Six Sigma 101 [ENG].pdf

Six Sigma 101

This defect-measurement

and quality-improvement tool

was designed to make businesses

as successful as possible. Its ultimate

objective: Deliver worldclass performance,

reliability and value to the customer.

BY SUBRAMANIAM MANIVANNAN

defects and improving quality, and

a methodology to reduce defect lev-

els below 3.4 defects per million oppor-

tunities (DPMO). It provides a method

to manage process variations that cause

defects—defined as unacceptable devi-

ation from the mean or target—and

systematically work toward managing

variation to eliminate those defects.

The ultimate objective of Six Sigma is to

deliver worldclass performance, relia-

bility and value to the end customer.

America’s most gifted CEOs, such as

Motorola’s Bob Galvin, Allied Signal’s

Larry Bossidy and General Electric’s

Jack Welch. These people had a single

goal in mind: make their businesses as

successful as possible. Once they were

convinced that tools and techniques of

Six Sigma could help them do this, they

Total Quality Management versus Six Sigma

Total Quality Management

Six Sigma

A functional specialty within

the organization

An infrastructure of dedicated change agents focusing

on cross-functional value-delivery streams rather than

functional division of labor

Focuses on quality

Focuses on strategic goals and applies them to cost,

schedule and other key business metrics

Driven by tangible benefit for a major stockholder

group (customers, shareholders and employees)

Advantages over TQM

In some aspects, total quality man-

agement (TQM) and Six Sigma share

the same philosophy of how to assist

organizations in improving quality.

They both emphasize the importance of

top-management support and leader-

ship. And both approaches make clear

that continuous quality improvement is

critical to long-term business success.

However, why has the popularity of

TQM waned while Six Sigma’s popu-

larity continues to grow?

Unlike TQM, Six Sigma was not devel-

oped by technicians who only dabbled

in management and, therefore, pro-

duced only broad guidelines for man-

agement to follow. The Six Sigma way of

implementation was created by some of

Motivated by quality idealism

Loosely monitors progress

toward goals

Ensures that the investment produces the

expected return

People are engaged in routine duties

(planning, improvement and control)

Slack resources are created to change key business

processes and the organization itself

Emphasizes problem solving

Emphasizes breakthrough rates of improvement

Focuses on standard performance,

e.g. ISO 9000

Focuses on world-class performance,

e.g. 3.4-ppm error rate

Quality is a permanent full-time job

with a career path in the quality

profession

Six Sigma job is temporary, and career path

leads elsewhere

Provides a vast set of tools and

techniques with no clear-cut

framework for using them effectively

Provides a selected subset of tools and techniques

and a clearly defined framework for using them to

achieve results

Goals are developed by the quality

department based on quality criteria and

the assumption that what is good for

quality is good for the organization

Goals flow down from customers and senior

leadership’s strategic objectives; goals and metrics

are reviewed at the enterprise level to assure

that local sub-optimization does not occur

Subramaniam Manivannan is quality

coach/assessor-PTO quality in the man-

ufacturing process/product support depart-

ment at Ford Motor Co., Dearborn, MI.

Developed by technical personnel

Developed by CEOs

Focuses on long-term results,

expected payoff is not well-defined

Looks for a mix of short-term and long-term

results as dictated by business demands

METALFORMING / OCTOBER 2006

www.metalformingmagazine.com

S ix Sigma is a metric for measuring

developed a framework to make it happen.

The differences between TQM and

Six Sigma are summarized in the Total

Quality Management versus Six Sigma

table.

requires creativity. And the greatest

enemy of creativity is hierarchy.

Because hierarchy in a traditional firm

controls all of the resources—material

and human—an individual employee must

obtain permission from someone to

use any resource. If the resources required

to pursue a creative idea are controlled

by several positions in the hierarchy,

the employee must get permission from

each for things to move ahead.

