The Power of Six Sigma: An Inspiring Tale of How Six Sigma is Transforming the Way We Work is a book about a management style that concentrates on preventing mistakes rather than trying to make the best invention, or hiring the best inventors, engineers and so on. The book is a story told by a man who was just fired from his job. He talks to an old friend of his who he previously worked with. This person had risen up the corporate ladder in his company due to the Six Sigma. "Preventing mistakes can make you just as much money, or more, and anyone can do it." (Chowdhury 23) This report will explain the process and the main players involved in a successful Six Sigma project.
First of all lets analyze why it is called Six Sigma. Sigma is a Greek term that is used to designate standard deviation. Standard deviation is defined as a measure of variation within a process. Sigma is like a measurement, used to determine how good or bad the performance of a process is; in other words, how many mistakes a company makes, doing whatever it does, from making steel or delivering the morning paper. The next question anyone would ask is what does the six stand for? Six is the sigma level of perfection you are shooting for. To explain this a little more, take for example that your company's working at one sigma. That means it's making about 700,000 defects per million opportunities. At one sigma you are doing things right about thirty percent of the time. Two sigma is better. If your company is working at two sigma, you are making a little over 300,000 mistakes per one million opportunities. Most companies who are using the six sigma system operate between the three and four sigma, which means they make between 67,000 and 6,000 mistakes per one million chances. If your company is operating at 3.8 sigma you are getting things right ninety-nine percent of the time. Which sounds pretty good, but that is where you are wrong.