Re: SIX SIGMA

[Sinte@aol.com]

I believe Six Sigma is being used as the latest fad for organizations which 
define quality as meeting specs and therefore find short term economic gain 
because they don't have internal rejects (cost of quality) for rework or 
scrap of parts etc.  Unfortunately, short term thinking does not provide long 
term benefits derived from improving processes by working with a customer on 
what their expectations are.  Too, look at the industry and cost associated 
with Six Sigma training.  Those who make their living by training Six Sigma 
are not going to stand up and say what it really is.  I think ASQ has even 
gotten itself caught up in the money scheme of the Six Sigma money game.

I tell my students at the community college in which I teach that Good SPC 
lots of hard work, study, application and knowledge of customer expectations 
will help you improve processes that will benefit the customer (internal or 
external).  As a good statistician friend of mine has said, "the most 
important number you can know about a process is its sigma".  Any process 
that allows a 1.5 sigma shift of its average is not in a state of statistical 
control according to the definitions I have read. In fact, it may have been 
on this Den list that I read that when asked who came up with the 1.5 sigma 
shift as being acceptable when Six Sigma first started at Motorola years ago, 
no one knew.  

I have to remind myself that most organizations that are jumping on the Six 
Sigma band wagon are managed by those who manage by numbers not by the 
principles of Dr. Deming.

Linda Ortberg
Dept. Chair Tarrant County College
Ft. Worth, Tx
President and CEO
Leading Education.com Inc
www.LeadingEducation.com 
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