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Six Sigma in industry: some observations after twenty‐five years
Author(s) -
Goh T. N.
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
quality and reliability engineering international
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.913
H-Index - 62
eISSN - 1099-1638
pISSN - 0748-8017
DOI - 10.1002/qre.1093
Subject(s) - six sigma , sigma , popularity , lean six sigma , human performance technology , design for six sigma , engineering , operations management , psychology , social psychology , physics , lean manufacturing , quantum mechanics
Six Sigma has enjoyed considerable popularity in the industry for about a quarter of a century. While the standard contents of Six Sigma have been described and discussed widely, some little articulated aspects of Six Sigma implementation deserve the attention of serious practitioners. In this paper, a ‘5 W +1 H ’ (What, Why, When Where, Who, How) format is used to elucidate the nature of Six Sigma in a non‐mathematical discussion, followed by observations peculiar to the usual mode of development of Six Sigma professionals. It is pointed out that Six Sigma has Statistical Thinking as its foundation; for Six Sigma and its associated frameworks such as Design for Six Sigma and Lean Six Sigma to continue to be effective, it is important that users have a clear understanding of the nature of Six Sigma and be able to address the related challenges in practice. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.