Six Sigma is for Losers, Seven Sigma Sweeping the Nation!
Executive Summary
- Six Sigma is illogical as it does not provide evidence for the benefits provided by Six Sigma.
- We cover the insanity of Six Sigma.
This poorly educated man spends lots of effort becoming certified in Six Sigma, only to find out that the new action is with Seven Sigma. This is why we made him stand in the corner. Don’t let this happen to you!
Introduction
Six Sigma was a huge trend with all manner of silly Six Sigma programs and certificates.
Let us dive into the idiocy.
Six Sigma Not Even Good Enough for Papua New Guinea
Six Sigma is not good enough anymore. This is why we invented Seven Sigma, which takes evidence-free defect levels to a new level.
Furthermore, as with Six Sigma, Seven Sigma should be applied uniformly to every process. The handling of nuclear material should be Seven Sigma, as should the length of a spool of toilet paper.
There should be no deviation from Seven Sigma whatsoever.
The Evidence for Seven Sigma = The same Evidence for Six Sigma
I provide no evidence that Seven Sigma or standard deviations from the mean are correct and entirely arbitrary. Let me clarify. I provide the same evidence as to the proponents of Six Sigma.
Seven Sigma is also Not Based On Japanese Quality Levels.
Seven Sigma, like Six Sigma, is not based on Japanese quality methods. It was claimed by Six Sigma proponents but was not checked out upon investigation.
Seven Sigma also Not Based Upon the Work of Edward Deming
Six Sigma also is not based upon the work of Deming, which is also claimed as we cover in the article Six Sigma Was Not Based Upon the Quality Work of Deming.
Since no one asks practitioners of Six Sigma to prove that six standard deviations from the mean are the correct error ratio, Jack Welsh admitted that the statistical support for Six Sigma was not understandable to him (as we cover in the article Jack Welsh Did Not Understand the Math of Six Sigma). Therefore, I don’t expect to be invited to prove anything. And as we will see, no one manufactures to a Six Sigma defect level.
Why Seven Sigma?
The question might be why companies should move to Seven Sigma?
Why is Six Sigma no longer good enough?
For this example, I will rely on some tried and true “tends” to explain almost any corporate initiative.
Here they are:
- Global Competition
- Shortening Product Lifecycles
- The Internet
- To Deliver Value to Shareholders
- Because the Japanese are doing it
- To Cut Costs
- AI
- Competing with the Chinese
How Insane is Six Sigma?
Understanding how nuts Seven Sigma is is essential to understanding how completely illogical Six Sigma is. Six Sigma takes its name from the central concept that errors or deviations in a process should be six standard deviations away from the mean. This is based on an average probability distribution, as shown below (and borrowed from Wikipedia).
The error rate of six Sigma from the mean is the following error rate.
“A six sigma process is one in which 99.9999998027% of all opportunities to produce some feature of a part are statistically expected to be free of defects.” – Six Sigma
This would be one defect out of 500,000,000. To repeat, one error out of FIVE HUNDRED MILLION observations/occurrences.
This level of quality is impossible. Therefore, Six Sigma proponents create a logic that the goal should be Six Sigma because, over the long term, the quality level drops to “four point five sigma.” This reduces the defect standard to one out of 3.4 million.
Let us review how this defect standard would play out with two different examples.
- Six Sigma for ICBM Management: For instance, there are more than 10,000 nuclear ICBM warheads between the US and Russia. If Six Sigma were applied, and each day was a day without a warhead going off (that is the unit of measurement), over 50 years, the result would be .53 warheads going off (being launched, exploding in the silo, etc..) Six Sigma seems about right to manage the defects (explosions/major defects) of ICBMs.
- Six Sigma for Toilet Paper Square Count: Six Sigma for toilet paper roles would mean that if a standard toilet paper roll is 500 squares, that Six Sigma would mean that the quality level would have to be such that only 1 out of a 3.4 million toilet paper rolls had more than or less than 500 squares.
Thus, applying anyone’s error rate without knowing the particular situation is arbitrary. Furthermore, making a machine that cuts a roll of toilet paper to exactly 500 squares on more than 3.4 million attempts may cost an enormous sum.
Thus any toilet paper manufacturer that implements such a machine would be at a cost disadvantage vs. those companies that did not.
Six Sigma for Nuclear Weapons?
