kishore Srivastava

1. Six Sigma is a highly disciplined process that helps us focus on developing and delivering near-perfect products and services. It is a powerful methodology that can be used to improve any business processes. It is a systematic and a structured approach to problem-solving and can be applied to any process in any organization, be it sales, marketing, accounting, purchasing, manufacturing, IT or even in BPO. Here it is important to mention that all processes have variation. Variation is the main cause of all evil and further leads to defects and customer dissatisfaction. Six Sigma methodology can be used to reduce variation from any source and thus improve costs, quality, and hence customer satisfaction 2. The unique feature about Six Sigma is that this is the only Quality Improvement methodology where defects or nonconformity are measured. It is completely data-based improvement technique where defects are measured; hence, measurement is the basis for improvement Six Sigma methodology. The central idea behind Six Sigma is that if you can measure how many "defects" you have in a process, you can logically and systematically figure it out in any process and further eliminate them and get as close to "zero defects" as possible. It is rightly said that, if you can not measure, you can not manage it and you can not manage it then you can not improve it. 3. Why "Sigma"? The word is a statistical term that measures how far a given process deviates from perfection. The word Six Sigma corresponds to 3.4 defects per million opportunities. It does not mean attaining 3.4 defects per million opportunities (DPMO) i.e. if your process capability is presently 2.4 sigma levels and through Six Sigma improvement methodologies you attain 2.6 levels then you are in Six Sigma way. This way we can say that Six Sigma is a Drive, a way of improvement or it is a Quality Improvement Movement. 4. The standard methodology for Six Sigma improvement is called DMAIC. The acronym DMAIC stands for Define - Measure - Analyze - Improve - Control and Suresh has rightly commented - this methodology is nothing but common sense. Thanks & Regards, K.P.Srivastava B.I.T, Mesra, Ranchi