An Overview

Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) has collaborated with the world's leading organization for quality in the USA, namely, the American Society for Quality (ASQ). A Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) was signed between the two organizations at a signing ceremony held on May 18, 2005 at Seattle at the time of the ASQ's World Conference on Quality and Improvement. The Annual Conference which began on May 15, 2005 culminated on May 18, 2005 with the signing of the Agreement. Over 2000 delegates including 220 international delegates attended the annual International event in its 59th year of functioning.

Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry as the National Apex Chamber of Commerce and Industry with headquarters in New Delhi and offices in several Indian States and overseas has a special wing for education, training, consulting and carrying the quality movement in India for over 15 years. It is now, popularly known as the FICCI Quality Forum (FQF).

As per this Agreement, it would be possible for the Indian businesses and quality professionals through FICCI Quality Forum to benefit from the world acclaimed Training and certification programmes of the American Society for Quality (ASQ), in India. As per this Memorandum of Agreement, the Alliance will work between ASQ and FICCI on a structured and mutually exclusive basis.

To get the knowledge and training skills on latest management tools and techniques, FICCI has networked with premier global knowledge resources such as American Society for Quality, USA, LEAN Enterprise Academy, UK, Kaizen Institute, Japan etc.

American Society for Quality

The American Society for Quality (ASQ) is the world's leading authority on quality. With more than 100,000 individual and organizational members, this professional association advances learning, quality improvement, and knowledge exchange to improve business results, and to create better workplaces and communities worldwide.

As champion of quality movement, ASQ offers technologies, concepts, and training to quality professionals, quality practitioners, and everyday consumers, encouraging all to Make Good Great. ASQ provides professional training and certification that are considered as global benchmark and utilized by leading organizations around the world to set objective criteria to assess competency of quality professionals.

For more information log on to: www.asq.org

ASQ & FICCI Professional Certified Training Programs Offered in India

Center for Global Competitiveness

What Is six sigma

History of Six sigma

 Six Sigma was originally developed as a set of practices designed to improve manufacturing processes and eliminate defects, but its application was subsequently extended to other types of business processes as well.^[2] In Six Sigma, a defect is defined as anything that could lead to customer dissatisfaction.

The particulars of the methodology were first formulated by Bill Smith at Motorola in 1986.^[3] Six Sigma was heavily inspired by six preceding decades of quality improvement methodologies such as quality control, TQM, and Zero Defects, based on the work of pioneers such as Shewhart, Deming, Juran, Ishikawa, Taguchi and others.

Like its predecessors, Six Sigma asserts that –

• Continuous efforts to achieve stable and predictable process results (i.e. reduce process variation) are of vital importance to business success.
• Manufacturing and business processes have characteristics that can be measured, analyzed, improved and controlled.
• Achieving sustained quality improvement requires commitment from the entire organization, particularly from top-level management.

Features that set Six Sigma apart from previous quality improvement initiatives include –

• A clear focus on achieving measurable and quantifiable financial returns from any Six Sigma project.^[1]
• An increased emphasis on strong and passionate management leadership and support.^[1]
• A special infrastructure of "Champions," "Master Black Belts," "Black Belts," etc. to lead and implement the Six Sigma approach.^[1]
• A clear commitment to making decisions on the basis of verifiable data, rather than assumptions and guesswork.^[1]

The term "Six Sigma" is derived from a field of statistics known as process capability studies. Originally, it referred to the ability of manufacturing processes to produce a very high proportion of output within specification. Processes that operate with "six sigma quality" over the short term are assumed to produce long-term defect levels below 3.4 defects per million opportunities (DPMO).^[4][5] Six Sigma's implicit goal is to improve all processes to that level of quality or better.

Six Sigma is a registered service mark and trademark of Motorola, Inc.^[6] Motorola has reported over US$17 billion in savings^[7] from Six Sigma as of 2006.

Other early adopters of Six Sigma who achieved well-publicized success include Honeywell International (previously known as Allied Signal) and General Electric, where the method was introduced by Jack Welch.^[8] By the late 1990s, about two-thirds of the Fortune 500 organizations had begun Six Sigma initiatives with the aim of reducing costs and improving quality.^[9]

In recent years, Six Sigma has sometimes been combined with lean manufacturing to yield a methodology named Lean Six Sigma.

Origin and meaning of the term "six sigma process"

The following outlines the statistical background of the term Six Sigma.

