Information Regarding The Six Sigma Cycle Time
Six Sigma is the name of a popular business management strategy. It was initially developed by the Motorola Company in the 1980s as a way to train and prepare members of their upper management. Today, the method is used by hundreds of different corporations in numerous different sectors of business. The following article will provide plenty of information regarding the Six Sigma cycle time as well as general information about the process.
The term “six sigma” was derived from a well-known statistical terminology that related to product manufacturing. Sigma, or standard deviation, is a measure of variability of a data set from the mean. A process that is 6-Sigma is one where, statistically speaking, 99.99966% of the created products are expected to be defect free. Motorola made only having roughly three defects per one million goods a goal for their company, and then later named their entire strategy after it. Most manufacturing companies run at a 3-sigma rate, or approximately, 67,000 DPMO, or defects per million opportunities. 6-sigma has a rate of 3.4 DPMO.
The purpose of the program is to effectively improve the quality of manufactured products or services and to largely minimize error. It is also meant to set up a special network of high level employees within an organization and turn them into experts in their given fields who work closely together in teams. These people receive special training and are referred to as “Black Belt”, “Green Belt”, and so on.
Most companies that deal with product manufacturing, providing services and engineering offer six sigma certification programs to their upper level employees. After much training, attending lectures, and completing projects, certain employees are officially deemed Six Sigma Certified at a certain level, based upon their knowledge base of the methodology.
Within the program, and aside from the colored belts, there are also seven short term levels. The level someone is named corresponds to the percentage of non-defective products being manufactured under their watch, with seven being the highest and rarest.
The highest levels within the program are known as Executive Leaders. They are higher ranks than both the green and black belts and one level above the Champions. Members of this rank include powerful CEOs, CFOs, and other top management positions. Their responsibilities as the program’s highest ranking members include implementing and overseeing its goals and regulations. They also have the luxury of coming up with new breakthrough ideas for their companies and employees.
This management method is understandably more efficient when implemented in larger, fortune five hundred corporations, but can be applied to almost any organization, including small local family run businesses. Although it started as a mostly obscure training method at only a handful of companies, Six Sigma began to quickly spread as other companies got wind of its success.
Cycle time often refers to the amount of time it should take in order for a task, project, or job to take from start to finish, and is sometimes used to describe the process of obtaining a belt certification. Six Sigma aims to decrease the cycle time it takes to produce a product or service, all the while increasing its quality and maximizing its profit.
Comments are closed.