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OK, I hope that I'm taking into account everyone's comments. UtterUser wants Fortune 1000 companies, I want a reference site (at the moment iSixSigma seems like the best option), and FeralTitan wants to look beyond what google offers. For starters, how about the following links:

In addition, I'm in favor of adding TreQna.com once it grows a bit and starts providing more resources, and perhaps exchange it for iSixSigma. As of right now, iSixSigma is the best reference site I've seen (that's my opinion, but no one else has argued that a different site is better). I'm not sure what you all think of linking to sixsigmapc.com, but perhaps linking to the article index or the glossary would be ok. The problem is that there doesn't seem to be a general resources launch point. Comments? --Spangineer (háblame) 13:26, August 3, 2005 (UTC)

I would like to reserve my vote till I get a chance to comment on the 12:19, 30 June 2005 edits. Posted by 69.220.194.41 --Spangineer (háblame) 14:30, August 3, 2005 (UTC)
OK, my vote is to set a standard to define ads displayed on an external linked site. What is acceptable and what is not. isixsigma has a 'six sigma' page. If there is to be a link to them, it should be to a page describing six sigma. My opinion. Or no links to pages with any ads. Posted by 69.220.194.41
Are you saying we should link to [1] instead of the main page? --Spangineer (háblame) 11:01, August 4, 2005 (UTC)
There are at least 48,800 pages at isixsigma. I'm sure there is a better one than 'www.isixsigma.com/library/content/six-sigma-newbie.asp' Posted by 69.220.194.41
IMO, the page needs to be one that is something of a "jump off" point to significant amounts of info on Six Sigma. I'm not interested in linking to a specific article on iSixSigma, but to some sort of central location from which users can easily find relevant information. I think the homepage is best for this, but the newbie page might be good too. Do you have an example of one you prefer? --Spangineer (háblame) 14:21, August 4, 2005 (UTC)
I am okay with this. Seems to be a solution.Shall we review this once a month or so? FeralTitan 13:59, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

I just visited treqna.com briefly. This site should clearly not be linked from this article. It has almost no content: two very short articles, and a half-finished DMAIC manual which requires registration in order to view it. If it becomes a well-known six sigma resource, it should be linked. As of now it is far below the standards for deserving a link. Rhobite 08:27, August 4, 2005 (UTC)

Rhobite, treqna.com is 2 months old and is not being linked right now - please read the earlier discussion. Couple of thoughts I would like you to respond to. What does any other Six Sigma site offer - Glossary, Forum and articles, none of these significantly capture any knowledge about six sigma and most articles are really only markting tools - treqna offers a manual that no one else does - which will be complete by the middle of next month.If you are proficient in Six Sigma you may realize that the manual is an extremely critical resource in training six sigma professionals and most companies(I have seen quite a few) have extremely shoddy manuals. This does not imply that the treqna manual is the best, but its fairly good.
Other sections are new, just like the site and will come up over the next 2 months. Its voluntary work right now , so it takes time. So my question is When you say "its far below standard" what do you mean? is the work below standard or there isn't a glossary in place yet? ;) FeralTitan 11:35, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

So are we ready to unprotect the site and make the change? --Spangineer (háblame) 10:58, August 9, 2005 (UTC)

Yes. Lets hope there is no trouble this time around. FeralTitan 12:43, 9 August 2005 (UTC)
This page is now open once again for business. Play nice. :) --khaosworks (talk• contribs) 13:12, August 9, 2005 (UTC)


I have a new Six Sigma link, and I was wondering if you thought it would be worthwhile? It is a blog that contains Six Sigma news and information. Six Sigma Blog What does everyone think, should we add it? Check it out and give me your opinion, or vote, or w/e. --Scotsworth (talk• contribs) 13:12, August 23, 2005 (UTC)

The first thing I always look for on a website or blog is an ABOUT link, for any information at all on who is behind it. I didn't see anything on that one. Is it yours, Scotsworth? It seems ok, more informational than advertising, so I vote a qualified yes, qualified because I haven't really looked around for other links to see how it might compare. Spalding 23:44, August 23, 2005 (UTC)


Not quite sure who runs it, just think it's a good Six Sigma news/info page. Any other votes? Should we add it??? Posted by User:Scotsworth --Spangineer (háblame) 19:03, September 9, 2005 (UTC)

