SIX SIGMA MEANING

Six Sigma Meaning: What Is It?

Six Sigma Meaning: What Is It? Six Sigma is a collection of techniques and instruments to minimize variation, increase quality and efficiency, and decrease errors and defects in business operations. A practically flawless level of quality with only 3.4 defects per million opportunities is the aim of the Six Sigma methodology. It is accomplished by identifying and removing causes of variation and streamlining processes using an organized method known as DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyse, Improve, Control).

“Six Sigma” offers a statistical measure for the degree to which a process departs from perfection—operating at Six Sigma results in a failure rate of just 0.00034%, meaning that almost no faults are produced. Since Motorola invented Six Sigma in the 1980s, numerous other businesses have adopted it globally, including General Electric, Toyota, and Amazon. It raises profits, lowers costs, and improves customer satisfaction in manufacturing, healthcare, finance, and services.

Project managers frequently employ Six Sigma, a systematic and data-driven approach, to optimize processes and reduce errors. It offers a systematic framework for locating and eliminating variances that could affect how well a project works.

The name “etymology” derives from the Greek symbol “sigma” or “σ,” which is used in statistics to measure the departure of a process from its mean or aim. “Six Sigma” originates from the statistical bell curve, where a single Sigma represents one standard deviation from the mean. When six Sigmas are present in the process—three above and three below the mean—the defect rate is deemed “extremely low.” 

The standard distribution graph presented below highlights the statistical presumptions of the Six Sigma approach. The range of values encountered increases with an increasing standard deviation. Therefore, Six Sigma targets processes with a mean of at least 6σ away from the closest specification limit.