The Quest For World Class Quality

[Steven Bonacorsi]

A Six Sigma company is a world class company. It is not just better
than its competitors; it is 10,000 times better. It takes a commitment
from everyone to reach such lofty goals.

"...Six Sigma will be the biggest, the most personally rewarding and,
in the end, the most profitable undertaking in our history." - Jack
Welch

"Six Sigma is the way we will run our business" - Bob Nardelli

A cornerstone of GE's growth and development in its recent history has
been "stretch targets." These have been targets that are beyond
doable, beyond reasonable and beyond our capabilities. They are
targets that seem superhuman when we set them. Yet, we reach them.
Even on those occasions when we fall short, we find that we do much
better than we ever believed possible prior to setting the goal.
Through stretch targets and stretch thinking employees have developed
tremendous self confidence and have achieved tremendous results.

The objectives of Six Sigma training are as follows:

o To link the Vital Few Customer (Critical to Quality) CTQs to each
employee's job.

o To develop work group specific CTQs, metrics, and defect areas.

o To increase awareness and understanding of, and day-to-day use of,
Six Sigma tools and processes by demonstrating how these tools and
processes are being or have been applied to real projects.

o To define specific improvement needs for individual or team action.

o To involve employees in Six Sigma projects and metrics either
individually or as a member of a Six Sigma team.

A Six Sigma company is a world class company. It is not just better
than its competitors; it is 10,000 times better. It takes a commitment
from everyone to reach such lofty goals. That's why we have this
training; that's what you are expected to understand.

What is Six Sigma?

"Quantitatively, Six Sigma means that the average process generates
3.4 defects per million". - from "6 Sigma Quality - The Goal and The
Journey"

If you understand the preceding sentence you have the beginnings of a
good grasp of the subject. Look at the sentence closely. First, you
see the word, "quantitatively." The Six Sigma process is a
quantitative process. It is based on measurement. If you can't measure
something, you can't improve upon it. Six Sigma materials are heavily
analytical. In Six Sigma training, you will learn about defining
customer requirements, measurement processes, analytical tools, and
improvement and control of key variables. Without a rudimentary
understanding of statistical analysis, Six Sigma cannot be realized.

"Process" is another key word found in the Six Sigma definition above.
The Six Sigma approach begins with the customer.

What does the customer specifically want?

Once you find that out, the focus shifts to the processes that produce
it. What are they?

What are the potential defects inherent in them?

How can the processes be controlled to eliminate, or greatly reduce,
defects?

How do you measure the success of your actions?

Next in our definition comes the number of defects: 3.4 per million.
That's equivalent to 99.99997% perfect. It means reducing 1,000,000
field complaints to 3.4 per year. It means only one piping defect per
gas turbine per ten years. That's quality. That is Six Sigma. In
businesses utilizing Six Sigma, every employee has been introduced to
Six Sigma. Presuming that you are familiar with Six Sigma terms, like
Black Belt, Benchmark, Defect, and Opportunity. If you are unclear, or
if you have forgotten some of these basics Six Sigma terms, a glossary
has been provided for you at the end of this article.

Since quality begins with the customer and his/her definition of
excellent, the OJT training material begins with our customer
perceptions of quality. These are CTQs, or Critical to Quality
characteristics.

From there, the question is what needs to be done to turn the
customer's wants into your business process how's. Whether your job is
producing products or service, there is a highly effective technique
for translating CTQs into quality action. The process is called
Quality Function Deployment (QFD).

The Six Sigma process involves the collection of data. That means that
some care must be taken to collect the right data and to organize the
data collection process effectively. The Six Sigma Methodology
presents a primer in types of data, in normal distribution and how the
bell curve relates to what we are trying to accomplish.

A project may use some or all of these tools to meet the goals defined
in the project charter. They include: Process Maps, Cause and Effect
Diagrams, FMEA, Pareto Charts, Gage R&R, ANOVA, Mistake Proofing, and
more.