There should be info on who runs the site. I'm not impressed with the navigation, and it doesn't seem to be particularly comprehensive. Are there other Six Sigma blogs that it could be compared to? I'm opposed to adding it at this point. --Spangineer (háblame) 18:40, August 26, 2005 (UTC)

K, looks like two people for the addition, and one against...any other votes? Posted by User:Scotsworth --Spangineer (háblame) 19:03, September 9, 2005 (UTC)

I know that the site is an isixsigma site. Nothing great - just another of thier marketing things. I don't think it is worth an add.FeralTitan 07:42, 5 September 2005 (UTC)
I read it over and it has some pretty good info... I vote for. Posted by 66.117.234.4 --Spangineer (háblame) 18:51, September 9, 2005 (UTC)

3 For, 2 Against. Any more votes? --Scotsworth (talk• contribs) 11:17, September 7, 2005 (UTC)


It only repeats six sigma news, sometimes blatantly copying. It has no inherent value of its own. You can find all the stuff it talks about by searching for news on six sigma in google. Like Spangineer mentioned earlier, there is no about us page. What good info have you found on this site? FeralTitan 14:03, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

Someone modified external links without discussion here. These links have been reveresed to the 'agreed set of links'. Please discuss any new links before adding them. FeralTitan 13:56, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

Spangineer, In reference to your inital comment in this section, I would like for someone to put up treqna.com as a resouce, the site is now better equipped than before. Thanks. FeralTitan 10:21, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Someone modified external links without discussion here. These links have been reveresed to the 'agreed set of links'. Please discuss any new links before adding them.FeralTitan 14:49, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

There is repeated abuse by someone on the external links. The concerned party removes all links barring isixsigma. Please discuss before you edit. If this goes on, I will request the admin to lock up the external links and request for removal of isixsigma from the links.FeralTitan 20:06, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

IMHO better place for links is www.DMOZ.org --AndriuZ 19:08, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

External Link - Reference

May I suggest a peer review of Discover 6 Sigma as a potential reference? 21:30, 12 October 2005 (GMT+05:30)

Please identify yourself and we will all chip in with our review.Thanks. FeralTitan 10:22, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Thanks. My name is Sanjaya, the bogger who is blogging his thoughts in the above mentioned blog. sks 17:00, 13 October 2005 (GMT+05:30)

This blog looks pretty good. It's got alot of useful info on the subject, it has a clean format, and doesn't have too many ads. I'm curious though as to why this is a blog -- do you do analysis of six sigma related events? It seems like this page could just as well be a normal resource website. Not that I'm complaining; just curious. I'd support putting this on the page; having a blog of this quality on there wouldn't be a problem. --Spangineer (háblame) 14:37, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
Yes, lets put this in.FeralTitan 14:59, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
Re: treqna.com, the resources section is coming along and the community seems to be picking up, so I suppose it would be ok to add this. I'd still like to see more info made available to a general reader (alot of people won't register, even though it's really easy to do). In any case, I've added treqna, as well as the blog. --Spangineer (háblame) 17:32, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
Thanks Spangineer - We are trying to add a wiki to treqna the problem is that they are difficult to integrate with the current setup. Once we do have the wiki a lot more information would be made available to the unregistered public.FeralTitan 04:32, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
Thanks Spangineer & FeralTitan! Your comments further reinforce my quest to contribute to Six Sigma aspirants & practitioners. Why blog – tough question to answer – I guess that I found blog (and blogspot.com) to be a place where my thoughts can freely evolve, while being available to the community. sks 18:18, 16 October 2005 (GMT+05:30)

No content

Cut from article: the bulk of the text, because it doesn't explain any "methodology".


Advocates say that six sigma can be applied wherever the control of variation is desired. In recent years, it has begun to branch out into the service industry, and in 2000, Fort Wayne, Indiana became the first city to implement the program in a city government. Some, claiming that Six Sigma's impact has not yet been fully realized, advocate an open source approach so that the principles of Six Sigma might be more widely adopted.

