Contract Logistics – Key block in Supply Chain Management
Supply Chain Activities constitute multi-modal transportation, customs clearance, and warehousing activities in one or more locations in the entire network. Supply chain activities may be local referring to within the country or regional meaning within a continent or region and global which is essentially intercontinental. Global operations are the order of the day as businesses […]
The Interconnectedness between the American Economy and the World Economy
It is often said that when America sneezes, the entire world catches a cold. This is because of the high degree of integration between the American economy and other economies of the world. Ever since World War 2 ended, America became a dominant economic power. This led to increased integration between the American economy and […]
The Importance of Infrastructure Sector
An economy consists of many sectors. However, infrastructure is known to be the backbone of any economy. Roads, railways, electricity, and banking services are the very bedrock on which the modern economy grows. Until and unless a nation has robust infrastructure, any other industry will find it difficult to grow and prosper. In this article, […]
What are Metrics and Why are they Important?
What are Metrics? Metrics are numbers that tell you important information about a process under question. They tell you accurate measurements about how the process is functioning and provide base for you to suggest improvements. It is said that only when one can express their understanding in terms of numbers is the understanding satisfactory and […]
The Changing Face of Business Environment
Introduction The last decade has shown rapid development in the information technology and its application. This has helped changed the way we look at the world as well as the way business is conducted. Both business and trade have gained under the wave of information technology with improvement in efficiency, productivity and bottom line. Productivity […]
Sigma or standard deviation is a statistical measure of dispersion in data. It is a measure which uses the characteristic of past data to make judgements about how the process will perform in the future. If a given set of data has normal probability distribution then the number of defects that will occur in the process over a period of time can be known depending upon the sigma level of the process.
The sigma (standard deviation) is multiplied with the numbers 1, 2, 3 etc to come up with a range. For example lets assume that the average of a data set is 10, while the sigma is 2. Hence 1 sigma will include all the data points between 10 +/-2 i.e. between 8 and 12. A 2 sigma measure would include 10+/-2(2) i.e. all data points between 6 and 14. So on and so forth.
However, it is a known fact that in a normal distribution the points tend to be around the mean. Therefore all the points will be closer to the average. Hence as one goes to farther and farther sigma levels the additional gains in terms of productivity are less.
To be a six sigma organization, the processes of an organization must be able to support this kind of efficiency sustainably. Building such robust processes requires a lot of intelligence and effort.
| Sigma Level | Defects/Million | Percentage Defects |
| 1 | 691462 | 69% |
| 2 | 308538 | 31% |
| 3 | 66807 | 6.7% |
| 4 | 6210 | 0.62% |
| 5 | 233 | 0.023% |
| 6 | 3.4 | 0.00034% |
| 7 | 0.019 | 0.0000019% |
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The Cost of Poorly Performing Processes – Need for Six Sigma
February 12, 2025
