Vishwadeep Khatri

Hello Vikas, You are right. Process Capability finds a specific and detailed focus in Six Sigma. Please remember that the concepts of capability indices did exist before Six Sigma methodology was put together by professionals at Motorola. Also, it would not be wise to say that Toyota (from where Lean emerged) practitioners do not work on process capability they do. However, as far as training and project focus is concerned, Six Sigma has brought process capability to the fore and we do insist that the concept should be clear even at Green Belt level. Regards, VK

Dear Gaurav, Have a look at http://www.benchmarksixsigma.com/institutes-students for more information on this subject.

It is difficult for me to comment whether using P75 alone is sufficient. P75 is similar to median (which is P50). As you have outliers, it may be good to look at P75. There may be opportunities to focus on primary reasons for those extreme values which are hurting the predictability in your process. You may like to convert such reasons into Six Sigma projects. Working project by project, you may be able to improve the situation substantially.

To add to this discussion, Six Sigma is about PROCESS FOCUS. India is far behind China in Olympics medals tally because India lacks in processes that produce world class athletes, while China has many of those processes in place. Several Institutions (like the ones in China) do not call it Six Sigma but do use a systematic approach with usage of statistics to provide useful progressive inputs to coaches and players at the right stage and time.

Dear Gargi, Six Sigma Green Belt is specially useful for those pursuing Management Courses. For training details have a look at www.benchmarksixsigma.com/cal.html We at benchmark Six Sigma have trained more than 5500 professionals on Six Sigma (including management students)

There are several people who moved into full time Six Sigma roles after going through our training. Green Belt is the start of a journey and As you pursue Black Belt and MBB you can be a specialist in this field. You shall need to do projects along the way. To be more specific, you should be able to do Green Belt project at your current profile after attending the Green Belt training. Once you upgrade to Black Belt, you may be able to do some cross functional projects in your current company or with a future employer. Six Sigma projects in different companies shall be feasible once you develop multi-functional competence (and join a consulting organisation) To read success stories of our past participants in Information Technology and to see how they progressed over time, click here

Dear Arijit Shome, It seems you are trained on lean. You need to look for presence of any or combination of the seven wastes and attack them systematically. For advanced aspects of simulation and queuing theory, you can go through MBB program which requires Lean and Black Belt as pre-requisites. Regards, VK

To quote Miles above "The only ideas that we havent had the time or man power to carry out in depth would be, costings of the system, monitoring and reducing energy usage, spend/payback of environmental projects" This statement indicates that the focus has been on reduction on Non-Conformance reduction but (probably) not on business benefits. Miles, please do correct me if I am wrong here. I have conducted 400 plus third party ISO audits in multiple industries myself and know how the system works. Six Sigma is about equipping the best people in the company with the best techniques to tackle biggest pain/reward areas for the biggest business benefits. Most of the times ISO 14001 focus is limited to conformance to requirements (and that is what it is supposed to do). The big business benefit areas require ability to carry out projects with laser sharp data driven focus. Such ability is provided by DMAIC Green Belt and Black Belt programs. Another interesting point is Six Sigma is about putting in more of preventive mechanisms in place so that there is reduced need for detective mechanisms (like audits) Six Sigma learning and implementation is definitely not easy and shall require persistent effort in identifying good projects that make business sense, assessing current performance with reasonable accuracy, finding the critical causes and confirming them with scientific approaches, bringing the change in the critical causes and validating plausibility of business benefits, setting up controls so that the sustained and benefits can be realized repeatedly. I look forward to reply and comments from Miles who initiated this discussion.

Dear Deepti, One may derive the benefits of Six Sigma by either Getting into Six Sigma Role - Here the job profile shall be cross-functional Six Sigma projects (some projects within functional areas) within the company. This type of role is handled by most Black Belts and few Green Belts. Utilizing Six Sigma for getting better results than before in the current profile - In the approach one would carry out Six Sigma projects while handling a functional role. This kind of role is with most Green Belts and few Black Belts. I hope I have answered your question. Do post your response if you have another question.

Vaidehee, To get the answer to your question, click on the link:http://forum.benchmarksixsigma.com/topic/696-six-sigma-for-hr-professionals/

Being at a thermal power plant, you may explore following areas. The electric efficiency of a conventional thermal power station, considered as saleable energy (in MWe) produced at the plant busbars as a percent of the heating value of the fuel consumed, is typically 33% to 48% efficient. Improvement in this efficiency could be an objective of a Six Sigma Black Belt project. Improvement in waste heat utilization (cogeneration) can be another project. If freshwater production and electricity are co-products, then the objective of enhancement of these could be taken up as Six Sigma projects. Since the efficiency of the plant is fundamentally limited by the ratio of the absolute temperatures of the steam at turbine input and output, efficiency improvements require use of higher temperature, and therefore higher pressure, steam. Ensuring consistency in high temp and resulting high pressure could be taken up as Six Sigma project as well. Maintenance improvement in terms of the following are additional projects Improving OEE (Overall Equipment Effectiveness) Reducing MTTR (Mean Time to Repair) Increasing MTBF (Mean Time between Failures) Regards, VK

Hello Uma, Some of the important elements in database management for an event management company are - Improving accuracy of contact mobile numbers. Reducing duplicates Improving data quality of documents --completeness Improving data quality - correctness Improving data quality - timeliness. Ensuring zero errors in contact detail updates. Ensuring zero errors in document version control Improving effectiveness of direct response communication Improving correctness of contact email addresses I am not sure how many of the above are included in your profile. Let me know more about the activities in your profile. I am sure you should be able to find opportunities for applying some of the techniques straight away.