In statistics, sigma refers to the standard deviation of a set of data; "six sigma", therefore, refers to six standard deviations. Mathematically, assuming that defects occur according to a standard normal distribution, this corresponds to approximately two quality failures per billion parts manufactured. In practical application of the Six Sigma methodology, however, the rate is taken to be 3.4 per million; see below. Initially, many believed that such high process reliability was impossible, and three sigmas (67,000 defects per million opportunities, or DPMO) was considered acceptable. However, market leaders have measurably reached six sigmas in numerous processes.

Why six?

According to the graph of the standard normal distribution, only two billionths of the normal curve falls beyond six standard deviations, in contrast to the value of 3.4 millionths publicized by Six Sigma promoters. Confusingly, that value corresponds to precision within 4.5 standard deviations, reflecting a 1.5 standard deviation "shift". This shift is used to account for model inaccuracies, since defects in manufacturing processes do not always correspond to the normal distribution. Instead, processes tend to "drift" with time, causing the majority of error to fall on one side of the normal distribution and as a result, a higher defect rate than 3.4 DPMO if no shift were used. With Six Sigma methodology, however, if the process drifts by 1.5 standard deviations, the level of quality will remain within 3.4 DPMO.

However, the 1.5 sigma shift assumption is not without its critics. Donald J. Wheeler, a respected quality professional, labels it "goofy", arguing that it is misapplied in practice and that it is probably inaccurate anyway. Often, implementers of Six Sigma simply add 1.5 "sigmas" to their sigma calculation, transforming a 4.5 sigma process (3.4 DPMO) into a 6.0 sigma process. But this reflects a misunderstanding of the nature of the shift. If short-term data is used (data that does not reflect potential process drift), 1.5 sigmas should be subtracted from the final sigma calculation to account for the potential drift. Thus, achieving 3.4 DPMO using short term data reflects a three sigma process, not six sigma, when used to reflect the long-term failure rate. Alternatively, if long-term data is used to make the sigma calculations, the process drift will have already been accounted for, and no additions or subtractions to the sigma calculation are necessary.

The other common objection is that the choice of a shift of 1.5 sigmas is too arbitrary and probably inaccurate. Some suggest that the 1.5 sigma shift was implemented for marketing reasons, so that the program could be named Six Sigma instead of "4.5 Sigma" without setting the unrealistic goal of two defects per billion. However, according to original training material used at Motorola in 1985, the point at which a shift became detectable with a sample size of 4 was 1.5 standard deviations, suggesting that the number was not arbitrarily selected.

In practice, the principle of six standard deviations of quality between the upper and lower specification limits is often not applied with mathematical rigor. Instead, Six Sigma is seen as a methodology to generally minimize defects. It is used in this way in non-manufacturing environments, where it serves as an analogy to manufacturing processes and is not used for statistical distributions. Similarly, the frequent misuse of the 1.5 shift assumption in manufacturing processes is a reflection of a similar attitude in industrial applications as well.

The ±1.5 sigma drift

Everyone with a Six Sigma program knows about the ±1.5 sigma drift of a process mean, experienced by all processes. What is claimed is that for a process manufacturing a product that is 100 ± 3 cm (97 - 103cm), over time it may drift up to 98.5 – 104.5 cm or down to 95.5 - 101.5 cm.

The ±1.5 shift was introduced by Mikel Harry, citing a paper written in 1975 by Evans, "Statistical Tolerancing: The State of the Art. Part 3. Shifts and Drifts". The paper is about tolerancing. That is how the overall error in an assembly is affected by the errors in components. Evans refers to a paper by Bender in 1962, "Benderizing Tolerances – A Simple Practical Probablity Method for Handling Tolerances for Limit Stack Ups". He looked at the classical situation with a stack of disks and how the overall error in the size of the stack, relates to errors in the individual disks. Based on "probability, approximations and experience", he suggests:

v = 1.5*SQRT(var X)

Harry then takes things a step further. Imagine a process where 5 samples are taken every half hour and plotted on a control chart. Harry considered the "instantaneous" initial 5 samples as being "short term" (Harry’s n=5) and the samples throughout the day as being "long term" (Harry’s g=50 points). Because of random variation in the first 5 points, the mean of the initial sample is different to the overall mean. Harry derived a relationship between the short term and long term capability, using the equation above, to produce a capability shift or "Z shift" of 1.5. Over time, the original meaning of "short term" and "long term" has been changed to result in "long term" drifting means.

