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Six Sigma Terminology

Activity - A name process, function, or task that occurs over time and has recognizableresults. Activities combine to form business processes

Baseline - The current condition (formally reviewed and agreed upon) that exists in asituation, usually used to differentiate between a current and a future representation. This

serves as the basis for further Bench Marking and development.

Benchmarking - A structured approach for identifying the best practices fromindustry and government, and comparing and adapting them to the organization's

operations. Such an approach is aimed at identifying more efficient and effective

processes for achieving intended results, and suggesting ambitious goals for program

output, product/service quality, and process improvement.

Best practice - A way or method of accomplishing a business function or process thatis considered to be superior to all other known methods .

Black Belt- The leader of the team responsible for applying the Six Sigma process

Block Diagram - The block diagram is a simple pictorial representation of asystem/sub systems linked to illustrate the relationships between components/subsystems

Business process - A collection of activities that work together to produce a definedset of products and services. All business processes in an enterprise exist to fulfill the

mission of the enterprise. Business processes must be related in some way to mission

objectives.

Champion- Person responsible for the logistical and business aspects of a Six Sigmaproject. Champions select and scope projects that are aligned with the corporate strategy,

choose and mentor the right people for the project, and remove barriers to ensure the

highest levels of success.

Characteristic - A definable or measurable feature of a process, product, or variable.

Continuous Improvement - Action taken to find ways in improve processes,decrease variation , decrease costs, and improve effectiveness of the organization.

Cost of poor quality (COPQ) - The costs incurred by producing products orservices of poor quality. These costs usually include the cost of inspection, rework,

duplicate work, scrapping rejects, replacements and refunds, complaints, and loss of

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customers and reputation. These costs are grouped under Internal and External Failure

Cost, Appraisal Cost and Prevention Cost.

Customer - The receiver of an output of a process, either internal or external to theorganization. Can be a person, department, company, etc.

Dashboard- A set of metrics, usually not more than five or six, that provide an "at-a-glance" summary of a Six Sigma project's status. Every participant in a Six Sigma

deployment -- from the CEO to a factory floor worker -- should have his or her owndashboard with function- and level-appropriate data summaries.

Defect - An error in construction of a product or service that renders it unusable; anerror that causes a product or service to not meet customer requirements

Defective A product or service having one or more defects.

DMAICThe Define, Measure, Analyse, Improve and Control Phases of problemsolving in Six Sigma.

DPU - defects per unit

DPMO - defects per million opportunities

Gage Repeatability and Reproducibility (GageR&R) - A statistical tool thatmeasures the amount of variation in the measurement system contributed by the device

used, the people taking the measurement, the interaction between the device and theperson and the error due to repeat observations for the same device and person.

Green Belt- An individual who supports the implementation and application of SixSigma tools by way of participation on project teams.

KPI Key Performance Indicators

Master Black Belt- A teacher and mentor ofBlack Belts. Provides support, reviews

projects, and undertakes larger scale projects.

Measurement Assignment of qualitative or quantitative values to parameters of aprocess or to characteristics of the output of the process.

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Non-Conformance - Product or material or activity which does not conform to thecustomer specifications and/or requirements or laid down procedures. Sometimes used

interchangeably with non-conformity

Performance Measure - An indicator that can be used to evaluate quality, cost, orcycle time characteristics of an activity or process usually against a target or standard.

Problem- Some undesirable symptom, effect or phenomena which causes poorperformance in terms of quality, productivity, cost, variation, cycle time etc.

ProblemSolving- The process of solving problems; the isolation, improvement andcontrol of those conditions which generate or facilitate the creation of undesirable

symptoms.

ProcessAny activity or group of activity consisting of one or more of the resources -material, men, methods, machines and environment and which produces some output for

use of internal or external customers.

Process Flow Chart- A graphical representation showing all of the steps/activitiesof a process in natural sequence using various symbols for different kind of activities,

start and end.

ProcessManagement-The cycle of continuous review, re-examination and renewal of

fundamental work processes that contribute to an organization's performance andproductivity. Itself a continual process, process management must at all times challenge a

process' fit with other processes, and may result in radical change to work methods and

practices.

ProcessSpread- The range of values which a given process characteristic displays;this particular term most often applies to the range but may also encompass the variance.

The spread may be based on a set of data collected at a specific point in time or may

reflect the variability across a given amount of time.

Project- Formulating a problem as a task for detailed planned action for derivingpossible solutions to the problem.

Sigma Has two distinct meaning - a statistical unit of measure for variation whichreflects process capability and a statistical measure of the goodness of the process as to

how much ppm defects are expected from the process.

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Six Sigma - Sigma is a letter in the Greek alphabet. The term "sigma" is used todesignate the spread about the mean (average) of any process or procedure.

For a business or manufacturing process, the sigma value is a metric that indicates how

well that process is performing. The higher the sigma value, the better. Sigma measures

the capability of the process to perform defect-free-work. A defect is anything that results

in customer dissatisfaction.

Sigma is a statistical unit of measure which reflects process capability. The sigma scale

of measure is perfectly correlated to such characteristics as defects-per-unit, parts-per

million defective, and the probability of a failure/error. Meaning no more than 3.4 parts

per Million.

Statistical ProcessControl- The application of statistical methods and proceduresrelative to a process and a given set of standards

Validation - Establishing proof based on factual information that a design, product, orprocess created or modified as a part of the improvement activities will perform to yield

expected results.

Variation- Any quantifiable difference between individual measurements; suchdifferences can be

Voice Of The BusinessThe stated mission, goals and business objectives of anorganization. This collection of specific, documented statements of intent are the

guidelines by which linkages are established between Six Sigma projects and targetedlevels of improvement. The Voice of the Business should outline exactly what it is the

business does, as well as how the business intents to accomplish its mission. Combined

with the Voice of the Customer, the Voice of the Business plays an important role in

defining potential Six Sigma projects.

Voice Of The CustomerA systematic, institutionalized approach for eliciting andanalyzing customers requirements, expectations, level of satisfaction and areas of

concern. Typically, a Voice of the Customer effort includes facilitated focus groups,

individual interviews, surveys. The Voice of the Customer is a key data source in the

Project Selection process.

YellowBelt-A Yellow Belt is any employee who has received introductory training inthe fundamentals of Six Sigma. The Yellow Belt gathers data, participates in problem-

solving exercises and adds their personal experiences to the exploration process. Yellow

Belts should have basic high school level math and reading skills .

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Z-Scores- The Z score calculated based on a set of data from any process, indicateshow far, in each direction the individual readings are expected to deviate from its

distribution mean, expressed in units of the standard deviation. The z score is derived

using the standard normal table and is the basis for calculation of the sigma rating of the

process.

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