Six Sigma example projects in shipping Improved handling of hazardous materials Reducing Loading and Unloading Turn Around Time including container arrivals, unloading by crane, loading into the ship. Improving the CHA processes including the following Accuracy and turn around time improvement in preparation of various kinds of bill of entry and shipping bill. Eliminating errors in tariff classification and rates of duty. Ensuring first time right in nature and description of documents to be filed with various kinds of bills of entry and shipping bill. Ensuring first time right in procedures for assessment and payment of duty.

Our MBB program requires Black Belt background. Benchmark Six Sigma Black Belt requires Green Belt as a pre-requisite. If you wish to understand more, you may contact us at 09810919501 or at 18001023003 Best Regards, VK

Hello Jyotiram, The key is to know about normality. If the data is normally distributed, mean and standard deviation shall give you sufficient information about the process performance. However, if the data is not normally distributed, median and range may be used to understand the performance. If you get quartile values (P75, P50, P25) in addition to max and min, you get additional information about the data. Now coming to your question, P75 provides you a number that has 75% values below it (or 25% values above it). This is limited information. If P75 (Q3) is 20 minutes, you know that 75% values are within 20 minutes in pizza delivery process. This however does not tell you how many values are say, beyond 30 minutes (which may be the promised delivery time). Even if you know that data is normally distributed, P75 value alone does not give you enough meaningful information to reach any inference. I hope I have answered your question. Do get back if you need any further information.

Some feedbacks from participants from this sector can be seen here

Very good six sigma projects have been taken up in American Education Establishments. These include(but are not limited to) Reducing time for fee collection and administrative processes. Improving productivity in education support processes. Reducing lag in education delivery. Improving parent and student feedbacks Improving staff satisfaction and retention. Designing education delivery processes. Improving efficiency in canteen, parking and security related processes. Reducing administrative costs. Improving student engagement. Improving placement processes. Reducing time for admissions process.

Some feedbacks from participants from Hotel and Travel Sectors can be seen by clicking here

Dear All, Recruitment specific discussion can be seen at http://forum.benchmarksixsigma.com/index.php?/topic/623-six-sigma-challenges-in-hr-fields-recruitment/

Dear Deepayan, Course content can be seen at http://forum.benchmarksixsigma.com/files/file/2-benchmark-six-sigma-green-belt-training-brochure/

To go through feedbacks from participants from Government establishments click here

Also, please have a look at a similar topic by clicking here

Dear Nirmal, NGOs that work with donated funds have an obligation to use the funds appropriately. This requires that they keep costs low, reach more beneficiaries, deliver more verifiable results (or ensure minimum possible expenditure to realize objectives). NGO's also need to ensure that there are no misappropriation of funds or resources. Another common objective NGO's have is to obtain good feedback from beneificiary groups. Realization of the above objectives lead to more funding and growth of NGO. Any of these objectives can be converted into a Six Sigma project. The senior people in the NGO themselves need to identify a focus area that relates to their mission, break into a workable improvement project and use the DMAIC/ DMADV roadmap to realize the improvement. Whether it is Goevernment or Non Government, Private enterprise or Public organization, companies have their objectives about efficient utilization of resources. Six Sigma concepts are equally applicable everywhere. Educational Universities, Postal Department, Military in US have been applying Six Sigma tools for fulfillng social objectives. You may like to do a google search for these to get some good examples.

Just to refresh everyone's concepts, the 2 sample t test (which is available even in Excel Analysis Tool Pak) can be used to compare the means of two sets of data. This test requires that the two sets of data are normally distributed. If you have attended Green Belt from Benchmark Six Sigma, we did an exercise comparing turn around times (TAT) of teams having different experience (in months). The null hypothesis was the average TAT are same (amount of experience experience in the range of 3 months to 15 months makes no significant impact) and the alternate hypothesis was that the averages are different (amount of experience in the same range creates a significant difference in TAT). If the data is not normally distributed (bell shaped distribution), it is not appropriate to use the 2 sample t test. SJ's question here is about the approach that we should follow if data is not normally distributed.

Dear Mayank, We shall be able to provide you information if you provide us your details in brief - Industry, Functional Area, Years of Experience, City, Contact Number Regards, VK