ARIS Six Sigma
Tools und Best Practices for Succsessful Six Sigma Projects
How do you establish efficient processes so that customers benefit from the best possible quality? How can companies reduce their error rate to boost customer satisfaction, increase sales, and improve cost control?
Developed in the 1970s in response to questions like these, the Six Sigma methodology is a quality initiative that targets improvement rates of over 70 percent. Sigma describes deviations from average values and is thus a quality yardstick. The greater the deviation, the more erratic (i.e., poorer) the quality. The acceptable Six Sigma ratio is under four defects per million processes.
Six Sigma gained worldwide acclaim following the success of its implementation at General Electric.
Six Sigma is popular with many businesses today, particularly large corporations, but the same problems keep recurring:
- Although many different methods and tools are available, there is no generally accepted procedure for conducting Six Sigma projects.
- Despite the numerous statistical analysis options, there is no obvious way of accessing the relevant process data-preferably on an automated basis.
- How can the results of a Six Sigma project be communicated within the enterprise and how can success be sustained after the project is completed?
ARIS Six Sigma from IDS Scheer resolves all these problems. New methods help organizations to define the scope of their Six Sigma projects (SIPOC), identify problem areas (fishbone diagrams), and come up with measurable critical success factors (CTX diagrams). Reporting functions enable various project documents to be produced, such as RASCI charts. Using ARIS Process Performance Manager, process data can be automatically collected from the operational systems and used as the basis for comprehensive statistical analysis. This avoids manual data capture, which is both time-consuming and prone to error. The information can be transferred with the click of a mouse to MINITAB®, the market-leading software for statistical analysis in Six Sigma projects. It is then possible to integrate the MINITAB analysis results into ARIS Performance Dashboard. A feature of automatic data measurement, particularly in the control phase, is that the improvements from the Six Sigma project are permanently available for analysis purposes, e.g., up-to-date control charts can be called up at any time to evaluate a process. As a result, companies can use the DMAIC cycle (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, Control) to implement and communicate their Six Sigma projects on a standardized basis.
Key benefits:
- Integrated solution for the entire DMAIC lifecycle.
- Easy-to-understand diagrams improve communication and raise the level of employee knowledge.
- A single language for process managers, Six Sigma "belts," and IT.
- Centralized knowledge management and publishing optimizes communication and enables experience to be shared.
- Automation lowers costs and shortens project duration.
- Dynamic links between tools increase awareness of project details and expand possible uses.
- What-if analysis delivers an accurate understanding of the impact of changes prior to implementation.
- Practical relevance assured through development in conjunction with organizations that deploy Six Sigma.
- Automated process measurement avoids significant manual effort in Six Sigma projects.
- Partnership with MINITAB®, the market-leading software for statistical analysis in Six Sigma projects.
- Integration of the MINITAB results in the company dashboard with constantly up-to-date data (e.g., control charts, process capability plot).
- Provision of different tools for different roles (black belts, green belts, etc.) enhances usability.
