Six Sigma and Advanced Controls, Inc.
Six Sigma Quality Division
Tel. (502) 526-4214; Fax. (502) 526-4215
URL: http://www.sixsigmaquality.com
e-mail: sac@sixsigmaquality.com
Six Sigma and Advanced Controls, Inc., offers six sigma training, certification, and assistance in project execution. Your organization will benefit from six sigma regardless of what products you make or what services you offer.
Our tools, technologies, and instructional materials can handle all applications whether academic or industrial, manufacturing or transactional (service), continuous, batch or discrete, linear or nonlinear, static or dynamic.
Strategic Technologies for Global Competitiveness:
Vision 2020
Six Sigma for Global Competitiveness
1. What is six sigma?
Six sigma is a fundamental approach to delivering very high levels of customer satisfaction through disciplined use of data and statistical analysis for maximizing and sustaining business success. It will energize your organization and will bring about a strategic shift in thinking and participation by all employees. It is an absolute must for your organization, regardless of what products you make or what services you offer.
Six sigma also denotes a specific measure of how well a process or transaction is performing. A six sigma process or transaction produces extremely few defects - 3.45 per million opportunities (99.9997% defect-free). A defect is something that results in customer dissatisfaction. Customer satisfaction is the goal of six sigma; improved bottom-line performance results as a by-product. Six sigma is a journey, not a destination. The benefits of six sigma will begin accruing at the successful completion of a project and they are recurring, although it could take many years and much effort to reach six sigma defect levels.
2. Who is applying six sigma?
Six sigma was pioneered in the early eighties and applied to discrete-parts
manufacturing processes at Motorola in the
3. What are the achievements of companies who have adopted six sigma.
In 1998, General Electric reported corporate-wide benefits of $2 billion from six sigma projects against a net income of around $10 billion. The GE website claims 2000 six sigma projects were completed during the year 2000. So powerful has been the impact of six sigma that GE was named the most admired company in the world for four years in a row in the late nineties and Dr. Jack Welch, the then Chairman, as the Manager of the Century. Many top officials of GE who left the company for whatever reason are serving as CEOs of other companies and one of the first things they did at their new company was to embark on corporate-wide six sigma initiatives. Other corporations have also derived huge benefits from six sigma programs. For instance, Dow Chemical Co. and Du Pont have claimed benefits of the order of $ 1 billion for the year 2003.
The widespread acceptance of six sigma is also evident from the articles in major periodicals such as the Wall Street Journal (6/5/01; 9/14/99), the New York Times (12/7/98), Fortune (11/23/98), the Chicago Tribune (4/4/99), USA Today (07/21/98), and Business Week (10/13/03; 12/04/06).
4. Is six sigma appropriate for your organization?
Six sigma concepts are based on sound fundamental principles and show how to improve the performance of any process where work gets done. The methodology is insensitive to whether the process is manufacturing or transactional. Six sigma is appropriate to all work processes under the purview of your company. Because six sigma is a fundamental approach to problem solving, it is not a fad of the day; it is here to say.
Manufacturing processes in recent decades have benefited from automation. For manufacturing processes, six sigma will provide additional benefits in terms of increased throughput, reduced energy consumption, and improved quality control. Transactional processes in service companies worldwide have not benefited from scientific scrutiny. Since the defect rates in some transactional processes can be as high as 50%, the impact of six sigma programs can be enormous. Six sigma programs are typically directed to achieve one or more of the following three objectives on a corporate-wide basis: (1) Reduce costs, (2) Reduce cycle times, and (3) Reduce the number of defects (as perceived by internal and external customers). Achieving these objectives will translate into increased customer satisfaction and higher market share with the concomitant and significant positive impact on the bottom-line and global competitiveness.
5. Consequences of adopting and not adopting six sigma.
Only those companies and organizations will survive and thrive in the fiercely competitive global marketplace, which can provide highest quality products and services at competitive prices. The negative consequences of not adopting six sigma are equally profound.
Being content with performance that meets the customer specifications "on average" is no longer sufficient for such an average can be achieved even in midst of large "variability" in the product quality or transaction characteristics. Six sigma strategies aim at reducing the variance, and shifting the average in a favorable direction. When this is done, defects rates come tumbling down and all the benefits associated with six sigma accrue.
6. Six sigma in a Nutshell
Six sigma concepts evolve from three fundamental ideas:
1. For every effect (outcome of processes and transactions), there must necessarily
be a cause or causes (
Six sigma programs are implemented in five phases: (I) Scope, (II) Measure, (III) Analyze, (IV) Improve, and (V) Control.
In Phase I (Scope), the problem statement is formulated, response variables defined, and project goals are specified. This has to be done for every process.
In Phase II (Measure), a product tree or process map is drawn, data on response variables collected, measurement systems validated (Gage R & R), and baseline established.
The process map or product tree details all the subsystems and sheds light on problem areas, redundancies, and waste. They also shed light on what the potential impact factors are so that data may be taken on them in a subsequent phase.
Data on the response variables are required to establish the current capability of the transactional process, so the extent of subsequent improvement from six sigma may be properly catalogued. It is impractical or impossible to analyze every product or transaction for defects. One must rely on the analysis of a sufficiently small subset, called a sample, to infer the defect levels of the population. Statistics is a branch of science with which inferences about a population are made from a study of samples. Thus, a study of certain principles of elementary statistics is essential. It is very important to validate measurement systems for repeatability and reproducibility. The variability in the response variables should arise from impact factors (vital causes), not from errors in the measurement system. Statistical analysis is used to measure Gage R & R. Measurement systems must be improved before going any further as warranted.
