# Explain Six Sigma to me (in this context) **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 10, 2005, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-six-sigma-to-me-in-this-context/307738 "2005-06-10T14:48:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![BubbaDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bubbadog/32/333_2.png) [@BubbaDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BubbaDog)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2005, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-six-sigma-to-me-in-this-context/307738/21 "2005-06-10T22:07:10Z")
> [@Kevbo](#): > > The reason: He felt that it would impress Wall Street investors, and raise the price of the company’s fairly stagnant stock. Yep. And if a company is going down the tubes it will help smokescreen the Street from calling for a new board and leadership. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2005, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-six-sigma-to-me-in-this-context/307738/22 "2005-06-11T01:29:53Z")
Another Six Sigma Green Belt here. DMAIC and DFSS (Design for Six Sigma). I think Six Sigma training for engineers is useful. It’s good to put some hard numbers and principles to some of these concepts, and to get people to think in rational, logically connected ways about quality. The company I work for is a leader in Six Sigma, and everyone in the company in a technicacl capacity (engineering, IT) has to be Six Sigma trained. That said, we’re also pretty flexible about how we apply it. We tend to latch on to the things that have applicability to what we’re doing, and dump the stuff that doesn’t. And rather than follow some of the laborious steps for formal FMEAs, Houses of Quality, etc. yada yada, we’ve come up with some “80% solutions” that are much more streamlined but embody the same principles. Basically, I think Six Sigma training is useful in the same way that Calculus is for most engineers. Most engineers never have to figure out a complex integral or derivative after they get out of school, but the process of learning calculus gives you a better intuitive understanding of how the world works. Six Sigma is the same. After you’ve gone through the training you develop a better understanding of the issues. ---
**Author:** ![BubbaDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bubbadog/32/333_2.png) [@BubbaDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BubbaDog)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2005, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-six-sigma-to-me-in-this-context/307738/23 "2005-06-11T02:43:03Z")
So then you don’t have to draw up a fishbone diagram for every problem that you encounter? 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2005, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-six-sigma-to-me-in-this-context/307738/24 "2005-06-11T03:12:44Z")
Nope. And our houses of quality are really just shacks. ---
**Author:** ![Rick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9f8e36/32.png) [@Rick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2005, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-six-sigma-to-me-in-this-context/307738/25 "2005-06-11T03:26:51Z")
> [@Clothahump](#): > > [minor hijack] > Please let me be the first one to tell you that hearing about Six Sigma “blackbelts” really chaps my ass. I understand that they are trying to using the term to denote a standard of excellence, but it’s hard to explain to folks that have not spent years earning a Black Belt in a martial arts discipline how really wrong that is. > > Although it did afford me a measure of low-grade humor once. We had a meeting at a company I worked for a couple of years ago and they had one of these Six Sigma blackbelts. He started off by asking if any other blackbelts in the group would stand up. Of course, I did. He then started asking me a bunch of wierd questions and was not happy with my answers. When he asked how I got my blackbelt, I answered along the lines (I was a 4th Degree at the time) of “Eleven years of hard training and then a testing in front of the International Testing Committee where I presented an 83 move form, sparred several matches and broke boards with a front kick, continous motion side kick and a hammerfist strike. What did you do to get yours?” > > He was not amused. But I was. 😃 > [end hijack] Bows deeply, you are my hero! ---
**Author:** ![Dignan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f07891/32.png) [@Dignan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dignan)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2005, 6:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-six-sigma-to-me-in-this-context/307738/26 "2005-06-11T06:01:50Z")
Other than the fervent believers (GE), I didn’t think anyone considered six sigma to be _en vogue_ anymore. Once it makes it into the college textbooks, doesn’t that mean it’s run its course? I heard a quote about six sigma (don’t remember where), where someone said six sigma was the equivalent of stopping your heart for 10 minutes a year. ---
**Author:** ![Balthisar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/balthisar/32/2825_2.png) [@Balthisar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balthisar)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2005, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-six-sigma-to-me-in-this-context/307738/27 "2005-06-11T14:34:39Z")
> [@BubbaDog](#): > > Does that mean when it doesn’t work fundamentaly knowledgable people aren’t honestly and sincerely using it? > > That’s the implication that the consultants state. If you gain from my process then you did so because of my process. If you fail, you didn’t understand my process. > > Its just another way for the consultant to take credit for success while denying blame for failure. Hehe, you make a valid point – absolutey valid – but that’s not what I meant. Also considering that we do all of our own Six Sigma in house, we don’t have any consultants’ egos to stroke. I am saying, though that if you’re true to the method, you _can’t fail_. And I’ll stress that if you use other methods and stay true, too, you can’t fail. There’s nothing magical about Six Sigma (consultants will tell you there _is_. In the base form, it’s simply a standard for accomplishing something. It lets multiple elements of an entire corporation be able to “speak the same language.” It would be distatrous in my industry, for example, if one team standardized on the metric system, the other standardized on Imperial measures, and the other standardized on fractional parts of a single unit defined as the length of Bob-the-boss’s penis. ---
