Six Sigma Tools (Define)

Question 1

Project Charter

Answer 1

• A contract between the organization’s leadership and the project team created at the outset of the project.
• Its purpose is to
  
  • clarify what is expected of the team;
  • keep the team focused;
  • keep the project and team aligned with organizational priorities;
  • transfer the project from the champion to the team.
• Elements included: project title, project goals, scope, project leader, project mentor, project start/end date, high-level plan/milestones; team members / responsibilities

Question 2

Stakeholder analysis

Answer 2

• Help outline who has a vested interest in how a process performs
• Help you determine how and when to reach out and communicate with stakeholders to build buy-in, which is critical to a project’s success.

Question 3

Voice of the customer

Answer 3

• A process used to capture the requirements/feedback from the customer (internal or external) to provide the customers with the best in class service/product quality.
• This process is all about being proactive and constantly innovative to capture the changing requirements of the customers with time.

Question 4

House of Quality/Quality Function Deployment

Answer 4

• QFD is used to translate customers satisfaction and expectations (described in the Voice of Customer) into actual product or services technical requirements.
• Initially, one will use the House of Quality to do this initial assessment and then, through several matrixes, the final characteristics will be defined
• House of quality: combines customer requirements, design considerations, and design alternative in a three dimensional matrix to which we can assign weighted scores based on market research

Question 5

KJ/Affinity Diagram

Answer 5

• This is a brainstorming tools that gathers large amounts of data (ideas, opinions, issues) and organizes them into groups based on their relationships.
• Basically, generate a list of ideas and them organize them into meaningful buckets.
• Strengths: (1) can sort large volume of data and make them more organized; (2) encourage new patterns of thinking
• Weakness: less useful for subjects with fewer than 15 pieces of information. KJ is the person who invented this diagram.

Question 6

SIPOC

Answer 6

• Supplier, Inputs, process, outputs, customers, requirements
• A diagram used to identify all relevant elements of a process improvement project before work begins. - define scope and boundaries - Main components:
  (1) process: identify key activities and process boundaries
  (2) outputs - what are the key outputs of this process? who are the customers receiving these outputs?
  (3) Inputs: what are the inputs to the process? who supplies the inputs required by the process?

Question 7

Critical to Quality/Business (CTQ)

Answer 7

• Turns the qualitative VOC into specific measurable metrics for process performance:
• KPIs from the customers perspective; vital for meeting customer needs;
• The performance characteristics of a process, product or service that are most important to customer satisfaction.
• Methods: Obtain VOCs for product or services => Determine measures and operational definitions => develop target values => Establish specification limits => establish defect rates

Question 8

Kano Analysis

Answer 8

• A structured way to understand customer needs
• To test if a characteristics is basic, performance, or delighter, ask 2 questions: (1) how do you feel (if the characteristic) is absent? (2) how do you feel if (the characteristics) is present?
• If 1 =bad, 2 = neutral, it is basic If 1 = neutral, 2 = good, it is delighter if 1= neutral, 2 = bad, it is reveral if the answer is “it depends”, it is performance.

Question 9

SMART

Answer 9

• Help define goals (e.g. set goals for process improvement)
• Specific, Measurable, Achievable/Attainable, Relevant/Realistic, and Time-Bound