Six Sigma: Quality Performance

Clomedia.com Editor - 7/1/03

Chief learning officers in many organizations focus on the cutting edge of business practices to shape the corporate learning agenda. Quality initiatives like Six Sigma have long been a priority on that agenda. Let’s examine three major implications of Si

The appearance of “quality” topics originated as early as the 1950s when Deming’s teachings surfaced. In the 1980s, major corporations like Motorola, Digital Equipment, Boeing and Xerox rallied around the quality concept of Six Sigma. In recent years, popularized by General Electric, Allied Signal, Sony, DuPont and others that tell a tale of dramatic quality improvement and change, Six Sigma is at the forefront of quality initiatives commanding CLOs’ attention and learning resources.

Because of the rigorous methodology imposed by Six Sigma, learning and training organizations become heavily involved with preparing employees for Six Sigma. Employees are utilizing Six Sigma skills to drive quality improvement in functions ranging from manufacturing and engineering to purchasing and human resources. What does this enterprise-wide methodology demand from corporate learning organizations?

Six Sigma Defined
Six Sigma is a data-driven, methodical program of continuous and breakthrough improvement focused on customers and their critical requirements. Sigma refers to the Greek symbol (s) that represents the amount of variation in a process. The lower the variation in a process, the fewer defective parts or service transactions are produced, and the higher the Sigma number. The ultimate goal is to eliminate defects and errors and the costs associated with poor quality. After defining which performance measures represent Critical to Customer (CTC) requirements, data are collected on the number of defects and then translated into a sigma number. A sigma of 6 translates to 3.4 defects per million opportunities. (See Table 1.) It is common to find 3 to 4 sigma levels in many manufacturing processes, and or 3 sigma in transactional businesses. Moving from 3 to 4 sigma could be classified as continuous improvement. The breakthroughs occur when a process is improved to the 6 sigma level, almost perfect quality. For example, U.S. daily mail delivery at the 4 sigma level would result in the loss of 0,000 pieces of mail each hour. If mail delivery were at the 6 sigma level, the result would be the loss of seven pieces of mail each hour.

Table 1: Sigma Capabilities