Vishwadeep Khatri

Dear Abhik, Change in subcontractor shall help only if the subcontractor has a great process (and not just low cost). When I say great process, it relates to timeliness and defect free performance. One option is to go deeper into the subcontractor's process, map it (as suggested by Mahi) and help the subcontractor improve. Regards, VK

Hi Nitin, Considering continuous data, if 48 hours is your upper specification limit , average cycle time is 192 hours and you have tested the normality, you shall be getting a negative sigma level, which is ok. Shifting the mean shall improve the sigme level. Let me know if you have further questions. Regards, VK

Yes, Rahul. Six Sigma Green Belt is useful for 3-4 year experienced IT professional. The program aids decision making and problem solving. Regards, VK

Dear Ravi, I agree with you. Six Sigma is not just statistics. It is recommended that you go through Green Belt certification first. In Benchmark Six Sigma Green Belt, there are so many elements like process thinking, Six Sigma philosophy, MSA, Sigma level assessments for different type of data, FMEA, etc which are not covered in statistical courses. In our programs, even the coverage of topics like hypothesis testing is entirely practice oriented.

You can apply Six Sigma techniques in analysis and decision making on education industry. Although, I have seen professionals switching industries after Black Belt (even without completion of projects), generally it is good to complete a project in your current assignment before looking for a change. Let me know if you have further questions.

Dear Manikandan, Sanjeev's response is perfectly on the mark. About the other points that you have raised - Yes, mean and standard deviation can be used for statistical analysis if data follows normal distribution. I presume your question about LSL relates to a situation where specification is one sided (USL is known). Here, if Lower Specification Limit does not exist, we should not presume any value (not even zero). Please remember - for some parameters (like temperature), LSL value can be zero or negative as well. Best Regards, VK

Hi Sanyogita, You can identify an area that relates to a chronic business pain o a customer pain. Ideally a problem, whose causes and solutions are unknown can be chosen. Once you have identified such an area, you can create a project charter - business case, project CTQ, project goal, team members, time line. If you wish, you can share this with me and plan ahead. Best Regards, VK

Six Sigma training can surely help you in setting up great processes in your play school. Process focus can help enhance teaching and learning processes. As you are a freelancer, your profile enrichment may be useful in your management and engineering college assignments.

Video - Mr. Unnikrishnan draws out his vast experience in the IT/ITes sector to emphasize on the synergy that can exist between process certifications like ISO, CMMI etc. and Six Sigma Methodologies to achieve stronger business performance results. Have a look at the video here - http://www.benchmarksixsigma.com/video-gallery/

VIDEO - Mr. Kush Kapoor is a Green Belt, Black Belt and Master Black Belt from Benchmark Six Sigma. He is currently working with Leela Kempinski. Here he shares the powerful applicability of Six Sigma in the Hotel Industry. He recently bagged the "Most Innovative Hotelier in the Country" Award and owes it to the learning of Six Sigma tools and methodologies. http://forum.benchmarksixsigma.com/page/media.html/_/health-and-hospitality/six-sigma-in-a-hotel-kush-kapoor-r51

VIDEO - Mr. Piyush works with Cable and Wireless Worldwide as Program Manager and recently underwent the Master Black Belt program at Benchmark Six Sigma. He talks about mapping of ITIL implementation with Six Sigma techniques to add more value to the services offered. He also discusses the benefits Six sigma brings to new product development cycle. http://forum.benchmarksixsigma.com/page/media.html

VIDEO - Mr. Krishna Rao, Master Black Belt from Benchmark Six Sigma is currently the Regional Quality Manager for EMS business with Motorola India. Here he talks about his experiences with Six Sigma and also discusses Six Sigma's superiority over TQM in the current business context. http://forum.benchmarksixsigma.com/page/media.html/_/telecommunication/six-sigma-in-telecom-krishnarao-r50

VIDEO - Mr. Krishna Rao, Master Black Belt from Benchmark Six Sigma is currently the Regional Quality Manager for EMS business with Motorola India. Here he talks about his experiences with Six Sigma and also discusses Six Sigma's superiority over TQM in the current business context. http://forum.benchmarksixsigma.com/page/media.html/_/telecommunication/six-sigma-in-telecom-krishnarao-r50

The difference in Cp and Pp lies in the way standard deviation is calculated. Same difference lies between Cpk and Ppk. Pp (and Ppk) considers OVERALL Variation while Cp (and Cpk) considers WITHIN GROUP Variation. Or in other words, Pp ignores grouping of any kind. If you have completed your Black Belt, please have a close look at the formula. Best Regards, VK

