This whitepaper provides the history of the Six Sigma Symbol and explanations on the Six Sigma concept, the Six Sigma implementation, the Six Sigma calculation and more. Download this paper now.
Product variation and defects undercut customer loyalty as well as company profits. Six Sigma is a rigorous, disciplined, data-driven methodology that was developed to enhance product quality and company profitability by improving manufacturing and business processes.
Six Sigma uses statistical analysis to quantitatively measure how a process is performing. That process can involve manufacturing, business practices, products, or service. To be defined as Six Sigma means that the process does not produce more than 3.4 defects per million opportunities (DPMO) – which translates to 99.9997% efficiency.
A Six Sigma defect is considered anything that can cause customer dissatisfaction, such as being outside of customer specifications. A Six Sigma opportunity is the total number of chances for a defect to occur.
Six Sigma Concept
The Six Sigma concept was developed by Motorola in 1986 with the stated goal of improving manufacturing processes and reducing product defects and variation. The underlying goal was to achieve near quality perfection with 99.9997% of variable values within specifications.