The Principles Of Six Sigma

Within any business, the meaning of Six Sigma will change and have a different meaning. The difference in meaning will depend upon the job description/ job role of the individual. Moreover, at an enterprise level, six sigma is often used as a strategic business initiative with a focus on making certain improvements in areas such as business growth, capacity, investor relationships and customer satisfaction. However, on an operations level it will be tactical in nature and normally directed toward improving delivery time, cost, defects per unit and other critical measures of operational effectiveness. At the process level, six sigma will be employed to reduce the variability of processes, short cycle times, decrease costs and minimise defects.

Overall, six sigma is a strategic system for managing total business enterprises. Therefore it has the capability to deliver customer satisfaction and thus lead to business success. It works to optimise the control function of the entire enterprise and improve the quality, capacity and cycle time of the company.

However, whenever a new tool is implemented into an organisation risk is not far behind. It is this risk which helps six sigma to work effectively. When using six sigma it is important to apply the following:

Think six sigma – look at and explore the idea of breaking through performance.
Apply six sigma – Look at the vital tools which will improve the enterprise
Target six sigma – Identity, scale, define, empower and execute the six sigma projects and learn how the track the progress of them.
Leading six sigma – Identify, select and train all six sigma leaders at all levels of the organisation in this methodology.
Enabling six sigma – Understand the information and reporting needs of six sigma
Deploying six sigma - Study the essential guidelines for scaling and creating a global six sigma project.
Initialising six sigma – Look at the top programs and allow six sigma to work with them.

As a human, we are naturally inclined to desire control. However, to control life would be impossible. However, Six Sigma allows the world of business to be controlled by turning everything into something measurable. Everything can be quantified and counted and therefore controlled. Six Sigma embodies the idea of hope and will fuel the collective will. By doing this, it allows the six sigma leaders to also provide this ‘hope’ to all employees and thus their customers. The six sigma initiative was originally designed to raise the bar so that employees would be inclined to look at the way they work and how their work looks – they, themselves would strive for perfection.

Six Sigma is about doing things – it is about changing things.