The Quality Paradigm: Six Sigma
Born out of the 1980s and the need to improve Motorola’s quality, Six Sigma is the most recognizable quality program out there. At the time when Bill Smith first developed the methodology behind Six Sigma, other quality programs were already spreading their way around the business world. Most of these programs were referred to as “buzzwords” and never taken very seriously.
The true history of applied quality dates back to the early 1900s, with several main contributors like Walter A. Shewhart, Joseph M. Juran, Kaoru Ishikawa, and Genichi Taguchi. While they played an important part in the foundation of statistical quality control thinking, they are not the most widely known, especially outside of Quality Engineering.
During the 1950s and 60s, Dr. W. Edwards Deming was working with Japanese companies to help improve their quality and production processes. He developed several basic quality and managerial ideas, first noted as his ‘14 Points for Management.’ Later, he would introduce what was termed the ‘Deming Cycle’, which is methodology for problem solving that followed a continuous, circular path: Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA). His ideas drastically improved the quality and efficiency of products coming out of
At the same time Deming was working in
Six Sigma continues this approach with every employee’s interactions with products and the subsequent response from customers, both internal to the company as well as the end user. There is a process, which is more or less the skeleton of Six Sigma, and closely related to the Deming Cycle: the DMAIC process. This process is a defined methodology to problem solving, where each letter stands for a different phase of a quality control project.
In order of execution:
Define: Define the problem at hand.
Measure: Begin measuring the problem area or process to determine the current capabilities
Analyze: Analyze the data from the Measure phase
Improve: Develop and implement measures to correct the underlying problem as realized in the Analyze phase
Control: Continue to monitor the implementations and repeat the process continually
That, in a nutshell, is an overview of Six Sigma and its history. At the present time, there are always companies trying to implement a Six Sigma program to improve their quality. Just like Lean Manufacturing, sometimes they fail and sometimes they succeed, and it’s all determined by the management involved. Six Sigma also incorporates the certification of several individuals within the company at various levels in a fashion similar to Karate, as there are Black Belts, Green Belts, Yellow Belts, etc. This practice, which once grew Six Sigma, is now a haven for under trained and over certified individuals as you can get a Black Belt just by going online and paying a few dollars. Sadly, many lazy managers will resort to hiring Black Belts to do the Six Sigma implementation instead of doing the work themselves.
May 9th, 2008 at 2:26 pm
Fascinating history of Six Sigma. I’ve just started to learn more and about it, and I thought that it was relatively new. It just goes to show that some there are certain business practices that stay strong at the core over the years, regardless of technology and change. The sad thing is too few employers even acknowledge some of the basics when it comes to effectively running a business and respecting all the hard work generated from their employees. Anyways, I could just ramble on, but I came across a helpful website that talks about six sigma that I wanted to share: http://www.orielinc.com/main.cfm. Keep it going full speed with well written blog!