The Six Sigma Methodology and its tools were developed by Motorola and continue to grow and prosper as they bring assistance to many other companies around the world. By using these strategies and tactics, you will be able to ensure that business processes are progressing according to plan.

The Six Sigma Methodology attempts to create a better quality environment for a business through methods and tools taught to trained and certified individuals. Once an individual has accomplished the requirements of Six Sigma Training at a certain level of knowledge, they gain a certificate and become leaders and experts within this methodology. These individuals are taught tools, statistics, and techniques and when to use them correctly in order to identify and then remove defects in a particular company’s products and/or services. They will only advance to Certification status after they have proven their abilities at a certain level.

The tools and methods that they are taught to utilize are explained within 2 similar processes known as the DMAIC and DMADV methods. These are the 2 distinct sets of infrastructure to follow when completing a Six Sigma Project. Both of these processes have also been created to improve a business’ transactions, processes, creation, and design. Each of these processes has five ‘steps’.  The steps of the DMAIC include; define, measure, analyze improve, and control.  This path is chosen when an already existing product or service needs to be perfected within a business.  The DMADV acronym stands for define, measure, analyze, design, and verify.  This path is chosen when a company wants to introduce a brand new product or service into their inventory or repertoire.

The two processes start out the same with both the DMAIC and the DMADV’s first 3 steps; Define, Measure, and Analyze. Within any project framework, trained and certified Six Sigma Professionals pride themselves on being able to define the issue and define the outcome of the project verbally to all of the stakeholders involved. Then they proceed to measure the aspects of relevant data and current processes to note any necessary changes that need to be made as well as for recording a baseline to measure success against in the future.  Statistical Analysis of the measured data ensures to truly figure out where the problems are occurring (or might occur) during the manufacture of a product.

This is where the two methods deviate.  Within the DMAIC framework, Improve and Control are next.  In these final two steps, the knowledge from all of the previous steps are used to find a solution that will improve the quality problem that the business at hand is having with products or services.  The Six Sigma Professionals will then be sure to implement the planned changes in practice and ensure that the changes are upheld and that the quality of the revised product stays at a ‘6-sigma’ level of quality – less than 3.4 defects per million opportunities.  Six Sigma Team members may even set up regulation systems such as a statistical procedure to monitor the process well into the future.

Within the DMADV framework, design and verify are the next steps used to assist different companies create new products from the start that are projected to be free of defects and are of a high quality that customers will want to buy. Design techniques will be detailed according to the statistics derived in the initial steps of the process. The organization will come up with and plan the design of a new product specifically before commencing with production or manufacture. After this has been instated, verification of the design with begin. In other words, the team will ensure that the product that comes off of the assembly line fits the design that was agreed upon 100%.

There are numerous methods that Sigma Six Professionals pride themselves on using in order to achieve quality results and innovative strategies. Improving the quality of process outputs through these methods helps identify and remove any defects, which paves the way for company success and soaring profits.