Phases and Steps in Six Sigma Methodology

The Six Sigma process consists of five phases: Define, Measure,
Analyze, Improve, and Control.

What is meant by these phases?

Define: What is the scope of project? What is the defect?

Here the project scope and defects are defined. A business case is
made to obtain project approval. Team charter is established with a
clear goal statement.

A. Identify Project CTQs

B. Develop Team Charter

C. Define Process Map

Measure: What is the frequency of defects? Here we select one or more
product characteristics, map the process or processes responsible, and
make the necessary measurements to estimate the short and long term
process capability.

1. Select CTQ Characteristics

2. Define Performance Standards

3. Validate Measurement System

Analyze: When and where do defects occur? Here key product performance
metrics are benchmarked. Then a gap analysis is undertaken to identify
the common factors of successful performance.

4. Establish Performance Capability

5. Define Performance Objectives

6. Identify Variation Sources These first two phases are referred to
as characterization phases. They define and quantify the project,
characterizing its objectives.

Improve: How can we fix the process? Here product performance
characteristics are selected for improvement. They are diagnosed to
reveal major sources of variation. Then, key process variables are
statistically identified and performance specifications are
established for their improvement.

7. Screen Potential Causes

8. Discover Variable Relationships

9. Establish Operating Tolerances

Control: How can we make the process stay fixed? This phase insures
the new process conditions are documented and monitored statistically.
After a settling in period, process capability is reassessed and
preceding phases are revisited based upon the results of the analysis.

10. Validate Measurement System

11. Determine Process Capability

12. Implement Process Control System Not all of the Six Sigma tools
for completing these steps are included in this article. Some are used
more than others.

Six Sigma Glossary

Analyze: Second phase of the Breakthrough Strategy. Asks, "When and
where do defects occur?"

Benchmarking: An analysis of your current performance relative to your
competition and the best practices of others.

Black Belts: Full-time Six Sigma Project Leaders. They coach Project
Teams and carry out projects to improve processes that influence
customer satisfaction.

Black Noise: The "assignable cause" variation present in a process. It
is a controllable variation.

Brainstorming: Allows generation of a high volume of ideas quickly.

Breakthrough: Six Sigma methodology for process analysis, optimization
Strategy and control. Has five phases: Define, Measure, Analyze,
Improve, and Control.

Cause/Effect Diagram: Helps identify potential problem causes and
focuses brainstorming. Also called a Fishbone Diagram.

Champions: Senior management leaders who approve projects, fund
projects and remove roadblocks to project success.

Confidence Interval: A measure of certainty of the shape of a fitted
regression line. In general, a 95% confidence interval implies a 95%
chance that the true line shape lies within the band.

Continuous Data: Measures value. Includes Regression Analysis and
Regression for Tolerancing. Control The fourth phase of the
breakthrough Strategy. Asks, "How can we make the process stay fixed?"

Control Charts: Helps to spot changes in the process mean and range
over time.

Cost of Poor Quality: All additional costs to GE resulting from poor
quality, such as scrap, rework, rejects, warranties, lost sales, lost
customer loyalty.

CTQ: Critical to Quality. A product feature or process step that must
be controlled to guarantee that you deliver what the customer wants.

Customer Satisfaction Measurement: Part of the Six Sigma Dashboard.
Uses customer surveys to grade our performance, and reports out a
quantitative measure of the number of defects multiplied by 1,000,000
survey responses.

Defects: Any non-conformities in a process or product.

Design for Six Sigma Measurement: Part of the Six Sigma Dashboard
(applies only to products in the NPI process). Helps to determine how
well the design process aids Six Sigma production. Measures the % of
drawings reviewed for CTQs, and the % of CTQs designed to Six Sigma.

Discrete Data: Data in which defects are counted by discrete outcomes
(yes/no, male/female, red/green/blue, etc.)

DPMO: Defects Per Million Opportunities. At Six Sigma, there are fewer
than 4 defects per million opportunities.

