Six Sigma Training Fundamentals
Six Sigma training is a rigorous schooling in the breakthrough process improvement methodology. To qualify as a Six Sigma Black Belt, or trained practitioner, you should receive a thorough induction in the use of inferential statistics and acquire a wide armoury of data analysis tools.
However the fundamentals of Six Sigma training are much more easily grasped, and can be deployed to deliver immediate and striking results. It’s exactly as the “Pareto rule”, or 80/20 principle, would predict – the most effective solutions are the simplest, and a few changes can deliver a dramatic impact. You can find an executive summary of Six Sigma essentials at http://hubpages.com/hub/Six-Sigma-Training-Basics and immediately start to apply these ideas in your own workplace.
Let’s start with a surprising question. Do you think that a process that works 99% of the time is one that works well? Think again. It’s not OK to be 99% good. If you manufactured a jet engine with reliability like that, the result would be carnage. A Six Sigma process is scientifically designed to operate with only 3.4 million defects per million opportunities, or repetitions of the process. That is the target level of quality you should be aiming for to achieve world class excellence in your processes.
Six Sigma training enables you to deploy a problem-solving approach to design effectively controlled processes. The key is customer expectations – what are the Critical to Quality (CTQ) factors that your customer is really looking for? Once you have established these, and assuming you have a reasonably stable, measurable and repeatable process, you can get to work.
The classic Six Sigma path follows the DMAIC,or “Define – Measure – Analyse – Improve – Control” methodology to tackling business problems.
Define - Identify key business requirements
Measure - Record and evaluate process performance
Analyse - Interrogate the data through hypothesis tests
Improve – Set the inputs. Fine-tune the process.
Control – Control the process. Set up your Control Plan and Reaction plan.
Six Sigma training will help you follow this five fold path to process improvement nirvana. You don’t need a masters degree in statistics, but you will require a relentless focus on quality, a mindset dedicated to continuous improvement, and an attitude that is receptive to new ideas and concepts. Everyone loves to focus on outputs, but that is a sure path to failure. Focus instead on the inputs and the root causes, and then you will make real headway towards your process improvement goals.
(c) WestOcean 2009