Harry has clung tenaciously to the "1.5" but over the years, its derivation has been modified. In a recent note from Harry "We employed the value of 1.5 since no other empirical information was available at the time of reporting." In other words, 1.5 has now become an empirical rather than theoretical value. A further softening from Harry: "… the 1.5 constant would not be needed as an approximation".

Despite this, industry has fixed on the idea that it is impossible to keep processes on target. No matter what is done, process means will drift by ±1.5 sigma. In other words, suppose a process has a target value of 10.0, and control limits work out to be, say, 13.0 and 7.0. "Long term" the mean will drift to 11.5 (or 8.5), with control limits changing to 14.5 and 8.5. This is nonsense.

The simple truth is that any process where the mean changes by 1.5 sigma or any other amount, is not in statistical control. Such a change can often be detected by a trend on a control chart. A process that is not in control is not predictable. It may begin to produce defects, no matter where specification limits have been set.

World Class Quality means "On target with minimum variation" .

Criticisms of Six Sigma

Six Sigma is controversial with the statistics profession. Some teachers of statistics are critical of the standard of statistical teaching found in Six Sigma materials. Others object to the idea that a single universal standard can be appropriate across all domains of application. They argue that quality standards should be set on a case-by-case basis using decision theory or cost-benefit analysis.

That kind of controversy should not be a significant issue since this is all about introducing some methodology into process management and improvement. The idea is to start an unending cycle of improvement and use of better tools on the industry day to day practices rather than to develop rocket science that cannot be daily applied. If "well used" the bottom line results and EBIT impact of the Six Sigma speaks for themselves much better than any opinion.

Supposedly there is a methodology underneath all this mud. Buried somewhere. Well, what is it? Can someone define it in 15 words? How about 60 words or 250?

Deming has his 14 points, at least. What are the key points of six sigma?

If no one answers that, I'm going to declare it to be nothing more than a buzzword. Uncle Ed 01:34, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

I've moved most of this back into the article; admittedly, we need more on the actual methodologies of Six Sigma. Anyone want to write about the history and theory of Six Sigma's methods? --Spangineer (háblame) 03:06, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Delete Page

There have been continuous discrepancies over what content should be used. Some people see six sigma as a fad while others see it as a technology. Because there are people editing it with no training in six sigma and indeed the original poster was ‘venting’ about six sigma, it is not appropriate and continues to be abused. Links include marketing companies and other sites where yahoo.com’s emails are sent to bulk due to spamming reasons. Six Sigma is also a Trademark of Motorola Inc. and it maybe being used without permission. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.226.193.153 (talk • contribs)

Because the article may have incorrect information does not mean it should be deleted. Six Sigma is real and the intro does a fair job of defining what it is. If you have a problem with it, you should fix it. The trademark in which you speak of is for a logo - to my knowledge, you can't trademark a process/program. K1Bond007 16:52, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Call to delete article

There have been continuous discrepancies over what content should be used. Some people see six sigma as a fad while others see it as a technology. Because there are people editing it with no training in six sigma and indeed the original poster was ‘venting’ about six sigma, it is not appropriate and continues to be abused. Links include marketing companies and other sites where yahoo.com’s emails are sent to bulk due to spamming reasons. Six Sigma is also a Trademark of Motorola Inc. and it may being used without permission. Since when can admin's delete a call for deletion without discussion?

