Q. 202  How is DMA of DMAIC different from DMA of DMADV ?

 

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There is of course, substantial difference between DMA of DMAIC and DMADV.

I have briefly tabulated the difference, common tools and deliverables used in each of the phases in both the methodologies.   

 

DMAIC is a one of the  continuous improvement methodology , this is focusing on the identifying and elimination of waste and reduce the variation in the process. (Define, Measure, Analyse,Improve, control).

DMADV: (Define, measure,Analyse,Design, verify): Which is focused on the new process product designing, service/process.

 

That is the reason it is completely different of DMA from DMAIC, & DMA of DMADV... let me explain in detail

For DMA of DMAIC: D: define problem, M: Collect the data & data stratify ,A: Analyse the data & identify the Root cause.

For DMA of DMADV: D: Define the process and design goals, M: Measure and identify the critical quality characteristics, A: Analyse the data to find the best design

 

Regds

Koteswaararao

Benchmark Six Sigma Expert View by Venugopal R

We all would have learned about DMAIC and DMADV during our Six Sigma courses and many of us have used these approaches in our projects. Hence there may not be a need for any introductory explanation for these acronyms. However, I wish to provide my view point based on my experiences through handling projects under various circumstances.

 

DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyse, Improve, Control) is more commonly seen as the methodology used in most Six Sigma Projects. The usage of DMADV (Define, Measure, Analyse, Design, Validate) is usually seen less often.

In general, it has been explained that DMAIC is used for ‘Improving’ a process and DMADV is used when a process needs to be designed.

 

Projects are taken up to address some pain points or to improvement opportunities. Do we know every time we take up a project, whether a process has to be improved or designed? If no process exists, then of course, we will have to design a process; however if there is an existing process, we may have to either improve it or re-design it. Some times only after completing the Analyse phase, we would be able to take a decision whether it is worth improving the existing process or it needs to be re-designed.

In the above situation the DMA phases are common and our decision to improve or (re)Design the process is taken only after doing some analysis. For example, we have a problem relating to Supplier Quality and we find that parts supplied by certified suppliers are defective. We go through the Define and Measure phase and collect sufficient and relevant data.

 

Once we analyse the data, and if we find our problem to be confined to very few suppliers or most of the issues are relating to one or two parameters of the process, then we may decide that the existing supplier selection and certification process is by-and-large successful, but needs improvement only on a few areas and parameters.

 

On the other hand, if after our Analyse phase we are convinced that majority of the suppliers certified through the process have issues or we see issues across many parameters, then we may conclude that it may not be worthwhile fixing the existing process, but rather go for re-designing the process. In such a case, if we may want to trace back on our DMA phases and to re-define our objective and goals.

 

If we are using DMA as part of DMADV, some of the tools would be same as we would have used in DMAIC, but the intent may be different. For example, Process FMEA may be a common tool. For DMAIC we might use it for specific steps of the process that are identified for improvement, whereas in DMADV, we would use it for the entire process. There would be some tools that may be more applicable in DMADV, such as Customer surveys and QFD.

 

It may also be noted that mostly, when we are clear about our need to design a process, we may straight away go for DFSS (Design For Six Sigma). IDOV (Identify, Design, Optimize, Verify) is one of the popular approaches for DFSS.

Correct answers provided by Mohamed Asif and Koteswararao Darnasi. The winner this time is Mohamed Asif for providing more details of each phase and highlighting in a comparative format. 

Please go through Venugopal's anwer as well, considering a flexible approach whereby we decide if we want to redesign the process or improve existing process at a later stage.