Six Sigma Key Roles

• Executive Leadership, that includes the CEO and other members of top management. They are responsible for setting up a vision for Six Sigma implementation. They empower the other role holders with the freedom and resources to explore new ideas for breakthrough improvements
• Champions take responsibility for Six Sigma implementation across the organization in an integrated manner. The Executive Leadership draws them from upper management. Champions also act as mentors to Black Belts
• Master Black Belts, identified by champions, act as in-house coaches on Six Sigma. They devote 100% of their time to Six Sigma. They assist champions and guide Black Belts and Green Belts and, apart from statistical tasks, they spend their time on ensuring consistent application of Six Sigma across various functions and departments
• Black Belts operate under Master Black Belts to apply Six Sigma methodology to specific projects. They devote 100% of their time to Six Sigma. They primarily focus on Six Sigma project execution, whereas Champions and Master Black Belts focus on identifying projects/functions for Six Sigma
• Green Belts are the employees who take up Six Sigma implementation along with their other job responsibilities, operating under the guidance of Black Belts
• Yellow Belts participate as project team members. They review process improvements that support the project
• White Belts can work on local problem-solving teams that support overall projects, but may not be part of a Six Sigma project team. They understand basic Six Sigma concepts from an awareness perspective

DMADV (DFSS)

What is DMADV Methodology?

The acronym DMADV sounds pretty much similar to DMAIC. The similarity ends after the first three letters DMA.

1.     Define: You will define the goals of the project and that of the customers (both internal and external)

2.     Measure: Here you will quantify the customer needs as well as the goals of the management

3.     Analyze: Analyze the options, existing process to determine the cause of error origination and evaluate corrective measures

4.     Design: Design a new process or a corrective step to the existing one to eliminate the error origination that meets the target specification

5.     Verify: Verify, by simulation or otherwise, the performance of thus developed design and its ability to meet the target needs

DFSS is the acronym for Design For Six Sigma. Unlike the DMAIC methodology, the phases or steps of DFSS are not universally recognized or defined — almost every company or training organization will define DFSS differently. Many times a company will implement DFSS to suit their business, industry and culture; other times they will implement the version of DFSS used by the consulting company assisting in the deployment. One popular Design for Six Sigma methodology is called DMADV, and retains the same number of letters, number of phases, and general feel as the DMAIC acronym.

DMAIC

The DMAIC Methodology

Six Sigma improvement teams use the DMAIC methodology to root out and eliminate the causes of defects:

D Define a problem or improvement opportunity.

M Measure process performance.

A Analyze the process to determine the root causes of poor performance; determine whether the process can be improved or should be redesigned.

I Improve the process by attacking root causes.

C Control the improved process to hold the gains.

Six Sigma

• Six Sigma is a set of tools and strategies for process improvement originally developed by Motorola in 1986. 
• Six Sigma became well known after Jack Welch made it a central focus of his business strategy at General Electric in 1995, and today it is used in different sectors of industry. 
• Six Sigma at many organizations simply means a measure of quality that strives for near perfection. 
• Six Sigma is a disciplined, data-driven approach and methodology for eliminating defects (driving toward six standard deviations between the mean and the nearest specification limit) in any process – from manufacturing to transactional and from product to service. 
• Six Sigma seeks to improve the quality of process outputs by identifying and removing the causes of defects (errors) and minimizing variability in manufacturing and business processes. 
• It uses a set of quality management methods, including statistical methods, and creates a special infrastructure of people within the organization ("Champions", "Black Belts", "Green Belts", "Orange Belts", etc.) who are experts in these very complex methods. 
• Each Six Sigma project carried out within an organization follows a defined sequence of steps and has quantified financial targets (cost reduction and/or profit increase).