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Effective Data Management
Mining data is one of the keys to running an effective business. Here's a primer on effectively managing your business data to maximize the efficiency of your business. Effective data management plays an essential role for any growing...
Policies and Procedures Used as Management Key
Managers know the difficulty of getting people to do the right things the right way. And employees need their expertise and understanding of the way things should be done. But how do you get it across so it actually sticks? The answer is...
Property Management: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
Property Management: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly Being a landlord is not all it’s cracked up to be. Think carefully of all the responsibilities that follow the purchase of an investment property for rental use. Screen your clients, run credit...
Time Management Progressed
In order to develop a time management scheme that works with our intended goals, we have to learn some of the basic layouts in planning time management. To develop a successful time management scheme we must evaluate time and calculate it...
What 80% of Businesses Don’t Know: Tips for Improving Your Working Capital Management
What is the number one way to prevent failure in business? Take a minute to really think about your answer. What comes to mind? Increasing patients or customers served? … Effective marketing? … Location, location, location? … Improving patient...
 
Six Sigma Training 101 – Better Management Basics

What is Six Sigma?

Six Sigma is a quality management program that is designed to achieve a “six sigma” level of quality for products. In the mid 1980s, Motorola pioneered Six Sigma and it has since been adopted by many other companies and manufacturers. Service companies also implement Six Sigma strategies to improve customer service and relations. The idea behind Six Sigma is that failures in quality and customer satisfaction occur after the sixth sigma of likelihood in a normal distribution curve. Hence, the idea is that there are less defects per product or customer service. Motorola defines the success of six-sigma quality in terms of the number of Defects Per Million Opportunities.

Why Use Six Sigma?

Many companies and critics of Six Sigma believed that achieving six levels of quality was impossible, but many companies have proved the critics wrong. Some companies even go beyond six-sigma. An example of this is GE Aircraft Engines, which operate at Nine Sigma levels of quality. Six sigma is practical because it reduces the amount of errors in customer service and products. This leads to increased customer satisfaction, increased revenue, more returning customers, and the acquisition of new customers. Companies that can implement six-sigma successfully have higher standards of quality and usually produce better products and services.

Why is it only Six Sigma?

Many people do not know how six-sigma relates to 3.4 defects per million. Essentially, people do not know how having six levels of sigma improves quality significantly. Many companies used to have less sigma, usually about three or four. However, Motorola was the first to use six levels. Six is the perfect number because whereas four sigma makes sure that there are only about 2.6 problems in a thousand. However, the problem arises with deviation. Imagine a manufacturing process in


which a drill makes a hole that is supposed to be 100 micrometers. With four levels of Sigma, only about 1 in 400 will be defective. This unfortunately does not take into account the average value of measurement, which will shift over time. So, if the measurement gradually drifts as each new hole is drilled, about 6.6% of the output will be off by 1.5 sigma in each direction at anytime. If the process has drifted by 150 micrometers, then the hole will be off by 300 micrometers, which is an extremely large defective rate. Using 6 sigma, with a 1.5 sigma shift to make up for average deviation, the ratios are much lower and therefore the defective rates are much more sensible. The same drift in a six-sigma process will still only produce a defect for products or services that are more than 4.5 sigma away from the average in the same direction. Using the mathematics of a normal curve, this works out to 3.4 defects per million which is much more acceptable.

Conclusion

Customers value quality above all other things in a business. If a business produces a high quality product or service, more customers will return, and that business will gain new customers. Six-sigma helps to ensure the quality of goods and services is only the best. Six-sigma, when implemented correctly, is very effective and that is why many companies today use Six-sigma. This process was pioneered more than 20 years ago by Motorola, and has proven its lasting qualities through its continued use in the business world. Any company that wants to gain and retain customers while producing a high-quality product should consider the use of Six-sigma.

About the Author

Dana Schorden enjoys writing about Six Sigma. Learn more at Six Sigma News, a weblog with daily six sigma software reviews and information.

 

About Management - business management - people management - and more
THE starting place for exploring MANAGEMENT; helping new managers get started and experienced managers get better.
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Management - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The phrase "management is what managers do" occurs widely, suggesting the difficulty of ... The management of a large organisation may have three levels: ...
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Free Management Library
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Welcome to the American Management Association
Helping business professionals learn practical management skills and the best practices of world class organization.
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Management
International review on management research. Peer-reviewed, occasional. Ejournal, with tables of content, abstracts and full articles available on-line.
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Society for Human Resource Management
Advances the human resource profession to ensure that HR is recognized as an essential partner in developing and executing organizational strategy.
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FEMA | Federal Emergency Management Agency
Agency of the US government tasked with Disaster Mitigation, Preparedness, Response & Recovery planning.
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Account Manager. Recruiter: Financial Times. Part Qualified Management Accountant. Recruiter: Robert Half Finance & Accounting ...
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Small Business Management: Advice and Guides
Online guide to small business management. Find articles, advice and how-to guides.
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Academy of Management Online
Academy of Management: This is the official web site of the Academy of Management, with information on membership, journals, list servers, web sites, ...
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Business Management, Leadership and Decision Making Strategies and ...
Provides business management articles, webcasts, online learning, and books as well as conferences focused on leadership and decision making.
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Object Management Group
Distributed object computing industry standards group founded in 1989. Defined standards include CORBA and IIOP.
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Management Reading | Global Executive | Business | Economist.com
The one management thinker every educated person should read Nov 17th 2005 ... The story of Emerson's successful management process is fascinating. ...
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Emerald: Home
Publisher of journals in management and library and information services, engineering, applied science and technology.
www.emeraldinsight.com
 
Yale School of Management
The mission of the Yale School of Management is to educate global leaders for business and society. We pride ourselves in providing a hard-edged business ...
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US Office of Personnel Management
Official Federal Government site listing positions nationwide for special agent, federal police officers and related jobs.
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Waste Management is the #1 Residential and Commercial Trash Service Provider.
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