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Top1. Introduction
Modernization, globalization, and quick access to information in era of information technology, products and services have changed the way of our customers’ needs and mode of conduct of business. Old business models no longer work. Today’s competitive environment leaves no scope for error & defects. We must enhance customers’ satisfaction and persistently look for new methods to exceed their fast varying demands. To compete in such an environment, companies need to accept an efficient technique that can assess and take a diagnostic approach to meet customer needs and for more delight to customer.
For total operational excellence to satisfy customer changing need is one of the most significant key requirements of any business in today’s globally competitive environment with sustained growth of business. All foundry industries are not the exception to this. For global competitiveness, Indian industries are trying many improvement measures like SQC, Quality Circle, TQM, Lean TPM, Manufacturing, etc. Most of the measures being tried by them are efficient of producing the desired results but worry remain with their implementation and longer time span to realize the benefits (Desai et al., 2011).
In today’s globally competitive market, industries are trying many improvement strategies such as Toyota Production System, Single Minute Exchange of Dies (SMED), Pokayoke, Lean manufacturing, etc. In spite of capable of producing required results, these technique lacks in their implementation and result after long time. In this globalization each industry needs a new break through strategy and that is well provided by Six Sigma (Desai, 2008).
The requirement is for a break through strategy, which can have multidirectional benefits in shorter duration and that .is need of the day and that comes through overall operational distinction. Six sigma is proven breakthrough strategy, for increasing productivity and quality in Indian and global foundries.
Six Sigma is a business-driven, multi-faceted approach for reducing the defects and improving the process capability (Kumar and Khanduja, 2013) Improvement program for reducing variation, which emphases on continuous and breakthrough improvements (Anderson et al., 2006).
Six Sigma is business performance improvement strategy that aims to reduce the number of mistakes/defects – to as low as 3.4 occasions per million opportunities (Antony, 2002).
Six Sigma is quality improvement program with a goal of reducing the number of defects to as low as 3.4 parts per million opportunities or 0.0003 percent (Chakrabarty and Tan, 2007).
A business strategy used to improve business profitability, to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of all operations to meet or exceed customer needs and expectations (Kwak and Anbari, 2006).
From a statistical viewpoint, six sigma is a metric of process measurement represented by the Greek letter s that represents the amount of variation with a normal data distribution. Fundamentally, Six Sigma quality level relates to 3.4 defects per million opportunities (DPMO). The effort of six sigma is not on counting the defects in processes, but counting the number of opportunities within a process that could result in defects so that causes of quality problems can be reduced before they are converted into defects (Antony, 2006).