**Author:** ![flickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/7bcc69/32.png) [@flickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flickster)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2005, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-six-sigma-to-me-in-this-context/307738/28 "2005-06-11T15:49:35Z")
The firm I used to work for put me through training as 6 sigma deployment champion. It was training being offered by our primary client to their vendors. My role was then to roll out the program, but only to the region of offices that serviced this client. It was all a sham (not the program, but my employer’s vision). Their only interest in the program was so they could tell our client they were using the processes. Main problem was that my employer was an international firm and my team had absolutely no control over any of our internal processes nor did we have the power to make changes on a regional basis. Like I said, it was all a sham. They “invested” well over $40K in training with no intention in changing anything, just wanted to be able to claim the 6 sigma label. ---
**Author:** ![BubbaDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bubbadog/32/333_2.png) [@BubbaDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BubbaDog)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2005, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-six-sigma-to-me-in-this-context/307738/29 "2005-06-11T21:14:33Z")
> [@Balthisar](#): > > …There’s nothing magical about Six Sigma (consultants will tell you there _is_. And that’s the point that we are both driving toward. I agree with you that the statistical tools and methods of six sigma are beneficial. Its the political crap that gets wrapped into the method that fails us. Unfortunately my experience, which happens to be the experince of others in this thread, is that the six sigma “professional consultants” are blowing smoke up our ass promising a cure-all for everything. And our leadership group is singing the same chorus though its obvious that they are using this program as a a way of blowing smoke up wallstreet’s ass. I’m bitter over the experience mainly because there are big problems that need fixing in my division but the six sigma effort is actually interfering with the progress my team would make if we were left to our own;and to top it off, any positive results from non sigma work are quickly “adopted” by six sigma teams and posed as “proof of the method”. But what’s so bad about standardizing using the Bob-the-Boss method? 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Francis\_Vaughan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/francis_vaughan/32/3093_2.png) [@Francis\_Vaughan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Francis_Vaughan)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2016, 10:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-six-sigma-to-me-in-this-context/307738/31 "2016-01-27T10:53:47Z")
Reporting… ---
**Author:** ![bldysabba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecccb3/32.png) [@bldysabba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bldysabba)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2016, 11:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-six-sigma-to-me-in-this-context/307738/32 "2016-01-27T11:10:38Z")
> [@BubbaDog](#): > > Without Consulting > 2. Midlevel managers think that the people who make the widgets complain too much so they ignore them > 3. Upper level management doesn’t have a clue as to how the widgets are actually made. > > With Consulting > d. process improves, So…you’re saying consulting helps? 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![yellowjacketcoder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/4bbf92/32.png) [@yellowjacketcoder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yellowjacketcoder)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2016, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-six-sigma-to-me-in-this-context/307738/33 "2016-01-27T13:09:40Z")
In this instance, it’s getting the rate of zombification up to six sigma, which is a problem as the current zombies keep eating the brains of the living, thus inhibiting the efficiency of the plague. (Psst, this is a 2005 thread) ---
**Author:** ![Blue\_Blistering\_Barnacle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blue_blistering_barnacle/32/3386_2.png) [@Blue\_Blistering\_Barnacle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blue_Blistering_Barnacle)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2016, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-six-sigma-to-me-in-this-context/307738/34 "2016-01-27T22:35:43Z")
Maybe we can benefit from this zombie. Anyone in industry care to comment on the current status of six sigma? What is the current “flavor of the month”? ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2016, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-six-sigma-to-me-in-this-context/307738/35 "2016-01-27T22:57:20Z")
One of my old colleagues referred to it as “Six Sigmoid”. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![bob\_2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bob_2/32/3341_2.png) [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2016, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-six-sigma-to-me-in-this-context/307738/36 "2016-01-27T23:45:50Z")
