Six Sigma

Six Sigma may stand for different meanings to different organizations. While it is an all-out management philosophy that aims at operational excellence for an organization; it may mean a well-designed, comprehensive process improvement methodology that aims to increase efficiency for another organization. No matter where each company positions Six Sigma, it is the name of the “Journey to Operational Excellence”.

In simple words, Six Sigma is a highly disciplined, data-driven decision making approach for people who aim to improve processes to excellent levels.

Six Sigma is a very rigorous comprehensive system that focuses on the human resources who are capable of making the right decision at the right time, in the right place and using this capability in the most efficient way for the organizational purposes.

Six Sigma has proven itself as the most effective and successful initiative among the systems that have emerged in the last 50 years. Six Sigma as a management system focuses on perfecting all business processes as well as manufacturing processes in order to increase the total performance, efficiency and profitability of the organizations. The number of organizations implementing Six Sigma system and methodology, which was developed in Motorola by Mikel Harry and Bill Smith in 2000s, is growing globally every day.

Six Sigma dMAIC Methodology;

As a performance level, 6 sigma represents a process which is defect-free 99.99966 percent of the time, has become a metaphor for defining the vision and system to achieve this performance level. It is also the name of the miraculous change in company culture from the addiction of surviving with problems towards the habit of saving money by solving the problems.

Six Sigma is a well-architected system beyond its basic methodology and tools. The main thrust of Six Sigma is the application of statistical tools and methods in the context of a well-disciplined, functional, and easy to follow methodology. While the tools are often applied in the operational environment, their application to the other transactional business processes (marketing, sales, purchasing, logistics, planning, etc.) is becoming more and more common and extraordinary successful results are achieved by many companies. Another basic principle in Six Sigma is the visibility and traceability of financial impact as the consequence of reducing defects and improving processes.

Statistics is the core element of the system, because…

“…When our intuitions may lead us down the wrong path, data and analysis of data by proper statistical methods can set us straight.”

By providing an environment, infrastructure and effective human resources to solve problems specifically impacting business results and profitability by an extraordinary speed, Six Sigma management system has already proven itself by providing many companies with substantial profit through its implementation. Six Sigma is the most effective system, taking the companies in the future, because while the system focuses on projects impacting the business results, but not requiring investments, Black Belts nad Green Belts, who are trained as data based decision experts, complete these projects successfully, in short time. More importantly, a discipline is set to ensure the continuity of the system by the realized savings from the projects.

Black belts, who become experts in problem solving and data based decision, are also candidates for the future management roles and pioneers of change management. They become the practitioners, trainers and diffusers of Six Sigma methodology.

“Statistical thinking will one day be as necessary for efficient citizenship as the ability to read and write.”

H. G. Wells

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