Its foundations began in the early 20th century with Taylor's systematic study of the use of time establishing Walter Shewhart's application of statistical methods to quality control in manufacturing in the 1920s.
During the second war, the application of mathematics to production and quality control problems helped reduce failures.
Later WE Deming and Joseph Juran took quality control to Japan, achieving a remarkable improvement in the quality of Japanese products.
In 1980 in the United States they wondered why, if Japan could do it, they couldn't do it. Six Sigma started at Motorola in the mid-1980s discovering that products made without defects rarely failed with use, they focused on creating strategies to reduce defects in their products, and in 1988 they won the American Malcolm Baldrige Award for Quality.
Other organizations such as IBM, Texas Instruments, Kodak, etc. were integrated. forming the Six Sigma Research Institute.
The current popularity has continued to grow starting with companies like General Electric, continuing with financial companies such as Citigroup and American Express in the United States.
The methodology starts with the focus on the processes of the organizations, many of which the organizations go through horizontally to produce value for their clients.
The processes to be prioritized for improvement are based on the impact they have on the external customer of an organization. They then start from the client, understanding their need, trying to get it from surveys, focus groups, etc. we can explicitly know your need and with that need and importance known, go within the organization and detect the internal processes that satisfy that need to begin its improvement.
For this it is important that within the organization, in addition to having a hierarchical organization chart, there are "owners" of each of the key processes of said organization that add value to customers.
These "owners" of processes are chosen within the organization based on several parameters:
- Their current involvement in the process to be improved ‰ Their leadership capacity ‰ Their ability to carry out that leadership beyond the functional responsibility that the person has in the organization
Together with this "owner" of the process, the necessary people who are related to the process are integrated into a team to work as a team and begin its continuous improvement.
To begin the improvement of the selected process, this team led by the "owner" of the process follows the following steps to achieve its continuous improvement:
- Part of the "voice" of the customer (internal or external) through specific surveys, inventory of complaints or problems, etc. It continues with the analysis of the process, making the process map (flow chart) to detect opportunities for improvement Determine and measures the quality of the current process with objective elements Assigns roles and responsibilities of team members The process is reviewed, determining opportunities and prioritizing them with the use of quality tools such as Problem Definition Checklist, Data Collection Sheet, Pareto Chart, Histogram, Flowchart, Brainstorming, Affinity Diagram, Cause and Effect Diagram, 5 Because, Multivoting, Checking Solutions, etc. Action plans are developed to carry out the detected opportunities,assigning each action to a person in charge with a date and concrete steps to take for its implementation The improvements detected and the metrics that will control the improvement to be implemented are implemented, setting at this stage the quality objectives to be achieved The procedure manuals are updated to reflect The changes made The changes are communicated to the organization in general and in particular in more detail to those involved The expected results are monitored and their alignment with the quality objective setsetting the quality objectives to be achieved at this stage The procedure manuals are updated to reflect the changes made The changes are communicated to the organization in general and in particular in more detail to those involved The expected results are monitored and their alignment with the quality objective setsetting the quality objectives to be achieved at this stage The procedure manuals are updated to reflect the changes made The changes are communicated to the organization in general and in particular in more detail to those involved The expected results are monitored and their alignment with the quality objective set
The six sigma methodology bases continuous improvement on two main indicators:
- The speed with which a process is carried out (cycle time) The number of errors that reach the client (internal / external)
The first (cycle time) is measured from when the customer (internal / external) expresses his need, until it is satisfied. An important point in this concept is that this time is measured from the customer's perspective and not from the organization's perspective. Many of the mistakes that are commonly made is thinking from an internal perspective and not putting yourself in the shoes of the customer and their expectation.
Expectation is a key element in the methodology, since by working on customer expectations, we can go from having a satisfied customer to having a loyal customer.
A loyal customer in addition to being satisfied, has the intention of continuing or increasing business with our organization and is a person who recommends us to another potential customer.
We constantly reinforce this point in the training given to the personnel of organizations because they are a fundamental element to protect our clients from our competitors.
The second (number of errors) is calculated with a simple arithmetic calculation called DPMO (Defects Per Million Opportunities)
Defects - Number of errors that have reached the client (internal / external) or that have occurred internally
Opportunities - Units produced by that process
The DPMO result is equivalent to the sigma level of process quality. Improving Sigma requires exponential reduction in defects.
Why then do we use Sigma as an indicator?
It is a more sensitive indicator than a percentage.
Having for example a quality of 99% seems very good, but it means that there are 6210 defects per million opportunities, where you realize that there is still room for improvement.
As a summary of this brief introduction to six sigma quality, we want to emphasize that you should always start from the explicit need of the client, and from there analyze the processes, designate process "owners", survey, measure, analyze, improve, implement, update procedure manuals and continue measuring until you reach the desired goal.
It is also appropriate to highlight that it is not always economically viable to maintain a six sigma level in all processes of an organization, but it is in those vital to it. An example of this are the airlines that have six sigma in taking us safely from one airport to another, but that have 3 sigma with the handling of our luggage.
Finally, this methodology must be complemented with an internal recognition program for those people who participate in the process improvement teams and that requires behaviors such as teamwork, respect, attitude and commitment from all its members, seeing problems as opportunities. It is proven that more than 95% of the problems or mistakes that are made in organizations are not related to people but to inadequate processes.
“A leader knows what to do. An administrator only knows how to do it". - Ken Adelman
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