According to a recent benchmarking

report, successful Six Sigma initiatives

share three characteristics:

• Implementation teams led by sen-

ior executives

• Well-organized training programs

• Ability to create a corporate culture

that values objective performance meas-

urement.

Organizations attempting to imple-

ment Six Sigma initiatives without

How to Make

Six Sigma Work

Several companies have attempted to

implement Six Sigma, and the results

proved disappointing. Why?

• Maybe they didn’t really need Six

Sigma in their company or department.

• Perhaps the wrong person was cho-

sen as the Black Belt.

• Maybe someone at the top didn’t

get behind the initiative.

• Perhaps key team members didn’t

understand Six Sigma, and, therefore,

could not implement it effectively.

Company-wide understanding of

the Six Sigma process is required for

company-wide buy-in and, ultimately,

company-wide success. In general, proj-

ects are tied to business goals that can be

found in the Balanced Scorecard or

other system, which allows a company

to make sure their efforts are directed to

critical areas.

Six Sigma betters an organization at

all levels. At the highest level, this

involves moving the entire organiza-

tion from a Three or Four Sigma busi-

ness process to a Six Sigma process,

which requires reducing defects by a

factor of more than 20,000, completely

transforming the organization’s culture.

What does that mean? Consider 3.8

Sigma, which reflects a process that is

“99 percent good.” This may mean

20,000 lost articles of mail per hour,

unsafe drinking water for almost 15 min.

per day, 5000 incorrect surgical opera-

tions per week and two short or long

landings at most major airports each

day. Six Sigma, reflecting a process that

is “99.99966 percent good,” means seven

lost articles of mail per hour, unsafe

drinking water for 1 min. every seven

months, 1.7 incorrect surgical opera-

tions per week and one short or long

airplane landing every five years. Quite

a difference.

But Six Sigma can’t be accomplished

simply by tweaking the process—it

www.metalformingmagazine.com

Six Sigma

addressing these three areas are far less

likely to reap the rewards enjoyed by

successful Six Sigma programs. Key

drivers for Six Sigma success include

winning executive support for Six Sigma

initiatives, linking Six Sigma with suc-

cession planning, defining critical objec-

tives for the Six Sigma program and

demonstrating the impact of quality

initiatives on customers.

used by Black Belts and Green belts,

including up-to-date computer tech-

nology, are highly advanced. But the

tools are applied within a simple per-

formance-improvement framework

known as Define-Measure-Analyze-

Improve-Control (DMAIC). DMAIC

is analogous to the older TQM model

known as the Deming Cycle: Plan-Do-

Study-Act.

DMAIC is used almost universally to

guide Six Sigma process-improvement

projects. Although truly dramatic improve-

ment in quality requires transforming

the management philosophy and organ-

ization culture, the fact is that actual

projects must be undertaken sooner or

later to make things happen. Projects are

the means through which processes are

systematically changed—the bridge

between the planning and the doing.

However, DMAIC is not a method of

planning projects. Project planning is a

subject in its own right. Although proj-

ects and plans are closely related, they

also differ in many respects.

Six Sigma’s impressive bottom-line

results normally flow from Six Sigma

projects.

Properly defined Six Sigma projects

meet certain criteria:

• Have clearly defined deliverables;

• Are approved by management;

• Are not so large that they’re unman-

ageable nor so small that they’re unim-

portant or uninteresting;

• Relate directly to the organization’s

mission.

Six Sigma Simplified

Six Sigma’s magic doesn’t lie in sta-

tistical or high-tech razzle-dazzle but in

tried-and-true methods that have been

around for decades. In fact, Six Sigma

discards a great deal of the complexity

that characterizes TQM. By one expert’s

count, there are more than 400 TQM

tools and techniques. Six Sigma takes a

handful of these methods and trains a

small cadre of inhouse technical leaders,

known as a Six Sigma Black Belts or

Green Belts, to a high level of profi-

ciency in the application of these tech-

niques. To be sure, some of the methods

The DMAIC Process Defined

D = Define

Define is the first phase of the

DMAIC model. The purpose of the

Define phase is to refine the project

team’s understanding of the problem to

be addressed and define customer

expectations for the process.