Not grounds for deletion. K1Bond007 17:00, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
your wrong, six sigma is a registered trademark of Motorola Inc. Check it. This is a prime example of what I am talking about. Also, do you have the right to post my IP? Furthermore, the article meets all the criteria for deletion. If you are going to move something, you should indicate you have. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.226.193.153 (talk • contribs)
I have every right to post your IP. It's in the article's history for all to see. Where does it meet any of the criteria? Please point it out to me or if you want at least follow through in your attempt to delete the article so that this can be resolved. Please see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion to get it listed. Simply adding the template to this article will not do anything. There are hundreds of books and websites on the issue of Six Sigma. This trademark you speak of does not effect this website (as previously stated, I think you're referring to the logo). K1Bond007 17:14, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
>>Where does it meet any of the criteria?
Inappropriate user pages in excessive or stubborn cases.
A category scheme gone awry
>>Simply adding the template to this article will not do anything.
then as an administrator, you should be helping me, not hindering me.
>>This trademark you speak of does not effect this website (as previously stated, I think ::::you're referring to the logo).
Go to the Motorola site and read the legal stuff
I'm not hindering you in any way. Feel free to list the article. I'm done trying to point this out to you. The deletion policy you stated isn't even for articles. It's for user pages. I saw the "Terms of Use" page. It's standard for just about every website. Motorola (although pioneered Six Sigma) does not own Six Sigma. We are not infringing on their copyrights in any way. Why not GE? Thousands of businesses use Six Sigma. Hundreds of books and websites are written about it (try Google). Nothing is wrong with this article. Follow through with your deletion process or I'll be forced to remove the tag once again. K1Bond007 17:28, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
It’s NOT about the copyright but a trademark. Whom Motorola decides to rouse is privileged information. How long do I have to do a followup? You already removed the tag.
Whatever. As soon as possible would be great. See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion (bottom of the page) for the process on how to do it. K1Bond007 17:46, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
Motorola's Trademark license link
http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/jumpto?f=doc&state=rki14k.4.947
>> Please don't delete the Six Sigma page. The portion at the begining offered the most concise definition I could find. Also, with respect to the trademark issue, there is no problem with using a trademark as long as it is not for profit or for slander. Coke is a trademark, does that mean I can't talk about it? No.
There has been slander here about the topic. The Trademark issue goes much deeper than you indicate. The information you refer to is abundant on the Internet.
K1Bond00 – As a responsible admin, isn’t it your job now to take the lead to protect wikipedia from law suites and get it deleted? There is now substantiated evidence of the Trademark.
Ok, here is my opinion,
1)Why are we entertaining someone who uses only an IP address. If this person is not even a registered user, he or she obviously doesnt spend enough time at wiki.
2)The Trademark for six sigma is free to use and everything is fine as long as you don't claim that you invented it. I checked with an IP lawyer.
3)Whether six sigma is a fad or not does not limit its entry into the wiki, the hippies were a fad too does that mean that we will never document anything about them. Stupid argument to say the least.
4)I am fairly well qualified to speak about Six Sigma and will help in checking this article going forward, I am not a great writer though, so I will provide the facts and someone can rephrase them to sound good.
5)The original fellow who started this whole 'delete the page' thing talks about 'Links include marketing companies and other sites where yahoo.com’s emails are sent to bulk due to spamming reasons.' Please mention which site this is and we can look into it. There are 5 sites on this list, The first is GE the second Motorola. Both these sites are obviously not being implicated. The third site treqna.com is a advert free and fairly new, I am part of the team that works on it - this site is okay too. The 4th site is a blog. The last site is isixsigma which is one of the oldest sites on the subject, they do spam and stuff but they are useful for most users. So which site ofends you?

Oh yeah and please show some manners by signing in after your post. FeralTitan 09:21, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

>>1)Why are we entertaining someone who uses only an IP address. If this person is not even a registered user, he or she obviously doesnt spend enough time at wiki.
I don’t think that trained six sigma person ASSumes anything. (we all know about the old ‘assume’ saying I’m sure) I have a login, I just choose not to use it. Why is my business. If you are such the wiki expert, then you know why I choose this time to call for the deletion of this article, right? Are you indicating that you must be a regular user of wiki to voice an opinion? I don’t believe that is the theory behind this web site, but I could be wrong.
>>2)The Trademark for six sigma is free to use and everything is fine as long as you don't claim that you invented it. I checked with an IP lawyer.
Isn’t that kind if like asking a foot doctor about brain surgery? I have sign non-disclosures agreement(s) with Motorola, I have signed other agreements with Motorola as well. I have been on conference calls with Motorola attorneys, I know first hand what they look for and why. Heck, at one time I even had dinner at a Motorola attorney’s house, before IBM stole him back. Yet again another example of why this puts wiki at risk. The admin didn’t know about the trademark and now that no one can argue with the validity of the Trademark, you indicate that an IP attorney said it was OK? Must be me or is it that you have a vested interest in this page staying online due to where your page ranks in the SERP’s. I know you know what SERP is, but for others it is (Search Engine Results Page). If you don’t rank well then your next best option is to get links from sites that do.
>>3)Whether six sigma is a fad or not does not limit its entry into the wiki, the hippies were a fad too does that mean that we will never document anything about them. Stupid argument to say the least.
I’m NOT saying six sigma is a fad. You AND the admin have taken what I said out of context and that could appear to be some kind of naive attempt at politics. What I said was that some people feel it is a fad. Do you disagree with that? If not, then what is your point I am missing it.
>>4)I am fairly well qualified to speak about Six Sigma and will help in checking this article going forward, I am not a great writer though, so I will provide the facts and someone can rephrase them to sound good.
So what are your credentials? Where did you get your training? Are you certified?
>>5)The original fellow who started this whole 'delete the page' thing talks about 'Links include marketing companies and other sites where yahoo.com’s emails are sent to bulk due to spamming reasons.' Please mention which site this is and we can look into it. There are 5 sites on this list, The first is GE the second Motorola. Both these sites are obviously not being implicated. The third site treqna.com is a advert free and fairly new, I am part of the team that works on it - this site is okay too. The 4th site is a blog. The last site is isixsigma which is one of the oldest sites on the subject, they do spam and stuff but they are useful for most users. So which site ofends you?
It was your site. I signed up and after an hour I couldn’t figure out why I didn’t get the confirmation. Then I found it in my yahoo bulk mail. If it is still happening or not, I do not know, but it did. You are smart enough about SEO’ing, (search engine optimization), as indicated by your other posts, most now in the archives, you remember before you finally got a link to your site, to know that if you are in the bulk mail of yahoo. So you know that if your emails end up in the bulk folder, time to change servers. I’m NOT indicating that is what happen, but ONLY that you are smart enough to know that.
>>Oh yeah and please show some manners by signing in after your post
So what is the difference between me ONLY using an IP and logging in with a username that means nothing? Telling me I have no manners, isn’t that a personal attack? Doesn’t that violate wiki policy? I could be wrong. As I stated, you have a vested interest in this page staying up, perhaps that makes your opinion too biased to be valid? I really do not understand what your points are. It must be me, I apologize for my ignorance.
>> 'I just choose not to use it. Why is my business.'
Its not just your business, you seem to have made it everyone elses.Why would someone who has a wiki id hide behind an IP. If it makes no difference to use it or not then why don't you use it. Maybe it links you with isixsigma.com maybe not. :) If you have an issue with treqna.com then please raise it, we don't need to scrap the whole page because of 1 link.


>>Isn’t that kind if like asking a foot doctor about brain surgery? I have sign non-disclosures agreement(s) with Motorola, I have signed other agreements with Motorola as well. I have been on conference calls with Motorola attorneys, I know first hand what they look for and why. Heck, at one time I even had dinner at a Motorola attorney’s house, before IBM stole him back.
No it is not, but then again you don't need my opinion on it. You seem to have met all of Motorola and had dinner with them. Will it be fair to say that you represent Motorola here? Cause we haven't heard from anyone 'employed' by them as a lawyer.
>> Must be me or is it that you have a vested interest in this page staying online due to where your page ranks in the SERP’s. I know you know what SERP is, but for others it is (Search Engine Results Page). If you don’t rank well then your next best option is to get links from sites that do.
You are damn right! I have vested interest in promoting Six Sigma, if you have visited my site you will know that it is non-commercial. It just promotes six sigma. Period. I believe in Six Sigma, it has given a lot to me and I try to give back a little bit.Now please explain to me how SERP's concern you? I understand how they concern me cause I run a small website which tries to help people who want to learn about six sigma. But how exactly do they concern you. They may concern someone from isixsigma.com cause those guys are losing traffic, but how does it concern you??

Hmmm...

