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Six Sigma Roles

Six Sigma Roles

Introduction

The topic that I have chosen is Six Sigma process. In today's world, Organizations are moving towards efficient and quality based systems and reduce wastage. Six Sigma is important because it scores much higher compared to techniques for improving the quality of others such as total quality. Six Sigma focuses to improve the quality constant until the process is fully optimized. Soon as a certain quality level is achieved, the organization then begins to focus on the attainment of other quality levels. This whole process continues until all the processes all optimized.

Six Sigma is a strategy used within business to manage quality. It is applied across many sectors. It aims to reduce the amount of defects that occur in products. By reducing this variability in the output of produced items, cost can be reduced or profit increased. Defect elimination is an inherently sustainable goal, as defective products result in wasted resources, wasted energy, and wasted labor (McAdam, Shirley-Ann Hazlett & Henderson, 2005).

While Six Sigma has now entered the common language in certain business and manufacturing circles, “Six Sigma” is registered by Motorola, Inc., as a trademark. Originally implemented by Motorola as a statistically based way of improving the defect rate in the manufacturing of electronic devices, Six Sigma has now become widely recognized throughout a variety of industry sectors.

What Does Six Sigma Mean?

Manufactured products have specifications that must be met in order for the product to be considered functional and useful. A product needs to fulfill a number of criteria that can often be defined numerically; for example, a nut needs a certain internal diameter and thread in order to securely fix onto a bolt. In statistics, if the “mean” represents the desired specification and the nearest specification limit can be defined as six standard deviations from the mean, then virtually all manufactured products will fit within this spectrum of quality and be considered acceptable. Any process that is said to operate with Six Sigma quality will produce a defect level of less than 3.4 defects per million opportunities (Zu & Lawrence, 2009).

Any quality management approach assumes that a cultural change can be achieved within the organization and commitment to achieving quality management can be gained from employees at all levels of the organization including top management (Kumar & Byung , 2007).

Six Sigma and Sustainability

In order to work toward improving the sustainability of manufacturing operations, it is critical that energy and materials be conserved. When a manufacturing defect occurs, the product is unsuitable for consumption and waste is generated. While this waste may be recycled within the manufacturing system, there will be some embodied energy loss and additionally there may be some degradation of the material. By eliminating defects in manufacturing, and Six Sigma is one of the methods that can be used to accomplish this goal, materials and energy can be used more effectively (Kumar & Christian, 2005).

Article Summary of “A Critical Review of Six Sigma: Exploring the Dichotomies” by McAdam, Rodney, Shirley-Ann Hazlett, and Joan ...