What Is an Example of the Laws of Six Sigma?

Motorola, the worldwide communications company, pioneered Six Sigma as a way to reduce defects in their manufacturing process. Six Sigma has evolved into a methodology and a management system. In the methodology, "Six Sigma" equals 3.4 defects per 1 million opportunities. Companies use Six Sigma to increase profitability and customer satisfaction. When companies increase production while reducing waste is it called "Lean Six Sigma," and it embodies five laws. Initially only manufacturing companies used these concepts, but now all industries and even companies that provide services use "Lean Six Sigma."

The Law of the Market

This law is all about the satisfied customer, and all the other laws stem from this root. Customer satisfaction can relate to on-time delivery or zero defects or manufacturing new products that are in demand. The Law of the Market demands that companies know everything about their customers.

The Law of Flexibility

This law refers to the ability of a manufacturing process to change and become more efficient. Cross training employees to do more than one task in the manufacturing process is an example of a company using the Law of Flexibility. If one step in a process can be used as a step in another process, that expresses the Law of Flexibility.

The Law of Focus

This law stems from the 80/20 rule that Dr. Juran observes to be "vital few and trivial many." When 20 percent of the employees are doing 80 percent of the work, or when 20 percent of the manufacturing defects are causing 80 percent of the customer returns, then the company needs to focus on the significant 20 percent.

The Law of Velocity

Whether the work flow process involves processing insurance claims or building widgets, the Law of Velocity focuses on reducing the processing time or lead time. The most common way to calculate lead time is to use the formula "Lead Time = Work In Progress/Average Completion Rate," developed by the mathematician Little. Through the Law of Velocity, an automobile insurance company might reduce the total time it took to process customer claims by reducing the time it took for the accident reports to get entered into the main computer system.

The Law of Complexity and Cost

Basically, this law relates complex processes to extra cost. An example of this would be a pizza maker who starts to make breadsticks. The pizza maker would use the Law of Complexity to determine if the addition of the breadstick-making process cost was worth the value received. If employees used a piece of equipment that was too hard for them, the complexity and possible errors added to the process might be costing the company instead of bringing value.

References

• Six Sigma Institute
• Motorola Institute