| Six Sigma was an original business management | | | | dissatisfaction to need to achieve specific project |
| strategy developed in 1981. Today, it is widely used | | | | goals. (2) Measure. Key areas of the current/ongoing |
| around the world and in various industrial sectors. It | | | | process needs to be measured and relevant data |
| works by improving the quality of process output | | | | needs to be collected. This is crucial before the team |
| through the identification of errors and minimizing | | | | can move on to the next phase. Without accurate |
| variability in business processes. Basically, it uses a set | | | | measurement, the following steps cannot be carried |
| of quality management techniques including statistical | | | | out. |
| analysis. Each project follows a sequence of steps | | | | (3) Analyze. Data collected need to be investigated to |
| and has defined, quantified targets (i.e. increase profit) | | | | establish cause-and-effect relationship. All factors that |
| and/or focuses on critical customer service areas (i.e. | | | | could be of influence must be taken into consideration. |
| delivery of products). It is associated with | | | | Determine what the relationships are and seek out |
| manufacturing processes whereby defects are kept | | | | root cause of the defect. (4) Improve. The current |
| to a minimal using a high standard of measurement. | | | | process should have room for improvement and |
| DMAIC stands for Define – Measure – Analyze | | | | teams can use various techniques (i.e. experiment |
| – Improve – Control and it represents a | | | | design) to create a new process. Then, run the |
| methodology of five distinct phases. Many | | | | process to determine capability of the new system. (5) |
| improvement teams in different industries apply Six | | | | Control. New processes are then controlled to minimize |
| Sigma DMAIC to root out and eliminate causes of | | | | defect occurrence. Control systems are also |
| defect. Here's a brief explanation of each phase: (1) | | | | introduced and people are assigned to monitor the |
| Define. Problems need to be defined before they can | | | | system. |
| be addressed. It can be anything from customer | | | | |