Design Of Experiments With Six Sigma

The Basic Concepts Underlying DOE

Six Sigma stresses making alterations in existing business processes for improving overall efficiency. To make effective alterations, it is important to first understand the various aspects of business processes so that the cause and effect relationship between various processes can be determined. However, this is easier said than done because most business processes comprise of multiple sub processes, which themselves are quite complicated.

Making alterations in a simple business process having just two to three sub-processes is easy, but the task becomes quite difficult when alterations are to be made in a business process having more than ten sub-processes. The level of difficulty goes on increasing with an increase in the number of sub-processes. This is where DOE is beneficial as it can easily crawl through vast amounts of data that is generated as part of the six-sigma implementation process. This data is meant for understanding the cause and effect relationship between various processes and sub-processes, but since the amount of data generated is quite huge, advanced tools such as DOE are used.

Why Is DOE Necessary?

DOE analyses the data and generates quantifiable results, which are then used for defining the type of experiments or alterations that are to be conducted for achieving Six Sigma quality levels. Conducting pre-tests or experiments is necessary in Six Sigma because the organizational efficiency and productivity are at stake while the implementations are going on. If Six Sigma concepts and methodologies are not implemented properly, it can seriously affect the company's bottom-line and lead to redundancies.

Another thing is that organizations cannot hope to achieve desired results just by conducting wayward and misguided experiments or alterations. DOE is effective because it helps Six Sigma professionals in selecting the most suitable experiment designs that in turn would help in achieving the desired results. In the absence of DOE, it would be quite difficult to ascertain the type of experiments that are to be conducted.

Other Uses And Benefits

DOE can also be used for understanding the root cause of variations in a business process. Business processes are designed for delivering exactly the same quality and quantity, irrespective of what they are being used for, be it for manufacturing a product or rendering a service. However, maintaining this level of consistency is not always possible because the efficiency of business processes can be affected by various variable factors that are quite difficult to decipher.

This is where DOE can help because it can analyze vast amounts of data related to the variations and generate results that can be used for pointing out the root cause of variations. Once the variations have been eliminated, it would become quite easy for Six Sigma professionals to successfully carry out the implementations. DOE is thus an inseparable part of Six Sigma implementations in any type of industry.

Tony Jacowski is a quality analyst for The MBA Journal. Aveta Solutions - Six Sigma Online (http://www.sixsigmaonline.org) offers online six sigma training and certification classes for lean six sigma, black belts, green belts, and yellow belts.

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