SIX SIGMA BASICS ARTICLE

The traditional way of looking at quality has been that quality cannot be measured,
and error in work is inevitable.
At the end of the second world war, the quality of products manufactured in Japan was
atrocious. At this juncture, the Japanese decided to change this scenario. They visited
many industries in USA to study their approach to quality. They also invited experts like
Dr. Deming and Dr. Juran to help them. These experts focused on enlightening the top
management about their responsibility in respect of quality and training engineers on
tools like statistical process control and design of experiments. Their efforts resulted in
spectacular improvements and by 1980 even the American citizens preferred to buy
Japanese products due to better quality offered by them at a more competitive price.
By 1985, survival became a major issue for many American organizations against the
onslaught of Japanese competition. One such organization which was at great risk was
Motorola. In an effort for survival, Motorola evolved and implemented the six
sigma management system for the first time in the world.
This system of management included lessons learnt from the successes achieved by
Dr. Deming and Dr. Juran in Japan as also a methodology of quantifying quality. Till
such time, quality was considered as unmeasureable and only talked of in terms of
excellent, world-class, etc. The six sigma management system makes it possible to
calculate quality of each and every process in the organization. It is believed that
if you want to improve any process we should first know its present level of quality.
Six Sigma methodology makes this possible.
Key Themes in Six Sigma:
Every functional area (department) is viewed as a supplier to another department
whose requirements must be satisfied. So, if we want to improve any process, our
starting point is to find who is the customer for our process and what are his
requirements from the process. This could be an internal customer for an HR process or
an external customer for a logistics process.
For example, one of the internal customers for an HR Manager is the Production
Manager or the Operations Manager. A critical requirement of this internal customer is
that vacancies must be filled within, say, 45 days from time of placing the request.
Another requirement would be that induction-training of new employees results in their
settling fast on the job. If the HR Manager has identified these requirements of his
internal customers, then he is more likely to fulfill them.
In todays environment of fierce competition, an external customer needs to be satisfied
on various counts which include: providing the required specifications, giving prompt
support before and after the sale, pricing the product competitively and meeting the
timelines specified by the customer. All these outputs are possible only if a boundaryless
cooperation exists between the different departments. Thus, six sigma lays very
heavy emphasis on cross-functional cooperation without which it is very difficult to
deliver value to customer.
Six Sigma methodology stresses the need to improve consistency in performance of
our processes thereby reducing the defects / mistakes. This is achieved by working in a
proactive manner and visualizing what are the defects / mistakes that occur in this
process? What preventions can we build in our process so that the defects / mistakes
do not occur?


Six sigma implementation is always carried out in teams who work on projects with
unknown solutions. Typically, the senior management selects areas of pain for the
organization and these are taken up as projects by teams consisting of a Champion, a
Black Belt and a number of Green Belts. (Reportedly, these titles were coined by a
Motorola improvement expert with a passion for karate).
Every project must result in reduction of errors / defects, or elimination of waste, or
increase of customer satisfaction ultimately ending in profit-improvement for the
organization.
Six Sigma methodology relies on a number of tools and technique like flow-charts,
process-maps, pareto analysis, root-cause analysis, risk-assessment, risk reduction,
hypothesis-testing, building prevention in processes, and establishing co-relation for a
better understanding of the organizations processes.
It uses DMAIC as a proven-framework for problem-solving and process-improvement:
Define:
The problem statement,
The goal statement,
The scope of the process-improvement project,
Form the project team,
Finalize date-wise plan for the process-improvement project.
Measure:
You cannot improve anything that you cannot measure. To know where we want to go,
we must know where we are today. So, this phase involves:
Decide how you will measure current performance,
Calibrate the measurement system,
Measure current performance.
Analyze:
In this phase, we analyze the data related to current performance of the process, such
as:
Root causes that lead to occurrence of defects / mistakes,
Causes of variation in the process why we are not being able to achieve
consistency,
Causes that lead to waste and re-work in the process,
Likely solutions that would help us to remove the above causes.
Improve:
This phase involves:
Brainstorming, to arrive at the best solution,
Risk-assessment & risk-reduction in respect of the chosen solution, before
implementation,
Implementing the chosen solution,
Verifying and validating for the improvement.
Control:
Greatest challenge after an improvement is to sustain the improvement. Control phase
is to ensure sustenance of the improvement achieved. It involves aspects like:
Documenting the changes made in the process
Training people on the changes
Using Control Charts to monitor the process performance on an on-going basis.

Most six sigma projects end in profit improvement and this is one of the measurements
of process-improvement because whenever we reduce defects / re-work or wastage, it
should result in savings / contribution to profit-improvement.
In recent years, adoption of Six Sigma Management System has increased
phenomenally.
Today 53 % of Fortune-500 companies are using Six Sigma --and
that figure rises to 82 % when you look at just the Fortune-100.
It is seen that if an organization invests time and money on six sigma training and
implementation, it usually ends up in achieving savings which would be 20 to 50
times of the investment made. Moreover, with reduction of defects the frustration of
internal stakeholders drops and satisfaction of external customers improves drastically.