Elements of this phase include a spe-

cific statement of the problem being

addressed, descriptive statements out-

lining locations and/or occurrences of

problematic events, and an initial

METALFORMING / OCTOBER 2006

www.metalformingmagazine.com

Six Sigma

The DMAIC Process

80-percent target.” Then the team must

clearly define and quantify the problem,

identify the potential metrics and meas-

urement sources, and identify the neg-

ative attributes and current perform-

ance, and their relationships to the

customer.

Questions to ask in this phase include:

Who is my customer?

What matters, what is critical to

quality?

What is the scope?

What defect am I trying to reduce?

By how much, what is the goal?

What is the current cost of the defects?

statement describing the scope of the

problem.

In this phase, the project team defines

what is needed for a successful Six

Sigma project. Defining includes iden-

tifying customers (internal/external),

identifying customers’ needs, and deter-

mining the project’s scope and goals.

The team must develop a problem

statement, a specific statement of the

problem being addressed. It is extreme-

ly important to identify the right prob-

lem. “Our first run is too low” is too

general—not a good problem identifi-

er. A better one: “In June, Zone A’s aver-

age first run of 60 percent was below our

M = Measure

The Measure phase establishes tech-

niques for collecting data about the

current performance and how well it is

meeting customer requirements. Upon

completion of this phase, the project

team will have a data-collection plan,

valid measurement system that ensures

accuracy and consistency in data col-

lection, baseline frequency for defects

METALFORMING / OCTOBER 2006

www.metalformingmagazine.com

Six Sigma

and sufficient data for problem analysis.

This phase prompts the following

questions:

What is my process?

Which outputs most affect quality?

Which inputs seem most to affect

outputs?

Is my ability to measure/detect good

enough?

How is my process doing today?

How good could my process be if

everything were running smoothly?

What’s the best that my process was

designed to do?

How Ford Benefited from Six Sigma

Ford Motor Co.’s Dearborn (MI) Engine and Fuel Tank Plant produces 1200 engines daily—2.0-liter

for the Focus and 2.3-liter for the Ranger—and 1.2 million fuel tanks annually for a variety of

vehicles. Nearly 1000 workers ply their trade in the 2.3-million-sq.-ft. plant that stakes a claim as

the world’s largest single manufacturer of steel fuel tanks.

With management support of its consumer-driven Six Sigma program, the plant has achieved

measurable results thus far in 2006. To start, all upper management underwent intensive four-

week Six Sigma Black Belt training, followed by the setting of annual Six Sigma cost-saving

objectives.

For 2006, the plant set

an objective of $6 million

in savings for Black Belt

projects and $2.9 million

for Green Belt projects.

Through June, the Black

Belt projects have achieved

61 percent of the cost-

saving goal, with Green

Belt projects achieving

28 percent. One Black Belt

project focused on

production of engine cam

shafts, where two specific

plant operations were each

saddled with a 17-percent

scrap rate. Working with

suppliers and closely examining grinding operations, as well as adopting new tooling and gauging,

one operation was able to cut its scrap rate to 2 percent. The other has seen its scrap rate cut to

14 percent with plant Black Belt project champions still addressing the issue.

A = Analyze

The Analyze phase allows the project

team to target improvement opportu-

nities by taking a closer look at the data.

Through this phase, the team will deter-

mine why, when and where defects

occur; select the appropriate graphical

analysis tools and apply them to the

data collected; and target a set of poten-

tial improvements for action in the fol-

lowing Improve phase. After analyzing,

METALFORMING / OCTOBER 2006

www.metalformingmagazine.com

Plik z chomika:

Inne pliki z tego folderu:

Inne foldery tego chomika: