Six Sigma For Dummies^®, 2nd Edition

by Craig Gygi and Bruce Williams

with Neil DeCarlo

Foreword by Stephen R. Covey

Author, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and The Leader in Me: How Schools and Parents Around the World Are Inspiring Greatness, One Child at a Time

Six Sigma For Dummies^®, 2nd Edition

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Copyright © 2012 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey

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About the Authors of the Revised Edition

Craig Gygi began studying and applying the elements of Six Sigma and Lean before they were formalized into today’s renowned improvement methodologies. As a graduate student in Mechanical Engineering at Brigham Young University, he integrated these cutting-edge improvement techniques into his coaching of student product development teams. Upon beginning his career at Motorola, he was formally introduced to the emerging Six Sigma method. It resonated deeply with his previous findings. From that time, Craig has applied, taught, and led Six Sigma in all his endeavors, including technical, management, and executive capacities at Iomega, General Atomics, ES3, and Fiji Water.

Craig now serves as Executive VP of Global Operations for MasterControl. MasterControl produces software solutions that enable regulated companies to manage their critical quality procedures and get their products to market faster, while reducing overall costs and increasing internal efficiency.

A Master Black Belt, Craig has wielded Six Sigma and Lean techniques now for over 18 years, spanning projects from design to manufacturing to business process management, and at companies as varied as Abbott Labs, American Express, and the US Air Force. He is also an expert teacher, having instructed and mentored at all levels.

Craig lives in Utah with his wife and children, where they enjoy its varied landscape and outdoor activities.

Bruce David Williams has been fascinated with complex systems since the launch of Sputnik on his birthday. With degrees from the University of Colorado in physics and astrophysics, he embarked on a career in aerospace systems, where he first encountered Six Sigma after Motorola won the inaugural Baldridge Award in 1988. Later, with graduate degrees from Johns Hopkins and Colorado in computer science and technical management, and as a member of the Hubble Telescope development team, he became intrigued with how large system failures could result from the breakdown of small components. He entered the Six Sigma industry in the late-1990s when he co-founded a software company to develop products for life-cycle traceability.

Bruce has since been the co-founder of two Six Sigma research and technology firms, including the Six Sigma Management Institute. He was co-founder and CEO of Savvi International, a provider of solutions for business performance improvement. He joined webMethods in 2006 to integrate enterprise-class information technologies with business process management and now is the Vice President of Pegasystems, the world leader in business process management.

Bruce resides in the desert foothills of north Scottsdale, Arizona, with his wife and assortment of dogs, cats, birds, horses, and varied native wildlife.

Dedication

Craig Gygi: To Esti, my unexpected joy.

Bruce Williams: To Hannah and Evan, my remarkable children, as they transition into independent adulthood and put the concept of variance reduction to practical use.

Authors’ Acknowledgments to the 2nd Edition

We’re grateful for those who contributed their efforts and support to this 2nd edition of Six Sigma For Dummies.

Our deepest gratitude and thanks to Dr. Stephen R. Covey for his foreword — but much more so for his profound life-long insights and contributions to the betterment of individual leadership. Only a few weeks before the printing of this 2nd edition, Dr. Covey passed away. His passing poignantly reminded us of the transcendent power of the individual — both in the example of his own life and his remarkable in# uence on the world — and in the similar potential he taught resides within each of us.

Thank you also to Natalie Sayer, co-author of both the 1st and 2nd editions of Lean For Dummies (Wiley), for her expert collaboration and assistance.

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Foreword

The world is on the verge of a new economic era. For the past century, the Industrial Age has been defined by tools and skills targeted at control, efficiency, specialization, delegation, scalability, and replicability. Accounting makes people an expense, a piece of equipment, an investment, and people are motivated by the great jackass theory of the carrot and stick. But although this paradigm has led to a 50-fold increase in productivity over the previous farming mindset, it has also led to a control paradigm, an entrenchment of a “leadership by position” mentality, with organizational hallmarks of lack of clarity regarding high priorities, lack of commitment or emotional connection by the workforce, lack of line-of-sight translation to specific action, disenabling systems and processes, no synergy — interpersonally and interdepartmentally — and a lack of accountability.

Studies show that the vast majority of employees possess far more talent, more intelligence, more capability, more creativity, and more ability than their jobs require or even allow. Their deep potential remains dormant, untapped, and unused. Today, the Industrial Age is ending, and the Information Age or Knowledge Worker Age is opening. This new, emerging age is defined by “leadership is a choice” with an empowerment or unleashing-potential mentality; choices guided by values in the light of unchanging principles. In the new paradigm, the greatest asset in any organization is its people — whole people — with their bodies, minds, hearts, and consciences all engaged and contributing, and all receiving benefit in the progress of the organization. A trim tab is a small rudder on a boat or airplane that, through its relatively small motion, allows the bigger rudder to achieve the greater effect and leverage. The leaders of the Information Age act as trim tabs within organizations. Their relatively small actions at the bottom or middle can effect a much greater change throughout an entire organization.

Six Sigma has become a key enabling skill of the new Knowledge Workers of the next generation of trim tabs. One of the great values I admire of Six Sigma is the science, the database — and the careful analytic thought processes of problem solving using that data. Six Sigma empowers and enables you to effect remarkable change, no matter your position in your organization. The maturing world has transformed the previously exclusive, academic knowledge of Six Sigma into must-have best practices for everyone wishing to advance and contribute. In a knowledge economy where 70 to 80 percent of the value added to goods and services comes from knowledge work, can you imagine the results flowing from having the entire workforce Six Sigma literate?

That’s why Six Sigma For Dummies is a book to be read by everyone.

Stephen R. Covey

Author, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, The 8th Habit, and The Leader in Me: How Schools and Parents Around the World Are Inspiring Greatness, One Child at a Time

Part I

Getting Acquainted with Six Sigma Basics

In this part . . .

Six Sigma is an applied methodology for improving business and organizational performance. But before you apply the Six Sigma methodology, you can benefit from knowing what it is, where it came from, why it works, and who uses it. This part provides all this information so you can understand the basics of Six Sigma.