The product or service quality your brand is providing the customers with will ultimately determine the profit percentage. Every brand, irrespective of its business magnitude, wants to deliver the best product possible to cater to the needs of the consumers. One of the most foolproof ways of ensuring that is by applying the Six Sigma black belts tools to test the quality of your product. The Six Sigma tools have multiple colors, each color representing more proficiency. For a more holistic idea about this approach, you can watch this video:
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In this particular article, we will talk about the Six Sigma tools and how they help in measuring product quality.
Ten Six Sigma Black Belt tools
The Lean technique is integrated with the Six Sigma approach in this category. It is collectively called LSS, i.e., Lean Six Sigma, which is used to measure product quality, customer reaction, operations, etc. This is a data-driven approach that helps companies to prevent themselves from engaging in any unhealthy competition. Listed below are lean six sigma black belts tools that have been proven to be effective in measuring various factors of a product.
- Kano Analysis: The result of the product quality is based on an analysis of customer satisfaction. The Kano Analysis is basically a customer-oriented examination to check which product the brand is serving the users’ purpose or which one needs more modification. The analysis is done by a questionnaire that is filled up accordingly. This helps in reducing the wastage of resources and helps in gaining the direction for rectification.
- Project Charter: A project charter is more than just an introductory guide; rather, it is a documentation of the company’s project, goals, objectives, etc. It also contains the responsibilities of each individual, along with information on the stakeholders. Updating this document helps in keeping track of the progress of the product and its performance. It also assures whether the functions are adding up to fulfill the goals and objectives of the company.
- Raci Matrix: An acronym for Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed – RACI is the tool used by all major certified six sigma black belts employees. This matrix is mainly used for patterning the responsibilities of each individual working in the company. The process is applied in the form of a spreadsheet where the participation extent of a project worker on a particular project is recorded and evaluated in the previously mentioned pattern.
- Process Mapping: This is a visual representation of the business process done by utilizing symbols and easy languages. The advantage of visual representation is that the progress of the business is easily understandable, and the loopholes can be easily identified for rectification. Process mapping helps in quickening the spotting of the strengths and drawbacks of a particular business process with the help of documented inputs, steps, and results.
- Pareto Analysis: The analysis here is carried out on a bar graph, which consists of data on the phenomena occurrence rate. The Pareto analysis is also associated with the 80-20 rule, meaning gaining 80% output with only 20% input. Adhering to the Pareto rule, the range of data is arranged in descending order. Pareto is majorly used for process progress. You can easily create a Pareto chart with the help of Microsoft Excel.
- Process Yield Metrics: The popularity of this tool is its keen sight that detects the smallest of errors in a business process. All of us have an idea that if the pitfalls of the process are not detected right from the beginning, then rectifying them might become pretty challenging and thus might cause a downfall, hence using this tool. The two major types used are first-time and final yields. If the yield rate is higher, it means that the business is developing satisfactorily. This tool helps establish a smooth workflow.
- Descriptive Statistics: In the case of this kind of statistics recording, the summary of the core objectives is arranged very methodically. The reason behind being able to use them for discussions in the near future. Nothing can be better in analysis than facts and figures recorded and organized. Descriptive statistics thus help assess the updated data of a business and point out the potential risk factors.
- Normal Distribution: Also known as the Gaussian probability distribution, it is considered to be one of the most important and impactful tools of Six Sigma. Here, the normal distribution curve represents the variation present in a dataset, given that the number of flaws signifies its degree of variance. This tool has been proven to be very effective for detecting flaws and problems in a process and, in some cases, products as well.
- KPIs: Key performance indicators or KPIs are a manner of judging the progress in the performance of the employees and to what extent they have done to fulfill the objectives of the organization. A company’s progress is the cumulative progress percentage of its employees. The two units of financial measurement here are NPV and ROI, which are popular with this particular approach.
- Probability Distribution: This tool functions in association with the different stakeholders. The tools give them the ability to build a predictive idea based on a particular or series of events. A probability distribution is a special black belt tool that helps in deriving strategies from sample data. They are especially able to pattern the right probability to the right data, hence bringing out inaccurate but almost accurate conclusions. Once you know how to work out the probability distribution, recording data for both products and processes becomes very easy.
The rising popularity of these six sigma tools is definitely the answer to the most commonly asked question – how much do six sigma black belts make, and what are the job opportunities? A certified Six Sigma employee is considered a far more worthy asset to an organization than their non-certified peers.
Wrapping up
The business world has benefited greatly since the six sigma black belts are back with their effective tools. These tools have helped businesses detect their shortcomings in-house and thus remodify them before unnecessary escalation. The tools, if properly utilized, can enhance your product quality considerably, thus shooting up the ROIs.