Six Sigma is a quality movement fast spreading among corporation in United States. Motorola, GE, Ford, Sony, ABB, Lockheed Martin, Kodak and host of Fortune 500 companies have embraced Six Sigma. Tata Steel in India has also started the Six Sigma initiative. Mr. Niloy Mitter was selected by Tata Steel for the Six Sigma Black Belt training at Texas, USA. Niloy, a graduate in commerce, post graduate in Operations Research completed the 4 week training programme at Smarter Solutions Inc. Texas, USA and returned being the first Certified six Sigma Black Belt of Tata Steel. Mr. Forrest Breyfogle, President Smarter Solutions Inc. and ex-chairman American society for Quality and author of several books on Six Sigma has written to Dr. Mukherjee , Dy MD (Steel) of Tata Steel that "I am not aware of any steel company that has implemented Six Sigma the way you did ."

To remain competitive, companies essentially have to improve business performance. They have to create a focus on the bottom line. They have to reduce mistakes in every aspect of the company ; product defects, incorrect billing, wasted materials and inefficient production processes. Six Sigma is a disciplined methodology that focuses on moving every process, product and service toward near perfect quality.

The term Six Sigma defines an optimum measurement of quality, which is 3.4 defects per million events. The Greek letter SIGMA is a mathematical term that simply represents a measure of variation, the distribution or spread around the mean or average of any process or procedure in manufacturing , engineering , services or transactions.

The sigma value, indicates how well any process is performing. The higher the value, the fewer defects per million opportunities.

Six Sigma is the disciplined application of statistical problem-solving tools that show you where wasteful costs are and points you toward precise steps to take for improvement. These tools apply a refined methodology of measurement and discovery to gain a comprehensive understanding of performance and key variables affecting the quality of a company’s products and services. A level of Six Sigma represents the peak of quality, the virtual elimination of defects form every product and process within an organization. As sigma level increases, customer satisfaction goes up while at the same time cycle time goes down and costs plummet. Six Sigma is a process for mathematically analyzing specific problems in manufacturing or other aspects of a company’s operations. Through a methodical system it solution. Six Sigma thus is a Business Philosophy to improve customer satisfaction, a Tool for eliminating process variation, a Metric of World Class Companies allowing process comparisons.

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