What are Six Sigma Principles?

As an entrepreneur, you will be particularly interested in improving the manufacturing quality of your organization. You can achieve it by spotting and eliminating the factors contributing to defects in the production. This is what Six Sigma principles claim to help organizations achieve. Naturally, you will be interested in knowing what Six Sigma principles are so that you can implement them in your manufacturing unit to improve manufacturing quality. Let us start by understanding what Six Sigma is.

What is Six Sigma?

Six Sigma is a set of tools and techniques that claims to achieve process improvement. American Engineer Bill Smith launched this technique in 1999 while working for Motorola. This concept aims to ensure that 99.99966% of all chances for the production of some features of a part are statistically free of defects.

The term Six Sigma originates in the statistical modeling of production processes. A Sigma rating, which denotes the outcome or the level of products free of defects that it creates, explains the maturity of the production process.

Also. check: Six Sigma Tool

What Does it Claim?

Now, before knowing what Six Sigma Principles are, you know what Six Sigma is all about. The strategies that this concept uses seek to improve the quality of the product by spotting and getting rid of the causes of defects. Even it claims to reduce variability in the business and production processes. This concept helps to achieve these things with the help of statistical and empirical quality management methods. It seeks to achieve this by hiring people with expertise in Six Sigma. Every Six Sigma project follows a pre-defined technique and will have particular value targets. The targets can be increasing customer satisfaction, reducing pollution, etc. 

Key Principles of Six Sigma:

With an understanding of the concept of Six Sigma, you can put its principles into practice only when you know what Six Sigma principles are. Accordingly, here are the common Six Sigma principles you should be aware of:

1. Focus on Customers:

The foremost goal of the Six Sigma Principles is to help businesses achieve customer satisfaction. Satisfied customers can turn out to be loyal customers in the long run. Customers can only be completely satisfied when they are provided with the utmost benefits. Customers can only be completely satisfied when their requirements are understood from the right perspective. Six Sigma also involves understanding the drivers of sales and establishing quality standards based on customer demands and market trends.

2. Use Data:

Six Sigma principles also recommend using data to identify process variations. Process variations can be of two kinds: natural variations and special-cause variations. Natural variations denote random variations that occur in the process, while special-cause variations involve variations that arise due to external factors. Six Sigma principles claim to reduce special-cause variations. 

Also, the principles recommend that understanding the process is crucial to finding the root cause of the variation. Here, process understanding should happen more extensively and deeply. Without a proper study, it is impossible to gain extensive knowledge about the processes. To conduct a proper study, the presence of detailed data about the process is crucial as well. Here comes the question of how to collect detailed data. Let us find the answer here:

You can start your data collection easily when you clearly define the data collection goals in the first instance. Here are some details on how to define the data collection clearly:

• The first step in the data collection process is to identify the right data
• Then, you  will have to define the purpose of data collection
• Thirdly, you will have to define the expected insight
• Next, you will have to explain the method you are going to follow for data collection
• Then, you will have to get rid of the errors in the data collection 
• Finally, you will have to define your data collection plan

In Six Sigma principles, data collection encompasses interviewing people, asking questions and making observations.

Once you have completed the data collection, you should check whether the data collected gives you the required knowledge to meet the objectives set up. If the data is insufficient, you will have to collect data again to gather more information. You should repeat the data collection process until you identify the root cause for the variation in the process. Also, you should try to eliminate the cause with the help of the data collected. After you identify the considerable root cause that contributes to the variation, you can use statistical analysis.

3. Six Sigma DMAIC:

You should know about the Six Sigma DMAIC approach when finding the answer to Six Sigma principles. This approach is typically used to improve an existing process. Each letter in this approach is explained below:

• D denotes defining the issue and expected results
• M involves measuring the competency of the process
• Stands for analyzing the data and identifying the base cause of variations
• I is for improving or modifying the process to reduce variations' incidence.
• C stands for controlling the process. It involves preventing and rectifying variations such that they do not result in defects.

Also, Check: Six Sigma Dmaic Process and Methodology

4. Make Your Processes Flow Smoothly:

The good thing about Six Sigma is that everything here is process-driven. In other words, you cannot just leave things to ability or chance. The process must be not only functional but also smooth. Here, figuring out the issues is the first step to making sure that processes will happen smoothly. For instance, one of the common problems experienced by most teams engaged in a process is that one area of the process performs slower than the rest of the process. When this happens, the process's speed will slow down. 

One of the core components of Six Sigma is that everything is process-driven. These bottlenecks can be the clearest type of failure for achieving the smooth flow of the process. If you have employed a technique like process mining, the probability of you using software will be higher. This type of program will point out most bottlenecks at the time of analysis. 

5. Map Out the Value Stream:

Before you take steps to improve your process, it is better to be aware of all the steps in it. Even if you have documented your workflows earlier, it is crucial to evaluate how things are done to identify the steps that can add value. This will also help identify steps that do not add value so that they can be removed from the process.

Before you make any improvements, you should look at the present state of your process. Following Lean-Agile principles in your organization can be more effective only when you identify your value stream. This is how organizations foresee all the steps in a given process and identify areas of waste. Building a value stream map is one way to do this. This map is a flowchart that explains and evaluates the steps in a service or production process. 

Let us consider that you are identifying your value stream for building a car. In this case, your value stream map would encompass shopping for parts, distributing the finished product, and assembling the parts with quality assurance checked then and there. It is better to ensure you get a big picture view of your process from beginning to end. When you do this, you will not risk paying attention too much to a single domain.

6. Improve Collaboration within the Team:

One of the crucial principles of Six Sigma is the improvement of processes and how the team communicates with each other in the project for the production of the best services and products. In general, the team's most junior member will get to see the issue first. He will be able to see what is happening with the product. To provide motivation and improve the communication quality among the team members, you should ask the team members to report quickly in case they get to see deviations in the service or product line.  In turn, it will aid with mitigating the trouble and failure of the product. For effective collaboration between team members, Six Sigma Principles recommend giving titles to each member like process champion, process owner, etc.

Conclusion:

Six Sigma Principles aim to improve customer satisfaction, reduce cycle time, eliminate defects, reduce errors, and enhance overall quality. By implementing these principles, organizations can significantly improve their processes and products. Key elements such as focusing on customer needs, using data-driven decision-making, employing the DMAIC approach, ensuring smooth process flows, mapping value streams, and fostering team collaboration are critical to Six Sigma's success. When effectively applied, these principles lead to better performance, higher efficiency, and sustained growth, ultimately contributing to a competitive advantage in the marketplace. Embracing Six Sigma is a strategic move towards operational excellence and business success.
Simpliaxis offers comprehensive Six Sigma courses designed to equip you with the knowledge and skills necessary to implement these principles effectively. Join us to enhance your expertise and drive your organization towards greater efficiency and success.