NCOQ Six Sigma Green Belt Certification

Why Six Sigma?
Six Sigma is nothing but a compilation of world-best tried and tested
management techniques used for bringing business / process
improvements.
With changing dynamics and growing demand to achieve excellence, reduce
waste, decrease defects and enhance productivity, organizations worldwide seek
professionals who understand the strategic objectives of businesses, critical
requirements of day-to-day business and operational goals.
Six Sigma is a management methodology that uses a structured approach which
has helped organizations world over to reduce cycle times, increase productivity
and improve quality and delivery of processes.
Six Sigma helps a professional approach a problem (or defect) in a data driven,
structured & systematic manner that ensures success.

How is Six Sigma different?

Six Sigma differs from traditional performance improvement programs in its focus
on input variables. While traditional methods depend on measuring outputs and
establishing control plans to shield customers from organizational defects, a Six
Sigma program demands that problems be addressed at the root level,
eliminating the need for unnecessary inspection and rework processes.
Also, while other programs mention philosophies, ideas, and requirements (e.g.
ISO 9001 specifies requirements) Six Sigma provides a structured roadmap on
how to bring benefits.
Six Sigma as a strategic tool is customer focused and is ultimately designed to
increase profits through enhanced customer satisfaction.

Overview:
1. NCOQ Six Sigma Green Belt Certification Course gives you the tools and techniques
essential to be an effective member of the Six Sigma Green Belt Teams.
2. This course focuses on effective data collection and covers the Define, Measure,
Analyze, Improve and Control (DMAIC) phases of Six Sigma methodology, with
special reference to Manufacturing Processes
3. Participants to this course will learn how to provide data collection support to Black Belts
and also how to fulfill the project leaders role on small Green Belt projects.
4. Using various exercises, the participants will have an opportunity to learn when, why and
how the basic Six Sigma tools are used to identify and minimize the variation in
processes

What you will learn:

Background on Six-Sigma
The DMAIC process
Six-Sigma framework
Opportunity Definition
Group brainstorming methods
Data collection
Identification of variation and types
Analysis of variation
Six-Sigma Tools and Techniques
Determination of an in-control process
Determination of process capability
Performance measures calculations for a stable process
Process evaluation from data
Financial analysis of projects
6. To effectively support Black Belts on Six Sigma projects

Grading Criteria:
5 Quizzes: 25 points
1 Final Exam: 75 points
5 Assignments: 25 points
1Six Sigma Green Belt Project Report: 75 points
(Completed project will be presented by each participant to ADVIK top management )
Total: 200 points
**You must earn at least 150 of 200 possible points to receive the Green Belt Certification.**

Who should attend?

Managers
Engineers
Information Technology Professionals
Front-line supervisors
Quality team leaders
Process improvement professionals
Production and logistics managers
Financial analysts
Sales and marketing staff
Senior production operators;

Training Methods:

A combination of lecture, class participation and discussion, group

exercises, case studies, real-life experiences, and classroom exercises is used.

Course Instructors:
Madhukar Mahamuni is the Quality Head of ADVIK hitech Pvt. Ltd
He is a graduate in Mechanical Engineering, qualified as Master Black Belt in Lean six
sigma , Lead auditor in QMS and perusing Doctorate in management studies in TQM with
industrial experience of 20
years

Course Syllabus:
Week 1: OVERVIEW

1.1 Introduction to Six Sigma

1.2 Six Sigma Metrics
1.3 Financial benefits of Six Sigma

1.4Cost of Poor Quality

1.5 Stages of team evolution - Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing
Week 2: DEFINE
Problem definition
2.1 Project Scope
2.2 Project Charter
2.3 Pareto Diagrams
2.5 Rolled Throughput Yield
2.7 Classification of 6 sigma projects (Critical To Quality)
2.9 Green Belt Project Selection

2.10 Understand how to prepare presentation for review with Black Belts,
Senior
Management etc.
2.11 Understand and apply team tools - Brainstorming,
2.12 Understand and distinguish between continuous and Discrete data
2.13 Source of variation
3.2 Process Mapping
6.2 Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA)
Week 3: MEASURE
3.8 Measuring Process Capability

3.11 Understand sampling methods like Stratified, Subgroup, Random

sampling methods
3.12 Understand and explore measures of central tendency like Mean,
Median and Mode
3.13 Probability distributions
3.14 Accuracy vs. precision
3. 15 Measurement variables vs. attributes

3.16 Defect concentration chart

5.3 Select and apply control chart like individual and moving range chart
(ImR), p, np, c, u,short - run SPC and Moving average
3.6 Gage R&R
Calibration
Measurement uncertainty

Week 4: ANALYZE
4. 4.1 Histograms
4.2 Scatter diagrams

4.5 Affinity Diagrams

4.6 Multi-Vari Analysis
4.8 Hypothesis Testing

4.10 Root cause analysis using 5 why

4.11 Calculate and interpret the correlation coefficient and its confidence
interval, and
describe the difference between correlation and causation
4.13 Product process search
4.14 Variable search
4.15 Component search
4.16 Modified component search
4.17 Paired comparison
4.18 Full factorial
4.19 Observation

3.10 7Quality Control tools

Week 5:
6. IMPROVE
6.1 Design of Experiments (DOE)
6.5 B Vs C
Week 6:
5. CONTROL
5.1 Statistical Process Control SPC
5.2 Developing a Process Control Plan

5.4 Interpret control charts and distinguish between common and special
cause of variation
6.4 Variation analysis & Measurement Methods
Control charts
Pre control charts