Bruce Williams

You don’t have to wait until your multi-vari data are collected to start creating the multi-vari chart for Six Sigma. Instead, you can build the chart, incrementally, adding more to it as you collect more data.Multi-vari charts can be drawn by hand; in fact, the process operators themselves can create them, providing those folks with a critical opportunity to invest themselves in the discovery of the root cause and the development of the solution.

To understand how to apply Lean in any organization, you should know the basics: the principles, the definitions of value and waste, how to lead effectively, and how to define and improve the value stream. You should also be aware of how a Lean leader thinks and acts.What is Lean?Lean is a customer-centric methodology used to continuously improve any process through the elimination of waste in everything you do; it is based on the ideas of “Continuous Incremental Improvement” and “Respect for People.

To apply Six Sigma to your business and produce the best results, you need to understand what Six Sigma is, the principles of Six Sigma, and the DMAIC problem-solving method. The correct tools and use of the Six Sigma scale and methods will keep your data dependable and reusable.What is Six Sigma?Generally, Six Sigma is a set of techniques and tools that help businesses improve their processes.

In Six Sigma, you make progress the old-fashioned way — one project at a time. In essence, projects are the unit of change; they define the collective effort by which most Six Sigma progress is accomplished. Projects represent — and in fact are — the level of granularity expressed to manage Six Sigma change, from a single process improvement to a large-scale business improvement effort.

A cause-and-effect matrix — sometimes called a C&E matrix for short — helps you discover which factors affect the outcomes of your Six Sigma initiative. It provides a way of mapping out how value is transmitted from the input factors of your system (the Xs) to the process or product outputs (the Ys). With these relationships visible and quantified, you can readily discover the most-influential factors contributing to value.

To begin understanding the technical side of Six Sigma, you have to first answer a seemingly straightforward question: What is quality? A traditional and widely held definition of quality is Quality = compliance with specifications The following mental experiment walks through the traditional definition of quality and highlights why measuring quality this way is a flawed approach.

The problem statement serves several purposes in a Six Sigma project. First, it significantly clarifies the current situation by specifically identifying the problem and its severity, location, and financial impact. It also serves as a great communication tool, helping to get buy-in and support from others. When problem statements are well written, people readily grasp and understand what you’re trying to accomplish.

The sole purpose of Six Sigma is to increase productivity and using the four domains of activity can help achieve better efficiency. You can apply Six Sigma to four areas, or domains of activity: Thinking for breakthrough: The domain of thinking focuses on improving the capacity and efficiency of every employee.

The primary Statistical Process Control (SPC) tool for Six Sigma initiatives is the control chart — a graphical tracking of a process input or an output over time. In the control chart, these tracked measurements are visually compared to decision limits calculated from probabilities of the actual process performance.