The Basics Of The Six Sigma Methodology

Six Sigma has become the most popular management improvement system in the world. It is a methodology that has been developed in 1986 by the US company Motorola as a technique that reduces the defects in manufacturing. It is said that Six Sigma is basically a combination of pre existing methods of quality management and control but in a way that in time it has proven to be effective in many other service-related business sectors. At first it was widely known as the 3.4 DPOM (defects per one million) as the highest levels of the Six Sigma scale, the sixth level, assures that a 3.4 DPOM can be achieved. Later on companies have discovered that the main principles on which the whole system is built can be implemented in many other business areas.

Six Sigma defines the most important process elements that have to be understood and improved. They are summarized by the acronym DMAIC, which has evolved in DMAICT and they stand for: defining the problem or any specific goals; measuring the performance of the current working process and collecting the necessary data; analyzing that data to determine the cause of the "defect"; improving the current working process based on the analysis; control of the quality in the future organized process and the newest - transferring the new and improved system in other departments of the company. As the whole methodology is statistically based any analytic tools can be applied. For achieving sustainable results there has to be a clear understanding of which are the crucial elements in the company's working process that must be improved.

Six Sigma requires that all employees are involved in the quality improvement process regardless of their position in the company. In fact it all depends on the people working in an establishment that is to apply the Six Sigma methodology. It's about their evaluations of the initial situation and the company's departments that need to be organized by the system's technology. In theory there is nothing hard about the process of organizing the improvement but in fact if employees were not trained to do that there would be minimal effect. So as a result there have emerged many organizations that offer training by the Six Sigma methodology and certification upon completing their courses. And that has led to a whole new industry of corporate management trainings, team building trainings and other techniques all of which aiming to improve the efficiency and productivity of corporations all over the world.

Reviews of the Six Sigma methodology are controversial. Some say that it has made an enormous change in the way their company is working and therefore the company's income has increased significantly, others are more skeptical about the actual merit of Six Sigma. Unfortunately there is no real tool that could measure just how much of the improvement is due to the implementation of the methodology but surely it has at least helped in organizing lots of working processes and creating important corporative strategies, which are indispensable nowadays.

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