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The requirements for implementation of Six Sigma include, first of all, a well-developed and well-defined infrastructure that ensures senior management support and provides a platform in the form of receptive culture and clear roles and job definitions. Secondly,
a training strategy is required to be developed in order to convey the information and implementation of Six Sigma methodology. Third and last, a well-defined approach has to be followed in terms of project selection and execution involving the participation from customer / employee surveys and suggestions, benchmarking studies, or existing projects helping the management in figuring out the potential improvement areas.

Following are the methodologies used for implementation of Six Sigma strategy: -

1. Define, Measure, Analyse, Improve, Control (DMAIC) - It consists of five steps. First, the goals of process improvement are defined as per the customer demands and firm strategy. Secondly, the current process is measured and relevant data is collected in order to enable comparison with future process. Third, proper analysis is undertaken in order to determine and verify the relationship and inter-dependence of factors affecting the process. Fourth, the process is improved and optimised based on the analysis undertaken during the last step. Finally, an appropriate degree of control, depending on the gravity of the flaw or aberration is exercised to ensure the correction of variance before they result in defects.

2. Define, Measure, Analyze, Design, Verify (DMADV) - The five steps involved in this methodology include: First, the goals of the design activity in consistence with customer demands and enterprise strategy are defined. This is followed by identification and measurement of factors critical to qualities, product capabilities, production process capabilities and risk assessments. Third, a proper analysis of these factors along with evaluation of design capability is undertaken in order to prepare and select the best design. Fourth, a proper design as per the details is prepared followed by optimization of design. Finally, the design is verified and the production process is implemented followed by handover to process owners.

Six Sigma: Service Sector Perspective

Relevance

Research has shown that most of the service processes are performing at less than 3.5 sigma quality level with a defect rate of over 23,000 ppm or yield of 97.7 per cent. If we improve the sigma quality level of service processes to four sigma quality level, the defect rate will be dropped significantly to 6,210 ppm.

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* Contributed by: -
Ankur Gupta & Sumit Roshan,
IMT, Ghaziabad.