Because of that process variability, the only way to promise customers that the packets they receive from us contain the labeled amount is to weigh each individual packet – a slow and costly proposition. No matter how conscientious the employee, this process is unlikely to put the targeted amount into each individual packet. Our initial process for filling packets could be an employee shoveling sugar from a 55 gallon drum, trying to pour the right amount into each packet. We want to control the amount that goes into each packet very carefully, to both limit costs of overfilling and to limit the chances of violating the label quantity by under filling. Let’s say that we own a business packaging sugar for table-top restaurant use. Specifically a Six Sigma process would produce no more than 3.4 defects (process outputs outside the expected range) per million opportunities. Sidestepping a detailed discussion of probability theory, Z-scores and calculus, Six Sigma accepts that the output of a process can be measured and when that process is in statistical control, we can predict the range of output values of that process quite well. "Six" is simply the number between five and seven, and "Sigma" is a statistical term for an amount of variation from an expectation. The name Six Sigma comes from statistics. Used inappropriately, however, it can be a resource hog that misdirects attention within the organization. Because controlling variation is integral to controlling quality and costs, the Six Sigma process can be constructive within most businesses. The Six Sigma process is a laser-like approach, well-grounded in mathematics and statistics, to reducing variation in process output. Let’s start at the beginning: First, what is Six Sigma, and second, why the weird name? The obvious question: Can Six Sigma benefit smaller businesses as well? Motorola and General Electric have ingrained Six Sigma into how they think and behave, and each attributes a significant part of its success to that methodology. We have a process by which you can help employees minimize mistakes and reach your business’s goals without a degree in mathematics. Don’t worry if you don’t know statistics and probability.
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