Sigma Six Training Articles

You may have heard a lot about six sigma, but if you want to know exactly what is six sigma, then read on. Six sigma can be described as a set of concepts and methodologies that aim at achieving near-perfect business processes wherein the total number of defects never exceeds 3.4 per million opportunities that exist for such defects to occur. When an organization achieves such high levels of efficiency, it automatically leads to a substantial reduction in operating costs, necessary for improving profit margins and retaining the competitive edge in the marketplace. Not surprising then to know that six sigma is now increasingly being preferred over other types of quality improvement initiatives such as TQM (Total Quality management).

The concept of Six Sigma quality is not something new in the world of business. No matter what trade or industry your company belongs to, you surely must have heard of Six Sigma at one time or another. This is because Six Sigma has worked wonders for many companies worldwide. In addition, it worked wonders for the very company that developed it, which is Motorola.

The basic premise behind Six Sigma is to have a system that eliminates defects in the products created and developed by the company. The person who formulated the concept for Motorola is actually Bill Smith, back in 1986. However, Smith was not the first to have thought of the concepts that ultimately make up Six Sigma. This is because Six Sigma is actually inspired by so many quality improvement methodologies that have existed over the past years. These methodologies include Quality Control, Total Quality Management or TQM, and Zero Defects. Six Sigma and its predecessors have the following in common:

Everyone is talking about it; it's on every manager's mind and it's definitely taking some people places. Read on to know all about Six Sigma. Six Sigma is a method that employs statistical analysis to reduce or even eliminate defects, defined as "unacceptable deviation from the mean", in manufacturing and service related processes. It stands for Six Standard Deviations (sigma being the Greek alphabet representing standard deviation). Broadly, Six Sigma has three aspects: the metric, the methodology and its philosophy. Together, they help reduce the defects per million opportunities (DPMO) to 3.4, which is the Six Sigma benchmark.