Essay on Six Sigma Benefits in Manufacturing Environment

Six Sigma is much more than a passing fad. It can actually deliver results. In fact, a number of Fortune 500 companies claim that it has made a significant difference in the quality of their processes and products. How new is the Six Sigma method? Well, some of it is new, especially its label, but most of it isn’t. Some of the tools and techniques used with Six Sigma are simply some very tried and true tools and practices that have been available for many years. However, Six Sigma does organize these tools into a more disciplined, focused, and aggressive methodology (Michael, 2003).

In addition, Six Sigma programs are often broader in organizational and process scope. They cover not just production concerns but also any business process that impacts customer satisfaction or any other areas of company performance, for that matter. Taken literally, Six Sigma means that any product or process will have no more than 3.4 defects per 1,000,000 units produced, tasks performed, orders filled, customers served, and so on. Working toward perfection keeps everyone involved in the process, striving for continuous, unrelenting improvement (Michael, 2003).

It does not mean that the office copier won’t jam hundreds of times per million sheets or that there won’t be defects for every car that rolls off an auto assembly line. Rather, Six Sigma means that whatever the error or defect rate currently is, it will be substantially lower in two weeks, two months, two years—because managers and workers at all levels are focused on improving the process. Six Sigma programs are driven by the following goals:
• Creating products and processes that are “defect-intolerant”
• Continually analyzing each element of a process, be it the predictability of a process, the defect rate from a process, or the accuracy with which customer orders are filled — to determine how it compares in its current state with a perfect, error-free process.....................

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