Summary
In this article the author is ultimately looking at what Six Sigma training programs and the tool sets of Black Belts and Green Belts lack in two ways -- from the standpoint not only of what exists in formal definitions and published reports but also from my own experiences and discussions with practitioners. He categorizes those things missing from Six Sigma into three major groups: 1. technical but not statistical, 2. nontechnical, and 3. statistical. Six Sigma has been successful-wonderfully successful -- in serving as an action oriented method for improving processes to yield better financial outcomes. Only through continual improvement -- a basic principle of quality -- will it remain a viable and lasting methodology.
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Making Six Sigma Last
On ASQ' s website, you can find two similar definitions of Six Sigma. Under Training and Certification, it's defined as a "method for reducing variation in manufacturing, service or other business processes. Six Sigma projects measure the cost benefit of improving processes that are producing substandard products or services."1
The Quality Progress glossary says Six Sigma is a "methodology that provides businesses with the tools to improve the capability of their business processes. This increase in performance and decrease in process variation leads to defect reduction and improvement in profits, employee morale and quality of product."2Of course, any definition at the level of these two examples fails to be sufficiently descriptive to enable a careful analysis of what is missing or what needs to be enhanced in Six Sigma. Furthermore, the real problem of description is, of course, that in practice the definitio...See the full content of this document
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