This document discusses organizing Six Sigma. It describes key Six Sigma roles including leadership teams, champions, master black belts, black belts, and green belts. The leadership team establishes the strategic plan and infrastructure for Six Sigma. Champions and belts lead project teams and use statistical tools to reduce process variation and improve quality. Six Sigma requires top-down support and a project management structure.

1. Organizing Six Sigma
Christopher J. Zampogna
Operations Management 380
Boise State University

2. What will be covered
• The History of Six Sigma
• Six Sigma Defined
• Brainstorming Exercise
• The Six Sigma Roadmap
• Organizing Six Sigma
• A Real-World Example
• An Exercise
• Summary
• Reading List
• References

3. The History of Six Sigma
• “Six Sigma” originated at Motorola in 1982
• Early adoptors
– Allied Signal (Honeywell)
– General Electric
• Six Sigma management philosophy today
– A well-developed, thorough approach to quality
improvement
– Uses statistics and management by fact
– Is effective in manufacturing and services firms

4. Defining Six Sigma (6 )
“Six Sigma: A comprehensive and flexible system
for achieving, sustaining and maximizing business
success. Six sigma is uniquely driven by a close
understanding of customer needs, disciplined use of
facts, data, and statistical analysis and diligent
attention to managing, improving, and reinventing
business processes.”
- Peter S. Pande6


5. Defining Six Sigma (6 )
• The Greek symbol (sigma) refers to the
amount of variation in a process around the
mean value for that process
• Processes have acceptable upper and
lower limits
• Six Sigma is concerned with reducing the
variations to get more output within those
limits



6. Defining Six Sigma (6 )
• In the chart below, 64.6% of the measures are
between the upper and lower limits
• This is a 1 process
• Reducing the variations in the process will bring a
higher percentage within the acceptable limits

Mean (μ)
+1σ-1σ-2σ +2σ-3σ +3σ
34.13 %34.13 %
13.06 %
2.14 %
13.06 %
2.14 %
0.13 % 0.13 %
Lower
Limit
Upper
Limit


7. The 6 Difference
What is the Six Sigma difference ?
• one typo per page (3 sigma)
vs.
one typo per library (6 sigma)
• playing golf at a 6 sigma level means missing
one putt every 163 years


8. Brainstorming Exercise:
Where are the variations?
Identify six processes in your business that
have variations in the output.
(HINT: manufacturing, purchasing, inventory, forecasting,
product design, customer service, accounting...)

9. The Six Sigma Roadmap
• Five steps to implementing Six
Sigma9
1. Identify core processes and key customers
2. Define customer requirements
3. Measure current performance
4. Prioritize, analyze, implement improvements
5. Expand and integrate the Six Sigma system

10. Organizing Six Sigma
• Key Roles10
– Leadership Team
– Champions
– Mentors (master black belts)
– Experts (black belts)
– Participants (green belts)

11. Key Six Sigma Roles
• The Leadership Group
– Be actively involved from outset
– Develop a strategic plan
– Establish Roles and Infrastructure
– Establish supporting policies
• Job descriptions
• Reward/Compensation systems
• Career paths

12. Key Six Sigma Roles
• The Leadership Group (cont’d)
– Select projects
– Prioritize projects and allocate resources
– Facilitate, guide, manage

13. Key Six Sigma Roles
• The Champions17
– Find appropriate projects
– Represent projects to the leadership
– Provide coaching
– Ensure allocation of resources
– Resolve issues

14. Key Six Sigma Roles
• Master Back Belts
– Coach and support project leads
– Work as a change agent
– Train others in the use of six sigma tools

15. Key Six Sigma Roles
• Black Belts
– Highly trained experts
– Manage project leaders
– Lead project teams

16. Key Six Sigma Roles
• Green Belts
– Trained in the use of statistical tools
– Lead project teams
– Participate on project teams

17. A Real-World Example
• General Electric’s 6 results:
- reduced invoice defects and disputes with a key customer by 98%
- saved $1 million annually in contract review process (GE Capital)
- developed breakthrough technology that reduced medical scan times to
30 seconds from 3 minutes
- improved a key call center performance measure from 76% 99%
- reduced vibrations in Power System rotors by 300%
- saved $320 million in less than two years, $750 million in three years