In Phase III (Analyze), data are collected on the basis of the information provided on the process map. Depending on the size and scope of the problem under scrutiny, data on hundreds of factors could be collected. All of these factors are potential causes of variation in the response variables leading to defects. Six sigma's insistence on driving decisions based on data means that counter-intuitive solutions are found. The aim of the Analyze Phase is to identify the "vital few causes of variation" that are responsible for much of the variability in the response variables.
In Phase IV (Improve), the objective is to work on the vital causes of variation so that they contribute as little as possible to the variability in the response variables.
In Phase V (Control) the objective is to ensure that problems once fixed, stay fixed. This is accomplished through statistical monitoring via control charts. It is important to monitor response variables and the vital causes of variation.
It should be noted that six sigma is a journey, not a destination. Once six sigma programs are implemented, defect rates will decline, customer satisfaction will increase, and significant financial benefits will accrue upon project completion from one year to the next. However, six sigma defect levels (3.45 defects per million) may not be realized perhaps for many years into the future.
7. Why you should work with SAC?
We are a small but prestigious organization specializing in six sigma
training, advanced control and optimization software, and project executions
for universities and manufacturing/service companies. The team of consultants
at SAC is headed by Dr. Pradeep B. Deshpande, founder President and CEO, who is
also Professor Emeritus and a former Chairman of one of the oldest Chemical
Engineering Departments in the
While on the faculty at the
Prof. Deshpande was probably the first educator in the world to introduce
six sigma training to students in engineering and MBA programs. The six sigma
course Pradeep introduced has remained oversubscribed at the University of
Louisville in every offering and the MBA students at the Gatton College of
Business & Economics, University of Kentucky have rated SAC’s
six sigma training module as one of the best components of their new and innovative
MBA program. SAC with the help of its Indian consultants are conducting six
sigma training for MBA students at several well known B Schools in
8. Citations and participant reactions.
1. "Six
Sigma and the Dubbawallahs", Wake up to Money Program, BBC Radio-London
Interview, November 6, 2003. The 3-minute radio
interview is available for listening at the website link,
http://php.louisville.edu/speed/deshpande/Pradeep.mp3
2. "Putting Six Sigma
Processes to Work", Chemical Engineering, November 2003.
3. "Increased
Implementation by Corporates Essential", The Financial Express, August 7, 2001.
4. "Six Sigma Boosts the
Bottom Line", Editorial Update, Chemical
Engineering Progress, April
2001.
5. Lunch Box Boys Show Up Six
Sigma, Editorial Update, Chemical
Processing, May 2004.
6. Analyze
This: Why Dabbawallahs to Fortune 500 Firms are Hooked to Six Sigma, Indian
Express, Feature Article, April
19, 2004.
7. Six
Sigma Enlightenment: An Interview of Dr. Ashok V. Desai, BusinessWorld, October 4, 2004.
8.
9. The Geneius of Patanjali, Letter to the Editor,
10. 6s: Victory may be achieved this way too, SAKAAL Newspaper, Pune, October
2, 2006.
11. Karma
Yoga and Six Sigma, Letter to Editor, Business Week, November 13, 2006.
12. Breath as Life
Force, Professor Puts Stocks in ancient technique from India, Business First, Louisville, Kentucky, November 10,
2006.
13. Prof. Deshpande’s
teaching skills are internationally recognized. SAC’s
training programs have always received outstanding evaluations in industrial
and academic six sigma assignments. The following are typical reactions of
participants in training programs.
“Finally, a course
that I can apply to real life”.
“Has genuine
interest in helping students succeed in
industry”.
“Very enthusiastic
about the subject; this helps me to be interested”.
“I find the concept
extremely useful and applicable across many businesses”.
“Very effective; good
PowerPoint presentation”.
“Very concerned that students understand the material”.
“This course should
become a permanent addition to the curriculum”.
Commenting on the amount
and depth of new knowledge gained, “Very much. I look forward to continued learning in this area”.
Commenting on the
effectiveness of the instructor, “Very well prepared”.
Commenting on the
instructor’s attitude towards students, “Fantastic’.
9. Other interesting contributions.
In a series of papers
resulting from research spanning three decades, Prof. Deshpande predicted over
a dozen years ago that the rise of
10. How do we proceed?
The plan of action of action will vary depending on whether you are an academic institution or an industrial client and also on the scope of your initial six sigma deployment. Universities may wish to embrace six sigma in all its operations and/or introduce six sigma training in specific curricula. Manufacturing and service companies may wish to introduce six sigma in specific areas of their operations or they may be interested in a corporate-wide deployment. For successful six sigma deployment, senior management must be strongly committed to the six sigma initiative. They need to know the what, why, and how to six sigma deployment in a formal training program without getting down in statistical details. Depending on the size of your organization, you may or may not need in-house trainers of six sigma (called Six Sigma Master Black Belts). You will need adequate number of professionals who will serve as project leaders (Six Sigma Black Belts) and professionals who will undertake six sigma projects (Six Sigma Green Belts). SAC would be pleased to customize a suitable program to suit your needs.
11. Contact Information.
Six Sigma and Advanced Controls, Inc.,