Six Sigma is a methodology for improving the quality of everything from the manufacturing of minute electronic parts to the development of complex software. At its core, it has a set of tools that helps identify and eliminate defects, waste and undesirable outcomes. While there are many tools in the six sigma toolbox, here are
The science project. It’s something we all have completed and if you have kids might see each year at the school science fair. Does an expensive baseball travel farther than a cheaper one? Which melts an ice block quicker, salt water or tap water? Does changing the amount of vinegar affect the color when dying
Traveling is hard. Traveling with children is especially hard. A number of things can go wrong, making the trip difficult or even nonexistent. Some problems are nuisances (sick and/or hungry kids, delayed flights, or the wrong sized rental car), while other problems will lead to failure, which in this case means not reaching your destination
Too much to do and too little time—that’s product design. The list of bug fixes, feature requests, pet projects and product enhancements are almost always too long to address. While the product can be a website, desktop software or an enterprise accounting system, it’s a problem that predates software development and is as old as
Often the most reported measures of usability is task success. Success rates can be converted into a sigma value by using the discrete-binary defect calculation: Proportion Unsuccessful= Defects/Opportunities Where opportunities are the total number of tasks and defects are the total number of unsuccessful tasks. This calculation provides a proportion that is equivalent to a
Six Sigma History and Overview Six Sigma was started in manufacturing for processes that are duplicated thousands and millions of times in something like the placement of a spot weld on sheet metal on a power turbine and being able to predict the failure rate of that part’s weld. If you can measure and control