I visit a large company near me that stores and distribute car parts. Ten years or so ago ther fully embraced the 6sigma idea. I used to look at the complicated charts on the wall and someone once tried to explain it all to me. When I was there just before Christmas, I saw the chars and went to have a look. They stopped around 5 years ago. They did look good though…🙂 I remember going in to see my boss, way back in the 80’s. He was the Sales director and I was briefing him for a meeting with an important client. Of his wall were some impressive looking charts, all with an upward slope and I asked him about something on one. He laughed and told me that they were window dressing and he had bought them from a magazine. ---
**Author:** ![Balthisar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/balthisar/32/2825_2.png) [@Balthisar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balthisar)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2016, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-six-sigma-to-me-in-this-context/307738/37 "2016-01-29T14:44:04Z")
> [@Blue\_Blistering\_Barnacle](#): > > Maybe we can benefit from this zombie. > > Anyone in industry care to comment on the current status of six sigma? What is the current “flavor of the month”? We still use it. Large, global, automotive company that you’ve certainly heard of. It works for us. Mostly. Yeah, all of the “greenbelt” stuff is fluff to keep the appearances up, but real, meaningful blackbelt projects truly do make positive contributions to the business. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tim_r.mortiss/32/142_2.png) [@Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_R.Mortiss)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2016, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-six-sigma-to-me-in-this-context/307738/38 "2016-01-29T16:09:48Z")
> [@Blue\_Blistering\_Barnacle](#): > > Maybe we can benefit from this zombie. > > Anyone in industry care to comment on the current status of six sigma? What is the current “flavor of the month”? I don’t know if it’s the latest and greatest, but I still see a lot of “Lean Six Sigma” going around. Trying to shoehorn Lean Manufacturing (driving out waste) and Six Sigma (classical SPC in new clothes) into one five-pound bag. ---
**Author:** ![notquitekarpov](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/71c47a/32.png) [@notquitekarpov](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/notquitekarpov)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2016, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-six-sigma-to-me-in-this-context/307738/39 "2016-01-29T17:19:48Z")
I used to work for a GE company - who had Six Sigma everywhere. Where they built aircraft engines, electrical components or medical care components I can see the merit is understanding and reducing your source of failures. I would guess aero engines may be built to 10 or 12 sigma… We were an insurance company called GE Insurance Solutions. We were going to be called GE Risk Solutions but Jack Welch flew into a rage and told everyone that he had spent a decade convincing Wall Street that he had engineered risk out of the GE Group via Six Sigma (amongst other moonshine no doubt) and no GE company was going to have Risk in its name as long as he was around. I was a risk manager for them. Told I had to start doing my Green Belt immediately. My life was a misery. Fortunately they realized they didn’t have a clue about insurance (“Losses? We have losses? Why can’t we six sigma them out of our portfolio?” was one question I got) and sold us to Swiss Re after only eighteen months after I got there. Six Sigma was instantly killed - everyone burst out singing (to paraphrase that poet whose name I forget). Six Sigma is largely horseshit. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2016, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-six-sigma-to-me-in-this-context/307738/40 "2016-01-29T21:19:27Z")
> [@Dignan](#): > > Other than the fervent believers (GE), I didn’t think anyone considered six sigma to be _en vogue_ anymore. Once it makes it into the college textbooks, doesn’t that mean it’s run its course? I heard a quote about six sigma (don’t remember where), where someone said six sigma was the equivalent of stopping your heart for 10 minutes a year. Actually, the rule of thumb where I used to work, was a management fad was passed when it showed up in Dilbert… which was also the time it showed up in our company. > [@notquitekarpov](#): > > … > Six Sigma is largely horseshit. One management consultant (who was pushing statistical process control, pre-6Sig) described these management fads as BOHICA - “Bend Over, Here It Comes Again”. > [@](#): > > … zombie… It’s never too late to poke fun at management fads. ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2016, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-six-sigma-to-me-in-this-context/307738/41 "2016-01-29T22:42:35Z")
The fad where I work is to be “Lean” to achieve “Kaizen”. > **[Kaizen](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaizen)** > > Kaizen (Japanese: 改善, "improvement") is a concept referring to business activities that continuously improve all functions and involve all employees from the CEO to the assembly line workers. Kaizen also applies to processes, such as purchasing and logistics, that cross organizational boundaries into the supply chain. It has been applied in healthcare, psychotherapy, life coaching, government, and banking. > By improving standardized programs and processes, kaizen aims to eliminate waste and redun... Because using the Japanese translation of something is fancy. :rolleyes: (Says the guy whose username is a Japanese variant of his real name.) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-six-sigma-to-me-in-this-context/307738.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-six-sigma-to-me-in-this-context/307738.md?page=3)