What Is Six Sigma?

By Author: David Clearwater
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The term Six Sigma is often heard but not understood. People often wonder what Six Sigma is. Six Sigma is a measurement of quality where attempts are on to reach near perfection. Six Sigma should be looked as a methodology to achieve near perfection in quality by elimination of defects in a disciplines and data driven approach in any process used in an organization which may relate to manufacturing or may relate to any service or to any transaction happening within an organization.

Six Sigma is statistically represents quantitatively how well a process is functioning. Six Sigma strives to reduce the defect counts in a particular process to less than 3.4 out of one million opportunities. Any thing beyond a customer’s specifications is a Six Sigma defect. Similarly a Six Sigma opportunities are the total quantity of processes where a defect may occur. Six Sigma calculators are used to calculate process sigma very easily.

The basic objective of using a Six Sigma methodology is to implement a strategy which measures the number of defects and which lays down focus on the improvement of focus and ...
... reduction of variations by the application of Six Sigma techniques and methods. Two Six Sigma sun-methodologies are usually put into action namely DMAIC and DMADV for such improvements. DMAIC process is (an acronym for define †measure †analyze †improve †control) a system for improvement of existing processes which fall below the required specifications and which need incremental improvements. On the other side is the DMADV process which is (an acronym for define - measure - analyze - design - verify) an system of improvement which is used for the development of new processes or products or services at the Six Sigma levels of quality. DMDAV can also be used in existing processes if the improvements required are more than just incremental improvements.
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David Clearwater writes on topics such as Six Sigma,DMAIC and DMAIC Visit What is Six Sigma?.