18. Exercise
1) If you have a 2 sigma process, what percentage of the
output is within spec ?
2) Six Sigma originated at Honeywell –T/F
3) Six Sigma focuses on the customer –T/F
4) What does the Greek symbol sigma represent?
5) Six Sigma utilizes fact-based decision making – T/F
6) Continuous improvement requires feedback and
adjustments to ensure achievement of business
objectives – T/F
ANSWERS: 1) 94.38%, 2) False, 3)True, 4)Standard deviation, 5) True, 6) True

19. Six Sigma Summary
• Project-driven management
philosophy
• Relies on fact-based decision making
(statistical tools)
• Requires top-down support
• Requires an infrastructure that can
support quality project management
• Has been shown to have markedly
positive impacts on business
performance

20. Suggested Reading
• Breyfogle, F.W., III, Cupello, J.M., & Meadows, B. (2003). Managing Six Sigma: A Practical
Guide to Understanding, Assessing, and Implementing the Strategy that Yields Bottom-Line
Success. New York, New York: John Wiley & Sons.
• Eckes, George. (2001) The Six Sigma Revolution: How General Electric and Others Turned
Process into Profits. New York, New York: John Wiley & Sons.
• Eckes, George. (2003) Six Sigma for Everyone. New York, New York: John Wiley & Sons.
• Foster, S. Thomas. (2004). Managing Quality: An Integrative Approach. Upper Saddle
River, New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall.
• Kerzner, Harold. (2003). Project Management: a systems approach to planning, scheduling,
and controling. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall.
• Kinicki, A, & Kreitner, R. (2003). Organizational Behavior: key concepts, skills & best
practices. New York, New York: McGraw Hill.
• Pande, P.S., Neuman, R.P., & Cavanagh, R.R. (2000). The Six Sigma Way: How GE,
Motorola and other Top Companies are Honing Their Performance. New York, New York:
McGraw Hill.

21. Bibliography
1) Eckes, George. (2001) The Six Sigma Revolution: How General Electric and Others
Turned Process into Profits. p.5. New York, New York: John Wiley & Sons.
2) Eckes, The Six Sigma Revolution. p.6.
3) Ibid.
4) Eckes, The Six Sigma Revolution. pp.9-10.
5) Costanzo, Chris. (2002). At Suntrust, Six Sigma is Middle Management’s Baby. American
Banker, June 12, 2002, Vol. 167, Issue 112.
6) Pande, P.S., Neuman, R.P., & Cavanagh, R.R. (2000). The Six Sigma Way: How GE,
Motorola and other Top Companies are Honing Their Performance. New York, New York:
McGraw Hill.
7) Breyfogle, F.W., III, Cupello, J.M., & Meadows, B. (2003). Managing Six Sigma: A Practical
Guide to Understanding, Assessing, and Implementing the Strategy that Yields Bottom-Line
Success. p.6. New York, New York: John Wiley & Sons.

22. Bibliography
8) Vasilash, Gary S. (1999). Missing One Putt Every 163 Years. Automotive Manufacturing
and Production, Dec99, Vol. 111, Issue 12.
9) Pande, p.67.
10) Eckes, The Six Sigma Revolution. p.25.
11) Pande, chapters 7 and 8.
12) Pande, p.110.
13) Eckes, George. (2003) Six Sigma for Everyone. pp.15-26. New York, New York: John
Wiley & Sons.
14) Pande, pp. 96-103.
15) Gale, Sara F. (2003). Building Frameworks for Six Sigma. Workforce, May2003, Vol. 82,
Issue 5.

23. Bibliography
16) Kerzner, Harold. (2003). Project Management: a systems approach to planning,
scheduling and controlling. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall.
17) Pande, p.119.
18) Eckes, The Six Sigma Revolution. p.43.
19) Pande, pp.123-127.
20) Ibid.
21) Foster, S. Thomas. (2004). Managing Quality: An Integrative Approach. P.404. Upper
Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall.
22) Eckes, The Six Sigma Revolution. p.43.
23) Foster, pp.404-405.
24) Breyfogle, p.146.