Six Sigma Define Phase

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Define Phase

• Focuses on understanding Six Sigma
• Includes Six Sigma Fundamentals, Selecting Projects, Elements of Waste, and Wrap Up & Action Items

Understanding Six Sigma

• Variation is something that needs to be eliminated because customers have expectations, and variation can become dissatisfiers.
• Sigma is a measure of deviation and can be used interchangeably with the term "Standard Deviation".
• "Sigma Level" is a statistic used to describe the performance of a process relative to specification limits.
• Key metrics used in Six Sigma include defects, defects per unit (DPU), parts per million (PPM), defects per million opportunities (DPMO), rolled throughput yield (RTY), first time yield (FTY), and Sigma
• Six Sigma has five stages: Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control and provides the method for applying a philosophy to improve processes.
• Is a business strategy that helps organize process activities, solve problems, and make informed decisions and is a process measurement and management system that enables a process oriented view.
• Six Sigma has not created new tools; it utilizes and organizes existing tools to streamline operations.
• Six Sigma focuses on improving: responsiveness, cost, quality, and delivery.

Six Sigma As A Goal

• The concept of sigma level relates to hanging fruit, where higher fruit is more challenging to obtain.

Six Sigma As A Philosophy Via Multiple Sources

• General Electric notes that it is not a secret society and serves the ability to focus on developing nearly perfect products and services.
• Honeywell says "Six Sigma refers to our overall strategy to improve growth and productivity as well as a measurement of quality.".
• Lockheed Martin uses data gathering and statistical analysis to pinpoint sources of error.

Six Sigma History (cont)

• In 1984, Bob Galvin of Motorola set objectives aiming for improvement in service and quality and Bill Smith, an engineer from Motorola is credited as the father of Six Sigma
• 1995 saw General Electric, led by Jack Welch, begin the most widespread undertaking of Six Sigma.
• Simplistically, Six Sigma targets a process Mean (average) six Standard Deviations away from the closest specification limit and allows the process Mean to shift 1.5 Standard Deviations.

DMAIC Phases Roadmap & Define Phase Roadmap

• They visually display the steps needed to follow the DMAIC approach depending on where you are in the process
• In the Define Phase, a high-level deliverables include: Charter Benefits Analysis, Team Members (Team Meeting Attendance), Process Map, Primary Metric, Secondary Metric(s), Lean Opportunities, Stakeholder Analysis, Project Plan, Issues and Barriers

Six Sigma Strategy

• Six Sigma emphasizes the Process because it uses a structured, data-driven approach centered on the customer to resolve business problems
• To widen the scope of quality, a breakthrough strategy includes the value and utility of the product/service to both the company and the customer.

Problem Solving Strategy

• It includes understanding: the relationship between independent variables and the dependent variable, identifying the variables, optimizing and monitoring the optimized variable(s)

Sigma Strategy

• Tools help separate the "vital few" variables from the "trivial many".
• In DMAIC you will have a goal to find the root causes to the problem you are solving, starting with a large number of the "trivial many contributors."
• 80 percent of a problem is related to six or less causes.

Breakthrough Strategy

• Employs the DMAIC problem solving methodology to identify and optimize the variables to realize sustainable breakthrough performance.

Roles

• Focus on the voices of the Customer, the Business, and the Employee/
• Acknowledge that: awareness of the needs are critical to the quality products and services, there are gaps, process defects, and unacceptable Costs of Poor Quality (COPQ).

Six Sigma Roles and Responsibilities

• Successful implementation of Six Sigma relies on: Executive Leadership, Champion/Process Owner, Master Black Belt, Black Belt, Green Belt, Yellow Belt.
• Six Sigma is designed to provide skills and knowledge for all organization members with well defined roles and responsibilities and communication links.

Executive Leadership Responsibilities

• They make the decision, set meaningful goals, set performance expectations, ensure continuous improvement and removes barriers

Champion/Process Owner Responsibilities

• Responsibility of Champions includes: project selection, execution control, implementation, identifying resources, eliminating roadblocks and asking questions.

Master Black Belt (MBB) Responsibilities

• Responsibilities include: providing advice and counsel, providing training and support, developing sustainability, and facilitating cultural change
• The MBB mentor Black Belts and Green Belts through projects and are capable of teaching others in the practices and tools.

Black Belt Responsibilities

• Black Belts are application experts within the business with abilities to drive results.
• Project Team Leader, Facilitates DMAIC teams, Works cross-functionally, Contributes to the accomplishment of organizational goals and Provides technical support to improvement efforts.

