Key concepts of management
The Key concepts of management in Six Sigma are Critical-To-Quality (CTQ), defect, process capability, variation, stable operations and Design For Six Sigma (DFSS).
Critical-To-Quality - This is the attribute which is most important in the customer. The main purpose is to convert the customer requirements or wants to measurable needs for the business to implement. This approach will assume that the customer may articulate what they want. For example, consider a retail merchant who is receiving a significant number of complaints about the homeowner warranty policies from the customers. By analysing the customer survey data and also developing Critical-To-Quality, the business will be able to recognise Critical-To-Satisfaction needs. The needs will become the focus for improving the customer satisfaction. The business will eliminate the mandatory warranty visits and will make all the warranty visits optional. The customers will be satisfied when the necessary visits are eliminated. This is because the customers may not like too many visits and the extra optional visits. So, if the time frame for the scheduled warranty visits is expanded from three weeks to three months then the customers who having busy schedules may not find the time frame to be tough to be managed.
The business will take a general, tough to measure requirement and also develop the particular, measurable and also actionable requirements needed to drive the improvements in the customer satisfaction.
Defect - The defect occurs when the organisation is not able to deliver what the customer wants. The defects play a central role in Six Sigma methodology. A defect has to be thought as the failure to meet the customer expectations for the quality. By determining the customer satisfaction, companies might rely on the surveys, focus groups, customer complaints, returns and also other sources of information. Once the specifications have been established correctly then it should become easy to determine the defect relative to the specifications. Once the defect has been defined in the Define phase, the current defect rate can be measured through the Measure phase. Then, in the remainder of the DMAIC process the team will determine the root cause of the defects, implement improvements to counter the root causes and establish a means of making sure the gains which are maintained.
Process capability - This refers to the capability of the process to deliver. The process capability can be divided into short-term and long-term process capabilities. A part or the item may be classified as the defect if the desired measurement is represented as X which is outside the customer-supplier specification limit as USL or the upper specification limit and LSL or the lower specification limit. In addition, by specifying the USL and the LSL, a customer will also specify the target value which is the midpoint between the USL and the LSL.
Variation - This is what the customer sees and feels and might change very fast. So, the company should be ready for the internal change and also the possible radical change in the market.
Stable operations - This is making sure consistent, predictable processes to improve what the customer will see and feel.
Design For Six Sigma (DFSS) - This is designing to meet the customer requirements and the process capability. This is a proactive approach used to build Six Sigma performance into the upfront design of the product, service or the process.