Everything You Need to Know About Six Sigma

In this blog, we will dive deep into the concept of Six Sigma and other significant factors lingering around the term. 

What is Six Sigma?

Six Sigma is a set of top-notch quality-control systems or tools that businesses, be it small-scale or large-scale, leverage to eradicate fallacies and improve workflows, thereby enhancing profits. The process utilizes statistical data rather than guesswork; hence, Six Sigma is more than just training.

If you wonder whether Six Sigma is widely popular, then the answer is yes. This method has been performed within a vast industrial sector to achieve soft and hard money savings while enhancing customer satisfaction. One of the best examples to support the statement is the 1999 General Electric (GE) Capital that could save $2 Billion with the program.

Fundamental Principles of Six Sigma

Why implement Six Sigma? 

Here we will discuss five critical principles of the system.

• Flexible and Responsive

Change and Six Sigma go hand-in-hand, as the process recognizes flaws and performs on filtering the same. The experts don't have a choice to linger around failed methods. Though change might be tiresome, eventually, the future it holds is of significant weightage.

• Customer-centric

The fundamental target of Six Sigma is to deliver top-notch outcomes and maximize benefits to the customers. According to market or customer demands, the system develops a precise quality standard in the early phases of projects. In other words, let's say that the approach is customer-centric.

• Precise communication and training teams

A vital point for Six Sigma to have triumphed is to have an entire team proficient in the technique, have a more profound goal insight, and information about the project's progress. It creates a massive transition in the work milieu as it needs trained focus on management to execute the whole process seamlessly. 

• Eradication of restrictions and variations

Once the expert identifies a flaw, they will find different ways to obliterate problems. These often come with a lengthy, complicated procedure that may lead to new defects and resource waste. As an innovative method, Six Sigma can help achieve a streamlined and quality-controlled process.

• Identifying and resolution of issues

During process execution, it's natural to be stuck in a tumult of modifications, resulting in the loss of focus on the initial issue. With Six Sigma, obtaining data that shows where a particular problem lies helps in rectifying that point.

Workflow of Six Sigma:

Six Sigma consists of 5 workflow phases - Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control (DMAIC), followed for quality boosting and issue minimization. The explanation of each step is as follows:

1. Define

The main aim of the 'Define' level is to summarize the project plan. This phase helps discover all the necessary data to break down a project or problem into the actionable stage. It also focuses on the target needed for the project enhancement, its scope and customer demands.

An input to the 'Define' phase comes from the Voice of Customer (VOC), the Voice of Business (VOB) and the Voice of Process (VOP) to help identify the project. Sometimes, the Voice of Employees (VOE) also comes into Six Sigma project enhancement actions.

The crucial element of this stage is Project Charter - an initial blueprint document for any project outlining key facts.

• Business case
• Problem statement
• Goal statement
• Scope of project
• Team and their responsibilities
• Time plan
• Estimated project benefits

2. Measure

Experts obtain data relevant to the project scope in the Six Sigma 'Measure' phase. The phase focuses on parameter identification, measurement methods and performance using wide-range approaches. Once receiving the data, frequency distributors will analyze it.

To have an insight into the data distribution, this phase leverage histogram. The choosing of data analyzing tools depends on the nature of data, whether normal or non-normal. Tools used during this phase include process capability, run charts, process flowcharts, gage R&R and benchmarking.

3. Analyze

The critical factor of the 'Analyze' level is to identify the main reason behind business inefficiency. It discovers the gaps between actual and goal performance, identifying its opportunities and cause for business enhancement. This phase begins with exploring potential reasons for the root cause. These issues are then verified and validated using statistical and hypothesis tools.

The phase needs utmost care to discover and verify the root issues as the efficacy of process enhancement via the Six Sigma project lies in the actual finding of root problems. Some of the widely used tools in this phase are scatterplot, fishbone diagram, 5 Whys and more.

4. Improve

In this Six Sigma phase, the process improvement is by identifying possible solutions, execution methods, test and implementation of the solution for improvement. Here the process owners are consulted along with suggestions offered to them. Moreover, the phase execution plan will be circulated to relevant shareholders.

The development of this plan is to alleviate the risk and include customer feedback.  Defect eradication tools used are Pugh matrix, brainstorming, simulation software, prototyping, mistake-proofing and piloting.

5. Control

The primary purpose of the 'Control' phase is to produce a detailed solution monitoring plan, thus ensuring that the required performance is maintained. It defines and validates the monitoring system, creates standards and procedures, verifies profit growths, and communicates to the business.

The most vital part of Six Sigma's control stage is to offer training on new changes to all significant shareholders. Tools used in this stage are control plan, process sigma calculation, cost-saving calculations and control charts.
 

Six Sigma Certifications:

People can obtain Six Sigma certification, which verifies their professional skills. Awarding of these certificates is through a belt system which is as follows:

1. White belt: This consists of people who have not undergone formal certification or training. This belt offers experts a fundamental framework, allowing them to participate in specific quality-control and waste minimization projects.
2. Yellow belt: Here, people undergo extra training, allowing them to become contributing project team members.
3. Green belt: Those who qualify for this level must participate in a complete course that provides training in process improvement methods. People with green belt certification often become project leaders.
4. Black belt: Those certified green belt individuals can move up to this level. Successful people can classify and deal with complex projects and jobs. They undergo training about tackling tremendous changes impacting one's firm via lean Six Sigma projects.

The company conducts both Instructor-led Classroom training workshops and Instructor-led Live Online Training sessions for learners from across the United States and around the world.

We also provide Corporate Training for enterprise workforce development

Professional Certification Training:

- PMP Certification Training

- CAPM Certification Training

Quality Management Training:

- Lean Six Sigma Yellow Belt (LSSYB) Certification Training Courses

- Lean Six Sigma Green Belt (LSSGB) Certification Training Courses

- Lean Six Sigma Black Belt (LSSBB) Certification Training Courses
 

Scrum Training:

- CSM (Certified ScrumMaster) Certification Training Courses
 

Agile Training:

- PMI-ACP (Agile Certified Professional) Certification Training Courses
 

DevOps Training:

- DevOps Certification Training Courses
 

Business Analysis Training by iCert Global:

- ECBA (Entry Certificate in Business Analysis) Certification Training Courses

- CCBA (Certificate of Capability in Business Analysis) Certification Training Courses

- CBAP (Certified Business Analysis Professional) Certification Training Courses
 

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