Understanding The Design For Six Sigma

Design for Six Sigma (DFSS) is a relatively new method used to obtain six sigma objectives. It basically employs DMADV (Define->Measure->Analyze->Design->Verify) technique instead of classical DMAIC (Define–>Measure–>Analyze–>Improve–>Control) approach. Hence, instead of emphasizing more on improvements in the previous process, DFSS focuses on creating a new process on the assumption that the current process isn’t capable enough to lead to Six Sigma. So, a process is created from the scratch keeping in view the things required to enhance quality at the early stages and avoid defects in the later stages.

Design for Six Sigma emphasizes on customer and business needs and converts them to a better solution to attain the objectives. Customer’s voice is given more importance and processes aligned with customer’s pitch are created to tackle the requirements at each stage. Hence, by doing so, customer satisfaction is ensured and defects are decreased to achieve six sigma goals. In simple words, Design for six sigma emphasizes on prevention of defects instead of fixing them at later stages.

How DFSS Works?

Design for Six Sigma starts with a charter that is provided by sponsor and is aligned to the organization’s strategic objectives. After that an assessment of customer needs and functional analysis is done. Then critical-to-quality characteristics (CTQs) are identified that are followed by concept selection and a detailed design of processes, end product and control plans. In all these steps, determining customer’s requirement is given the highest priority and various techniques like concept engineering are used to pin-point the needs of valued stakeholders. As discussed earlier DFSS uses DMADV approach to achieve the objectives. DMADV consists of following phases:

I.  Define:
Here project goals along with customer needs and expectations are defined.

II.  Measure:
In this step customer requirements are measured. It is required to check the current market of the project and analyze the competitors around. It is an important step to ensure that requirements are clearly understood and quantified realistically. Also, CTQ’s are measured along with production capability and risks involved.

III.  Analyze:
In this step current information is analyzed and processes are developed using that information. Important concepts about the end product and customer requirements are derived in this stage. It is an important process where analysis of the processes is performed and alternative processes are created to reduce defects. Moreover, it is determined how alternative process can help reduce defects at early stages of development.

It is because in many scenarios defect resolution is costly than defect prevention. Furthermore, it is viable to choose or create more efficient processes to increase production capacity instead of doing too much to reduce issues as sometimes speed is more important for the customer based on various factors and not complying with the customer’s speed requirements can be considered as a defect. Hence, process simplification or sophistication depends on customer’s requirements and analysis of such things before actually jumping into design phase is very important.

IV.  Design:
In this phase, based on the outcomes of analysis, it is intended to design highly optimized process that aligns with strategic business objectives. Design must ensure that the cost of development is kept under control without compromising the stated quality and requirements. In this step, the design is prepared for verification – an important goal of the design for Six Sigma.

V.  Verification:
After the creation and testing of design, verification is performed. It is checked if the design is catering to all the initially defined goals and objectives. Verification can be performed through pilot runs. After verification is performed, it is taken to the next level by making it ready for the actual full-scale production.