Green Belt Responsibilities

• Well versed in the definition & measurement of critical processes and is involved in continuous improvement efforts and as a Team member on DMAIC teams.

Yellow Belt Responsibilities

• Yellow Belts provide: Support to Black Belts and Green Belts and Supporting projects with process knowledge and data collection and participate in process management activities.

Black & Green Belt Certification Requirements

• Must: complete all course work, be familiar with tools and their application, demonstrate application of learning to training project, complete two projects within one year from beginning of training, achieve results and make a difference and submit a final report.

Six Sigma

• A system of improvement.
• A data-driven, structured approach to managing processes, quantifying problems, and removing waste by reducing variation and eliminating defects.
• The use of process exploration and analysis tools to solve the equation of Y = f(X) and to translate this into a controllable practical solution.
• As a performance goal, a Six Sigma process produces less than 3.4 defects per million opportunities.
• As a business goal, Six Sigma can achieve >40% improvement in the profitability of a company.

Six Sigma Fundamentals

• The fundamentals include Process Maps, Voice of the Customer, Cost of Poor Quality and Process Metrics.
• A process focus is implemented so we can understand how and why work gets done.
• A process is a repetitive and systematic series of steps or activities where inputs are modified to achieve a value-added output.

Examples of Processes

• Include: injection molding, recruiting staff, decanting solution, processing invoices, opening accounts, filling out a timesheet, backing up files, or issuing purchase orders

Process Maps

• Also called flowcharting - is a technique to visualize tasks, activities and steps necessary to produce a product or service.
• Involve a generic name, the workflow, and a description.
• The purpose is to identify the complexity of the process and communicate the focus of problem solving.
• Process Maps are living documents that represent what is currently happening and are created by the people closest to the process. Includes swim-lane and cross functional style maps

Process Map Symbols and High Level Process Map

• Standard Symbols include: rectangles, parallelograms, diamonds, ellipses, arrows and circles.
• At a minimum, a high-level Process Map must include: start and stop points, all process steps, all decision points and directional flow with value categories such as value added and enabling.

Knowing Your Customer

• Is more than a handshake; it is necessary to clearly understand their needs (CTQ's).
• Steps to understanding your customer focus on the customer's perspective of features, your company's integrity, delivery mechanisms and perceived value versus cost.
• Involves understanding: Features, Integrity, Delivery and Price.
• Different types of customers dictate how we interact with them in the process.
• -External Customers include direct those (who receive directly) and indirect customers those (who are effected)

Developing CTQs

• CTQ's are measures used to capture VOC properly.
• The steps: identifying the customer, capturing the Voice of the Customer and finally validating the CTQ's.
• Includes: Identify Customers, Capture VOC, & Validate CTQ's

Cost of Poor Quality (COPQ)

• Represents the financial opportunity of your teams improvement efforts.
• The goal is to use it to quantify the benefits of an improvement effort and identify other potential improvements.
• Is a symptom measured in loss of profit (financial quantification) that results from errors (defects) and other process inefficiencies.
• Involves the elements: External Costs, Internal Costs, Prevention Costs and Appraisal Costs.
• Divided into hard savings and soft savings

Quality categories

• Internal, External, Prevention, Appraisal
• COPQs better term is waste as it encompasses beyond quality issues

COPQ – iceberg

• The tip better known visible costs include material and energy.
• The obscured portion contains Hidden Costs (Soft Costs) such as lost customer loyalty are excess inventory that can make or break the situation.
• The best way to avoid COPQ is the 7 forms of waste

Hard Savings

• Can always be quantified and measured for labor or capital savings

Soft Savings

• Usually are not apparent upon implementation but offer greater returns and savings/ revenue than that of cost savings

Process Metrics

• In any process improvement endeavor the ultimate objective is to make the process: better, faster, cheaper.Better DPU, DPMO, RTY

Six Sigma Metrics

• DPU, DPMO, RTY Metrics as well as cycle time

DPU - Defects per unit or defective units

• Quantifies defects, not the products that are bad per unit.

Yield Formula

• FTY is the traditional quality metric for yield.
• Disadvantages: doesn't account and rework or total products with defects.

FTY

Traditional metrics

• when chosen poorly can lead the team in a direction not consistent with the focus of the business.
• Some of the metrics we must be concerned about

Rolled Throughput Yield RTY is a better metric to reflect what products or services are actually defect free without being altered and reworked.

• It accounts for losses due to rework steps as processes are changed better.

The binomial distribution is the true model for defect data

• The mathematical distribution is the true model for the data defect that is given with parameters.
• Is more a measure for population.

Six Sigma Fundamentals

• At this point one should know how to be able to describe all Six Sigma implementations