Six Sigma Process Improvement -- (D)MAIC
A more quantitative version of Deming's PDCA (Plan-Do-Check-Act)
Process
Improvement methodology was developed to implement this
statistical approach --
it is commonly referred to as MAIC.
-
Measure
-
Analyze
-
Improve
-
Control
Key product-process performance variables are measured, analyzed, improved,
and
controlled using statistical methods. The simple "statistical"
quality
tools that
were popularized in the Total Quality era are
reinforced with
Design of Experiments
(DOE) and more sophisticated
Statistical Process
Control techniques.
Process sigma is the primary unit of measure. It is determined from
an
analysis of the number of defects observed in a process. Performance
is
compared to the Best-In-Class sigma for that process to determine
whether the
process needs to be improved or the product / service needs to
be re-designed.
When improvement is necessary, Design of Experiments (DOE)
are used to
determine which product or process parameters are most
important and specific
parameter values that will give the best
performance. SPC is used to
continually monitor product and process
performance.
Similar to the problem-solving models where an initial step to define
the
problem was frequently added, some practitioners prefer to precede
MAIC with a
Define step. They feel that selecting and defining the right
process is
critical. Effort can easily be wasted working on poorly
selected, ill-defined
processes -- as illustrated by many TQM
failures.
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