Dear Mathew, The focus area for first project seems quite clear. You may like to chose your metric as timeliness of renewals. Your goal can be improving timeliness of renewals from A% to B% within 6 months.. The second project needs to have a well defined metric and goal which may need some thinking. If your objective is just streamlining the process to make it more structured, you may just use process mapping techniques and lean methods. Best Regards, VK

Dear Pankaj, Let us consider an example. Each unit of an item has 50 opportunities for defect. 10 units are inspected. There are 5 defects found in a single unit out of 10 inspected items. DPMO = 5X1000000/10X50 = 10000 Yield uses number of defect free units. Yield = 9/10 = 90% If you calculate sigma level, the two provide different values in this example. They can give same results sometimes (as in your example). This happens in those cases where opportunities for error is equal to ONE per unit. (This leads to defect count and defective count becoming equal) Best Regards, VK

Dear Pradeep, You can calculate per 100 (percent) or per thousand or per million basis. If we use percent, when defect levels go very low we get inconvenient numbers like 0.01% or 0.023%. By using per million we can manage with numbers above 1 which is more convenient to use and handle. Strictly speaking, it does not matter. You can use others as well. Regards, VK

Dear Pankaj, You should use the Yield method as you are working with defectives. 45 defectives out of 60 means that the yield % is 15/60 = 25%. Using sigma level calculator, you can get sigma level. If you get a low sigma level, you cannot conclude that process does not exist. There could be other reasons for low sigma level. For example, it is possible that the prescribed time is impractical. If you are able to find reasonable opportunities for improvement, it is a good project related to VoC.

The answer is here http://forum.benchmarksixsigma.com/topic/427-the-three-doubts-need-a-help/page__hl__%2Bthree+%2Bdoubts

Dear Yunus, Two important points. Before you use the "Test for Equal Variance", you shall need to Stack Data. This can be done by using Data>>Stack>>Columns. Use subscripts also so that you can get shift name in second column. After stacking your data shall be in two columns, one carrying shift data and the other carrying shift names. Use them and you shall get right results You should have done Normality test first. If Normality test shows p value less than 0.05, data is not normally distributed and you cannot use ANOVA (no need to test equality of variances). You need to use test for Non Normal data (comparing medians) Regards, VK

The ratio shall not be 80:20. It may be 90:5 or 60:25 or any other ratio. The main idea is that the majority of failure occurrences are due to minority of the reasons. If you are able to reduce your list of possible X's for the project, you should consider that you have realized the objective.

Hello Pankaj, In your situation, the whole unit is taken either as PASS or a FAIL. This count of FAILED units should be taken as defectives and you can use the yield method for Sigma Level calculation. Regards, VK

Well explained with relevant examples, Aniruddha. Pattabiraman, let us know if you have a follow up question.

Interesting comment. I agree with Rahul. I see lot of people busy doing fire fighting while major gains can be obtained with longer tern thinking. The balance in short term and long term efforts is always needed. Let us, for a while compare Nirula's and Mcdonald's http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nirula's STARTED IN 1935 http://www.aboutmcdonalds.com/mcd/our_company/mcd_history.html STARTED 1940 These companies like everyone had short term pressures. One of them created extra-ordinary processes and reaped the benefits. The other grew but at a much lower pace. This is true in most industries. Toyota Production System has the first business principle - Principle 1. Base your management decisions on a long-term philosophy, even at the expense of short-term financial goals. TOYOTA or McDonald's did not use Six Sigma but always had a long term philosophy. Long term thinking is the starting point which leads to great management systems and great results. One of the important reasons for companies not embracing Six Sigma (or other methodologies) is inability to invest in long term.

Dear Durga, It is a good improvement that you have realized in this project. However, not each improvement project is a Six Sigma project. To reiterate, a Six Sigma project is carried out for a chronic problem when cause and solution are unknown. If cause and solution can be found by brainstorming, we do not wish to label it as a Six Sigma project. A project is decided as a Six Sigma project at the start and not after completion of project. If you have completed the project already and you did not use Six Sigma methodology, it is definitely not a valid project. You can discuss with senior management about chronic problem areas that have not been resolved so far (though several common sense methods have been tried). You should be able to find a good project. However, this must not discourage anyone from usage of Six Sigma techniques. The techniques have applicability in large number of situations. Finally it is the business impact that matters and elevates your professional presence in the company. Best Regards, VK