This Is How Six Sigma Is Defined

This Is How Six Sigma Is Defined

The truth is that you probably already heard people talking about six sigma. But how is six sigma defined?

One of the things that you need to know is that the way how six sigma is defined evolved over time. In fact, Six Sigma was developed for the first time by Motorola in 1986. At the time, it was a quality control program. However, in 2016, the concept changed a bit. So, how is six sigma defined today?

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When you look at Six Sigma today, we can say that it is more a general business-management philosophy that is focused on multiple aspects. These include improving the products and services, sustaining these same products and services, improving customer retention, and meeting customer requirements. So, overall, we can say that Six Sigma is mainly focused on customers.

One of the things that you also need to know about Six Sigma is that the methodology can be applied to all industries. Since it focuses more on qualitative measurements and not on qualitative markers, this allows any business to implement Six Sigma.

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​Now that you already know how is Six Sigma defined, you need to understand that Six Sigma practitioners follow the DMAIC approach. This approach consists of 5 different steps that companies need to take to implement the methodology. Since you already understand what is 6 Sigma, it will be easier for you to learn the 5 steps that companies need to take to implement it:

#1: Define - Define The Problem: ​

During this step, the project team needs to outline the complete project that aims to fix any problem within the organization. This project should be able to focus on the team but also on the leadership of the organization.

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#2: Measure - Quantify The Problem:

As you already know what is 6 Sigma, it is not much a big of a surprise that the next step is to measure the problem that is occurring within the organization. This is a very important step since you will end up comparing these results with the results after the implementation of the Six Sigma methodology. So, the team will need to start collecting relevant data with two main goals in mind: improving quality and reducing lead time.
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#3: Analyze - Identify The Cause Of The Problem

Now that you already discovered the problem and the team collected all the necessary data, it is time to start the analysis phase.

During this step, there should be some brainstorm between the different team members. This will allow the team to develop different hypotheses as for the reasons why the problem exists. This analysis is extremely important because when it is not done the right way, it may lead organizations to lose a lot of time and waste a lot of resources. The truth is that this is when you are discovering the root of the problem. And this is the only way that you have to find solutions that can help you solve it. Remember that the ultimate goal of Six Sigma is to improve customer experience.

#4: Control - Maintain The Solution

Now that you noticed a problem, found its root, got the solution and put into practice and is working, the team just needs to maintain the improvements in place. However, during this stage, it is also important that the team creates a Response Plan in case that is a performance dip.