Six Sigma Green Belt Improvement of Business Processes

When we improve our business processes, we are reducing the number of defects in our products and services for our customers. If there is a high level of complexity in our processes and products and services, there are more opportunities for defect. Therefore, to achieve a high Sigma capability, our goal is to reduce the total number of opportunities for defect, and concurrently increase the capability of the remaining opportunities.

An opportunity is defined as a set of circumstances that are favorable to some end. Each characteristic of our products and services is an opportunity. In general, four factors must be present for an opportunity to exist: a characteristic, a scale, a standard, and density. For example, characteristics that are critical to the customer are measured according to performance limits or success criteria. When we measure these characteristics, we are creating density, which is historical distribution. If all of these factors are said to be present, the opportunity is said to be "active." If the density is missing, the opportunity is said to be "passive."

There may be many opportunities for defect for each characteristic of our product and service. However, some opportunities are active and some are passive. When we are not measuring opportunities, they are passive. But, when we measure, test, or inspect opportunities for defect, they are considered active. Any CTQ (Critical to Quality), CTD (Critical to Delivery), or CTC (Critical to Cost) would, by definition, constitute an opportunity for non conformance, so long as it is actively measured and reported. In fact, in order to evaluate the true capability of our processes, it is important to consider only active opportunities for metric calculation.

We can establish density for both discrete and continuous data. When we have collected the number of categorical occurrences per observation, our density is based on discrete data. When we have collected measurements that are continuous in nature, our density, the historical distribution of continuous data, is based on the total area under the curve. Different statistical distributions, such as the Binomial, Poisson, Normal, and Log-normal are the most frequently used distributions for CTs to establish density. As organizations evolve in Six Sigma, they will value measurements more and density will be based on continuous data, allowing for estimates of process capability to become more accurate.

Process Quality Focus -- Overall this is the best way to attack the root causes of defects and customer satisfaction issues. The key, is identifying the processes that are critical to satisfaction and that are operating at a low Sigma level. This approach requires good cross-functional coordination since many of the processes will cross the traditional boundaries of departments.

Product Focus -- Another way to focus efforts is to identify the product family or system that is most contributing to poor customer satisfaction and is also a strategically important product or service. Such an approach usually requires that we look at a number of processes that feed into that product or service.

Project Cost Savings Focus -- While it is essential that we track the reductions in the cost of poor quality projects, we must also recognize that, depending on the priorities of a business, cost savings might become the main focus. In this situation, projects are selected on the amount management thinks it will save in costs, not necessarily which projects will most affect the root drivers of process capability. We need to recognize the limitations of this approach with respect to establishing new mindsets about quality.

Problem Focus -- Worst of all is a focus on the biggest problem or fire. It is short-sighted and usually not very focused since it is not clear what process should be addressed.

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