What is Six Sigma all about?

Six Sigma denoted by “6σ”, in simple words is a measure of quality and strives for its perfection. Six sigma methodologies is a data driven highly disciplined approach in elimination of defects in a process either is in a product development or service design company. In short and simple, achieving six sigma is all about producing not more than 3.4 defects per million products or service transactions. Why do we need six sigma, when we can just think about three sigma? To answer this question let us look at the facts and figure which prove the need. A medium aircraft needs 10,000 parts and three sigma means 27 parts will be defective, which is highly unacceptable. So when creating quality products three sigma will not be sufficient and we need to work towards six sigma.

Increase in performance and reducing defects results in achieving high profits, producing quality products and quality oriented company brand image, employee morale and in developing quality centered strategies. There are many other programs or methodologies in quality improvement other than six sigma, but what makes it different is as follows.

1. It’s a customer centered approach.

2. Achieves increased Return of Investment (ROI) on projects.

3. Changes the way management functions or approaches towards any issue.

Six Sigma is not just a quality initiative but it’s a business initiative.

Fundamentally, six sigma is about primarily taking care of end customers need, managing through data and fact driven methods in predicting the outcome, continuously improving, and creating involving environment for employees through top down drive and bottom up involvement.

The goal of Six Sigma is

a. Improving Customer satisfaction.

b. Reduce cycle time.

c. Reduce the number of Defects.

Effectively working towards improving customer satisfaction makes any organization to fulfill the needs of customer and help I retaining the customers there by increasing the market share. It helps in capturing new markets and new customer through providing quality products or service. Reduce the time to market and reap more profits. Its not only meant for product design companies but also used in many service based companies effectively.