Implementing Six Sigma in any industry is a challenging task because the model requires organizational culture change. The application of the model in a service industry is particularly difficult, due to following issues. Decisions of the model are based on statistical facts not instincts or past results. Six Sigma is highly measurement and data focused. It is difficult to measure the performance level of a service. In manufacturing industry “no defects per million” real data can be used. However, in service industry there is a great variability in data due to customer preferences, lack of tangible measurement tool of human behavior. In most cases four indicators are being used to measure the performance of a service industry: service level, service cost, customer satisfaction, and clinical excellence. The five elements of a Six Sigma model include: Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control.
The first implication of Define phase is development of a Project Charter/Business Case. The Project Charter has to define goals and scope of the Six Sigma Project. The goals have to be specific, measurable, attainable, and relevant and time …show more content…
There are two types of data: qualitative-subjective-can be ranked or ordered for example: binary (pass or fail, Yes/No); nominal (gender, race); ordinal (age group) and quantitative-discrete (number of medication errors) or continuous (amount of time-time to balloon, ED waiting time). Measure phase might make a use sampling for data collection (simple random sampling, cluster sampling, stratified sampling). Sigma Six uses following formula to decide on the sample size (n) for continuous data: n= (1.96ϭ/∆) ^2, and n= (1.96ϭ/∆) ^2*P (1-P) for discrete data. Where P is the estimated percentage of the defective, Δ is the percentage level of uncertainty that we are willing to accept and σ is the estimated standard deviation for the
The first implication of Define phase is development of a Project Charter/Business Case. The Project Charter has to define goals and scope of the Six Sigma Project. The goals have to be specific, measurable, attainable, and relevant and time …show more content…
There are two types of data: qualitative-subjective-can be ranked or ordered for example: binary (pass or fail, Yes/No); nominal (gender, race); ordinal (age group) and quantitative-discrete (number of medication errors) or continuous (amount of time-time to balloon, ED waiting time). Measure phase might make a use sampling for data collection (simple random sampling, cluster sampling, stratified sampling). Sigma Six uses following formula to decide on the sample size (n) for continuous data: n= (1.96ϭ/∆) ^2, and n= (1.96ϭ/∆) ^2*P (1-P) for discrete data. Where P is the estimated percentage of the defective, Δ is the percentage level of uncertainty that we are willing to accept and σ is the estimated standard deviation for the