Accelerate Ltd

Six Sigma FAQ

Six Sigma, what is it?

Derived from a precise mathematical concept, Six Sigma has grown into a management philosophy for problem solving through data analysis and process improvement. Six Sigma is a statistical term to describe a process that produces 3.4 defects per million opportunities.

Why do companies look to Six Sigma?

Well let’s try to explain with a little story

All companies exist to make money as this enables a healthy environment for jobs to be created, taxes to be paid and the economy benefits, locally, nationally and internationally. In order to make a profit you need customers who will want your product or service. These customers will have requirements. The way you operate your business may impact on your ability to meet these requirements.

Let’s try to understand the Six Sigma basics from a customer perspective.

You go to your local fast food takeaway to purchase a meal.   You decide to use the drive through and you are waiting 7 minutes before you get to the menu. When you get to the order station you find that the menu is confusing and you can hardly hear the person taking your order. You place your order and drive around to the payment area and pay your money to a person who doesn’t smile or pay any attention to you as a paying customer.

You then move to a final area and receive your meal in a bag. You drive away and find somewhere to eat, so you need to park your car. When you finally park, you find that the burger you ordered is not actually the one that you ordered, it is not very warm and you have a small amount of chips instead of the large bag you thought you had ordered. You have no milk or sugar to put in your coffee, but you eat and drink the meal anyway as it is now too much hassle to go back, and you are hungry.

Are you a happy customer? Probably not! You did not complain, but you have probably made the decision to take your future custom elsewhere.

The Fast Food Takeaway needs to be concerned about this if it wants to meet its customer requirements, and be effective. The problem is that there is so much variation in the customer experience that it is very difficult to create a constant service to ensure that all your customers are happy. Six-Sigma is a management concept that understands this and tries to assist companies in managing variation.

So put simply, Six Sigma is a statistical management initiative that involves people in your business to improve performance through data analysis and effective implementation of improvement.

Looking back at the Takeaway example you might already see where there is room for improvement, but often we find that businesses are so busy meeting today’s deadlines that they do not easily see the issues from a customer perspective and they fail to be effective.

Assess your operational performance on the Sigma Grid below. During the world cup in 2006, England performed at less than 1-Sigma in their penalty shoot-outs, so maybe we should use data to assess if we are truly world class, rather than opinion.