Warren Brussee - All about Six SIGMA: The Easy Way to Get Started

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To my wife Lois and my two children. They have
never faltered in believing in me as I approached
different challenges in life, including becoming an
author. Belief in someone is a wonderful gift.

W hen I was getting my GE training in Six Sigma, there was an outside consultant teaching one of the Six Sigma tools, and it seemed that he was making it more complicated than required. After a few days of training, I asked him if some simplifications wouldnt be valid, with no loss of tool utility. He laughed, said he agreed, and even offered some thoughts on how the subject could be simplified even further than what I had suggested. I was taken aback with this answer and asked why, since he felt that way, he wasnt teaching a more simplified approach. His answer was that because he had his Ph.D. in mathematics, was an author of a book on the subject, and was being paid a lot of money by GE, he felt that the depth and complexity he was presenting was expected.

Since most of the existing books on Six Sigma were written by people similar to the instructor mentioned above, with very specialized and esoteric knowledge in their own academic fields, much of Six Sigma is presented in a more complex format than is really required.

Six Sigma enables companies to reduce costly defects. It uses data and logic to drive process improvements and to measure success. Although most Six Sigma work has been in manufacturing, Six Sigma is generic and has shown success in virtually any area that has quality issues.

This book demystifies Six Sigma. Although Six Sigma is being used in many companies, it is generally thought of as being complex and bureaucratic, requiring confusing software and statistics. This image is exacerbated by the acronyms and confusing terms used to describe the Six Sigma process. Even its title is misleading: Six Sigma is often defined as having a goal of 3 defects per million. As you will discover later, 3 defects per million is 4.5 sigma, not six sigma.

Six Sigma is similar to earlier quality programs such as Total Quality Control (TQC) and ISO 9000. The biggest differences are that Six Sigma is packaged better, is tied closely to bottom-line profits, and has gotten a high degree of support from top levels of management. In fact, GEs autocratic CEO Jack Welchs insistence on its use at GE did more to get Six Sigma recognized than any other contributing factor.

One misconception about Six Sigma is that every element of Six Sigma is complicated, requiring highly trained experts to implement. Not true! Many of the Six Sigma tools are straightforward and require no statistics. These tools are grounded in common sense and are structured to assist implementation. In fact, in this text the first 14 chapters require no probability or statistics.

Even when statistical work is needed to validate process differences or product changes, the statistical tools require no more math than what most people get in high school. However, this type of math is not used much in daily life, so some review and simplification are needed. Chapters requiring statistics have practical practice problems with detailed steps. The 10 formulas and 4 tables included in this book are all someone need to be able to do the statistics required for the Six Sigma work described here. Microsofts Excel has all the needed software.

Many of the Six Sigma tools in this text are labeled as simplified. This simplification does not reduce their effectiveness; it just puts a degree of reality into the tools. In all cases I give reasons for the simplifications and give reference texts for those wishing to use the traditional nonsimplified tools.

Most books on Six Sigma are just an overview, with little detail on actually using Six Sigma. All About Six Sigma, in contrast, takes the reader through the Six Sigma tool details and required statistics so that he or she can quickly apply Six Sigma to real-world problems.