Design for Six Sigma

Loved it today in class and I would say quite an interesting way to start the year. Happy new year readers....

It was the first day of PEUSS -product excellence using six sigma and I was thrilled by the idea of DFSS- Design For Six Sigma. DFSS is an improved version of classic six sigma. Classic six sigma is all about improving the already existing processes, products and services while DFSS is proactive; doing it right at the first time. It came about from the limitations of classic six sigma which uses the DMAIC as its methodology and DFSS uses DMADV. DFSS listens to the voice of the customer and prioritises critical to quality issues while making sure that the funictions are key.

So in essence, DFSS is more future and long-term focused because if the products are improved in terms of design there'll be no need to spend money during the process to improve the product.

Case study

There is a case where Toyota was said to have called back about 885,000 vehicles in 2013 to fix a problem that could result in a water leak from the air conditioning unit. This definately must have had impact on their

revenue for that year. At this stage what can be done is product improvement. identifying and fixing problems whereas with DFSS the design is critically looked at and verified before production and launching and so it can be said that with DFSS there is no need to worry about the cost of making a design change when the product is already in the market and so financial benefits is long term.

DMAIC- Define, Measure, Analyse, Improve and Control

DMADV- Define, Measure, Analyse, Design and Verfy

From the full meaning of the methodologies, it is clear that one is more interested in improvingwhile the other in designing.

Anne Ayang : 06 Jan 2014 19:43 |  Tags: Mbe Peuss Sigma Six |  Comments (0) |  Report a problem