DPO: Defects Per Opportunity

DPU: Defects Per Unit

Fishbone Diagram: See Cause/Effect Diagram.

Flowcharting: Displays the actual steps of a process. Used to examine
areas of improvement.

Green Belts: Receive the same training as Black Belts, but continue
working at their regular responsibilities and work part-time at Six
Sigma duties.

Hidden Factory: Re-processing loops in engineering and in the factory
(rework loops, etc.).

Histogram: A chart, usually a bar graph, which shows the number of
times each measured value occurs.

House of Quality: See QFD.

Improve: The third phase of the Breakthrough Strategy. Asks, "How can
we fix the process?"

ITO Inquiry to Order. It begins with the customer request and proceeds
to the placement of an order to the shop.

Internal Performance Measurement: Part of the Six Sigma Dashboard.
Measures the defects generated by our processes. Compares the number
of defects against the number of CTQs.

KQC: Key Quality Characteristics.

Master Black Belts: Full-time leaders, teachers, and coaches with
strong quantitative, teaching and leadership skills, who train and
mentor Black Belts, and work with Champions to establish project
priorities and goals.

Mean: The average of measured data.

Measure: The first phase of the Breakthrough Strategy. Asks, "What is
the frequency of defects?"

Normal Distribution: A bell-shaped curve showing a frequency
distribution which often occurs in nature.

OJT: On-the-Job Training.

Opportunity For Defect: Any characteristic you measure or test.

OTR: Order to Remittance. The portion of the order cycle including
design, sourcing, shop manufacturing, shipment and billing.

Pareto: A process to help focus on the vital few.

Process Capability: A measure of the ability of a process to produce
an error-free product, by comparing the variability of the process
with the variability acceptable to the customer.

Project Teams: Work on Black Belt projects while retaining their
existing job responsibilities. All employees will eventually serve on
a project team.

QFD: Quality Function Deployment. A process used to learn what the
customer needs and wants, then to translate that into specific product
requirements and CTQ features. Also known as House of Quality.

Quality Leaders: General Managers and their direct reports, who
establish Quality priorities, review the progress of Customer Focus
Teams, and ensure the allocation/dedication of resources.

Sigma: See Standard Deviation.

Six Sigma: A process capability in which variability is reduced so
that 6 standard deviations fit between the process mean and the
specification limits. This means that 99.99966% of all products fall
within the spec limits.

Six Sigma Dashboard: Five standard corporate measurements: Customer
Satisfaction, Cost of Poor Quality, Supplier Quality, Internal
Performance, and Design for Six Sigma.

Specification Limit (Spec Limit): The tolerance or allowable variation
of a characteristic - the "acceptable window."

Standard Deviation: A statistical measure which quantifies the amount
of variation in a process.

Supplier Quality Measurement: Tracks defectives - parts returned or
reworked, or outside of schedule.

Units: A determined amount or quantity (of parts, sub-assemblies,
systems, etc.) adopted as a standard of measurement.

Vital Few: The most independent variables in a process. The things
which have the greatest impact on the outcome of the process.

White Noise: The "common cause" variation present in every process. It
is not controllable. The variability of a process with only white
noise is called the Process Entitlement.


Steven Bonacorsi is a Certified Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt
instructor and coach. Steven Bonacorsi has trained hundreds of Master
Black Belts, Black Belts, Green Belts, and Project Sponsors and
Executive Leaders in Lean Six Sigma DMAIC and Design for Lean Six
Sigma process improvement methodologies. Bought to you by the Process
Excellence Network the world leader in Business Process Management
(BPM)

Author for the Process Excellence Network (PEX Network / IQPC)

Process Excellence Network
Steven Bonacorsi, President of International Standard for Lean Six
Sigma(ISLSS)
Certified Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt
47 Seasons Lane
Londonderry, NH 03053
Phone: +(1) (603) 401-7047
E-mail: sbona...@islss.com
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