ARTICLES

These articles are written by our professionals for you and contain advice, best practices, and tips for selecting, working on and managing improvements within your organization.

Reflections on Six Sigma: Eleven Reasons It Has Thrived
It has been nearly 20 years since Motorola executive Bill Smith coined the phrase "Six Sigma." This makes one ponder why it has been so successful. The following is a list of personal reflections upon Six Sigma's longevity in no particular order:
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Renew the Commitment to Data-Based Decision Making
A large corporation recently conducted a competition to identify the organization's best Six Sigma projects of the previous year. Out of more than a hundred submissions, only one actually validated its improvements with a comparative experiment (z, t, Chi-sq, etc.). What did the rest do? The same thing they did before Six Sigma. The mean went in the right direction so the company was happy (mostly because it saved a lot of money). While this approach may be increasingly common, it is not how Six Sigma is supposed to work.
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A Unique Approach to Six Sigma Training & Certification
The majority of Six Sigma certification projects that students take on are never completed resulting in no certification, regardless of the investment in the student has been made. Some industry estimates have put the figure of completing the certification below a shocking 30%. This wastes the investment put into the student and certainly does not help the organization reach the ROI that Six Sigma promises.
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Data Management Plans Can Reduce Project Cycle Times
Long project cycle times, frequently cited as an impediment to Six Sigma success, can be accelerated through the use of data management plans. When employed as the first step in the Measure phase of the DMAIC process, the plan provides Six Sigma project teams with a highly structured planning tool. It not only helps teams ask all the right questions in the Measure phase, but also gives insight into potential analysis and project validation activities that will follow in later phases. A data management plan (DMP) is the pivotal document for project success, second only to a good scope charter.
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Data Management Plans Can Improve Collection & Validation
Understanding data and defining process parameters(input) or product characteristics (output) is the beginning of data-based decision-making – the very heart of Six Sigma. A data management plan (DMP), which outlines the use of data, can be employed as a key document in the Measure phase of DMAIC. Because of its rigor, its identification of process validation (Control) and its stratification factors (Analysis), a DMP can be one of the pivotal planning documents for a Six Sigma project.
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Transforming Is/Is-Not Analysis into Multi-Benefit Tool
With a structure to identify geography, service or product, process, and the main project metric, the "is/is-not analysis" can be one of the most useful tools to sharpen the definition and scope of a Six Sigma project. (Table 1) It also has benefits for other DMAIC phases.
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