Sigma (the lower-case Greek letter σ) is used to represent the standard deviation (a measure of variation) of a statistical population. The term "six sigma process" comes from the notion that if one has six standard deviations between the mean of a process and the nearest specification limit, there will be practically no items that fail to meet the specifications.^[5] This is based on the calculation method employed in a process capability study.

In a capability study, the number of standard deviations between the process mean and the nearest specification limit is given in sigma units. As process standard deviation goes up, or the mean of the process moves away from the center of the tolerance, fewer standard deviations will fit between the mean and the nearest specification limit, decreasing the sigma number.^[5]

Experience has shown that in the long term, processes usually do not perform as well as they do in the short.^[5] As a result, the number of sigmas that will fit between the process mean and the nearest specification limit is likely to drop over time, compared to an initial short-term study.^[5] To account for this real-life increase in process variation over time, an empirically-based 1.5 sigma shift is introduced into the calculation.^[10][5] According to this idea, a process that fits six sigmas between the process mean and the nearest specification limit in a short-term study will in the long term only fit 4.5 sigmas – either because the process mean will move over time, or because the long-term standard deviation of the process will be greater than that observed in the short term, or both.^[5]

Hence the widely accepted definition of a six sigma process is one that produces 3.4 defective parts per million opportunities (DPMO).^[11] This is based on the fact that a process that is normally distributed will have 3.4 parts per million beyond a point that is 4.5 standard deviations above or below the mean (one-sided capability study).^[5] So the 3.4 DPMO of a "Six Sigma" process in fact corresponds to 4.5 sigmas, namely 6 sigmas minus the 1.5 sigma shift introduced to account for long-term variation.^[5] This is designed to prevent underestimation of the defect levels likely to be encountered in real-life operation.^[5]

Methodology

Six Sigma has two key methodologies: ^[9] DMAIC and DMADV, both inspired by Deming's Plan-Do-Check-Act Cycle. DMAIC is used to improve an existing business process; DMADV is used to create new product or process designs.^[9]

DMAIC

The basic methodology consists of the following five steps:

• Define process improvement goals that are consistent with customer demands and the enterprise strategy.
• Measure key aspects of the current process and collect relevant data.
• Analyze the data to verify cause-and-effect relationships. Determine what the relationships are, and attempt to ensure that all factors have been considered.
• Improve or optimize the process based upon data analysis using techniques like Design of Experiments.
• Control to ensure that any deviations from target are corrected before they result in defects. Set up pilot runs to establish process capability, move on to production, set up control mechanisms and continuously monitor the proc

DMADV

The basic methodology consists of the following five steps:

• Define design goals that are consistent with customer demands and the enterprise strategy.
• Measure and identify CTQs (characteristics that are Critical To Quality), product capabilities, production process capability, and risks.
• Analyze to develop and design alternatives, create a high-level design and evaluate design capability to select the best design.
• Design details, optimize the design, and plan for design verification. This phase may require simulations.
• Verify the design, set up pilot runs, implement the production process and hand it over to the process owners.

DMADV is also known as DFSS, an abbreviation of "Design For Six Sigma".^[9

Implementation roles

One of the key innovations of Six Sigma is the professionalizing of quality management functions. Prior to Six Sigma, quality management in practice was largely relegated to the production floor and to statisticians in a separate quality department. Six Sigma borrows martial arts ranking terminology to define a hierarchy (and career path) that cuts across all business functions and a promotion path straight into the executive suite.

Six Sigma identifies several key roles for its successful implementation.^[12]

• Executive Leadership includes the CEO and other members of top management. They are responsible for setting up a vision for Six Sigma implementation. They also empower the other role holders with the freedom and resources to explore new ideas for breakthrough improvements.
• Champions are responsible for Six Sigma implementation across the organization in an integrated manner. The Executive Leadership draws them from upper management. Champions also act as mentors to Black Belts.
• Master Black Belts, identified by champions, act as in-house coaches on Six Sigma. They devote 100% of their time to Six Sigma. They assist champions and guide Black Belts and Green Belts. Apart from statistical tasks, their time is spent on ensuring consistent application of Six Sigma across various functions and departments.
• Black Belts operate under Master Black Belts to apply Six Sigma methodology to specific projects. They devote 100% of their time to Six Sigma. They primarily focus on Six Sigma project execution, whereas Champions and Master Black Belts focus on identifying projects/functions for Six Sigma.
• Green Belts are the employees who take up Six Sigma implementation along with their other job responsibilities. They operate under the guidance of Black Belts.

Quality management methods used in Six Sigma

Six Sigma makes use of a great number of established quality management methods that are also used outside of Six Sigma. The following table shows an overview of the main methods used.