In the case of nuclear weapons, no errors are acceptable, so their control must have an “infinite sigma.”
A reasonable question might be the likelihood that over 10,000 ICBMs set at high alert will not have an error as the decades pass. Thus, Six Sigma’s problem is that it blinds the practitioners to question whether they should even be doing something. The US and Russia must prevent their ICBMs from going off and begin to decommission them because the longer they exist, the higher the probability there is that there will be a mishap.
Better Bling that Six Sigma
Six Sigma is all about training and the belts and certification. We covered probably the most inspiring Six Sigma training story in the article An Inspirational Story of Six Sigma Training.
Six Sigma offers various belts for different levels of accomplishment.
Seven Sigma won’t have that, primarily because wearing a karate belt around the office looks silly. So we replaced the belts with something that people can pin to their shirts to lord their Seven Sigma certification over the other employees.
As Napoleon said.
“You tell me that class distinctions are baubles used by monarchs, I defy you to show me a republic, ancient or modern, in which distinctions have not existed. You call these medals and ribbons baubles; well, it is with such baubles that men are led. I would not say this in public, but in a assembly of wise statesmen, it should be said. I don’t think that the French love liberty and equality: the French are not changed by ten years of revolution: they are what the Gauls were, fierce and fickle. They have one feeling: honour. We must nourish that feeling. The people clamour for distinction. See how the crowd is awed by the medals and orders worn by foreign diplomats.”
Napoleon would live Six Sigma and the motivating effect of the awards that it gives out.
So it goes with any status symbol, and Seven Sigma has the best status symbols because we have the brightest ribbons.
More Misuse of Statistics
Six Sigma takes ordinary statistics and misapplies them to a variety of situations. This is why there are so many books available, like the ones below, on Six Sigma websites.
Seven Sigma will misuse statistics, but we will also use other things like water sticks to “find” areas of opportunity for the company’s chance.
The Seven Sigma Waterstick is used to find quality opportunities and can be purchased from this website. The older man in this picture is not included, but I will come out to your corporate location to show you how to use the water stick. Afterward, I will perform a senesce to speak to Edward Deming…who hated Six Sigma.
Six Sigma as it Impacts Other Areas Outside of Supply Chain
Citibank, the intensely corrupt bank that had to be bailed out by taxpayers (which instead should have been placed into receivership), was all over the press before the financial crisis discussing the great strides it has made in implementing Six Sigma quality improvement.
The quote below is typical of many articles written about Citibank and Six Sigma.
“To address the problem, Podkowsky’s department implemented the Asset-Based Finance Cross-Functional Performance Challenge. A crucial part of the Asset-Based Finance team’s progress was vesting the authority to “sign off” on loan availment to his team. By reducing the number of “hand-offs” necessary to make funds available, the cycle time for this segment of the availment process was reduced by an average of 75 percent, from two hours to 30 minutes.”We’ve completed that project, and it’s been very successful with reduced cycle time,” notes Podkowsky. “Instead of getting complaints from customers, we’re now getting compliments.” –Quality Digest
That worked out great. However, while the loans and mortgages may have been made faster, the process’s verification fell off a cliff. Citibank seems to have forgotten that their most important value-add to the process is to verify the information. GE was the shining example of Six Sigma. Still, neither manufactured products that were higher in quality than competitors as we cover in Why Did No One Notice that GE Was Not Known For High-Quality Manufacturing?, but like Citibank had deficient quality in its financial arm, it is internal accounting. This bodes well for Seven Sigma because nothing around Seven Sigma has to work to become famous and widely quoted.
So Focused on High Quality That an Enormous Quantity of Production Was Moved to China
One has to wonder how serious US manufacturers were about unreachable high-quality levels proposed by Six Sigma when they outsourced so much production to China that they fraudulently labeled products as meeting US health and safety standards. And when these companies fight with regulators to keep having unsafe products imported into the US.
Conclusion
Seven Sigma is an unsupported and false idea that misuses statistics to intimidate and fool people into following an absurd tautology. It will so make me rich by selling a lot of books and Seven Sigma training courses.
This is why we encourage everyone to become certified by Seven Sigma.
A Message for Six Sigma Cult Members
Six Sigma adherents are almost exclusively brainless sheep – the type of people probably wearing 3 masks during the covid pandemic. So for them, yes — this article was humor.
References
https://www.qualitydigest.com/dec99/html/citibank.html