>>::I’m NOT saying six sigma is a fad. You AND the admin have taken what I said out of context and that could appear to be some kind of naive attempt at politics. What I said was that some people feel it is a fad. Do you disagree with that? If not, then what is your point I am missing it.
>> Your Original quote : 'There have been continuous discrepancies over what content should be used. Some people see six sigma as a fad while others see it as a technology. Because there are people editing it with no training in six sigma and indeed the original poster was ‘venting’ about six sigma, it is not appropriate and continues to be abused. Links include marketing companies and other sites where yahoo.com’s emails are sent to bulk due to spamming reasons.'
Maybe it was taken out of context, apologies. But, please explain to me your chain of thought here. Because someone has not put in what you consider accurate information we should delete the page instead of improving it. Also you say that you need some kind of training on six sigma to be able to write anything about it on a wiki.Hmm, How many people are trained to write about ANY subject/page on wikipedia. Perhaps none. Its people with interest in a subject that try together to BUILD something of value. Again, you were saying we should just remove it cause you don't like what someone says and instead of sharing on your obviously IMMENSE six sigma knowledge! Wow! Good reasoning friend.
>>So what are your credentials? Where did you get your training? Are you certified?
I don't see any reason to tell you about my credentials but I will entertain your questions. I was trained at GE and am BB certified, I have also implemented and trained on Six Sigma in various organization. Would you be kind enough to tell us about your credentials?
>>It was your site. I signed up and after an hour I couldn’t figure out why I didn’t get the confirmation. Then I found it in my yahoo bulk mail. If it is still happening or not, I do not know, but it did. You are smart enough about SEO’ing, (search engine optimization), as indicated by your other posts, most now in the archives, you remember before you finally got a link to your site, to know that if you are in the bulk mail of yahoo. So you know that if your emails end up in the bulk folder, time to change servers. I’m NOT indicating that is what happen, but ONLY that you are smart enough to know that.
My dear fellow, if yahoo puts an email in its bulk folder, doesnt necessarily make it spam. This happened to gmail emails for account activation too. So you say Gmail spams! Hmm.. All your talking like a webmaster (SEOs and SERPs and what not) and you don't understand that the spam system that yahoo implements is based on user input. For example if you sent me an email and I decided that it is utter trash, I could 'Mark it as spam' and Yahoo would start sending it as spam to my bulk folder - exactly what happened with Gmail and happens with a lot of other services too. All it takes is a few individuals to mark it as spam and yahoo complies. Yahoo obviously understands this can happen so it allows you to unmark too. Do me a favour, next time you see a mail from treqna which is in the bulk folder, Unmark it please.


>> So what is the difference between me ONLY using an IP and logging in with a username that means nothing? Telling me I have no manners, isn’t that a personal attack? Doesn’t that violate wiki policy? I could be wrong. As I stated, you have a vested interest in this page staying up, perhaps that makes your opinion too biased to be valid? I really do not understand what your points are. It must be me, I apologize for my ignorance.
if there is no difference between an IP and a username, no point in all of us having one.Actually, if there is no difference then why don't you use one. Telling you that you have no manners is exactly that. It is not a personal attack just a factual observation of your behaviour. Next time a mosquito bites you or a fly irritates you please take the issue to court - site personal attack as the reason! Calling someone an ASS(ume) may count as personal attack though. But, don't worry I don't get offended that easily. :)

I hope my points are clear now. Your apologies for ignorance have been accepted. If you still don't understand please feel free to discuss. Say hi to the folks at isixsigma.com! :)FeralTitan 16:08, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

>>Its not just your business, … Maybe it links you with isixsigma.com maybe not. :) If you have an issue with treqna.com then please raise it, we don't need to scrap the whole page because of 1 link.
You should really look at your assumes and be very careful. I hope you don’t go making such assumptions on your site, it may not look good for it in the long term. I’ll explain more later. It is my business. As long as wiki does not require one to log in to post, it is my business. I don’t believe you have the power to make policy for wiki. I never indicated that I had a problem with treqna.com. As a matter of fact, I did not mention what sites I was talking about for a reason. You were the one who wanted to know. So I answered you. Then it seems you became annoyed when you found out which site. Don’t shoot the messenger?
>>No it is not, but then again you don't need my opinion on it. You seem to have met all of Motorola and had dinner with them. Will it be fair to say that you represent Motorola here? Cause we haven't heard from anyone 'employed' by them as a lawyer.
I have not indicated any manner that I represent Motorola and to stretch what I did say into that is absolutely flabbergasting. How do you reckon? Well I did work there for 11 years and worked with every six sigma coordinator at one time, some of their suppliers, and at least one person from every facility they had starting in 1985. To stretch what I said into, ‘You seem to have met all of Motorola’, is a far stretch is it not? And my brother also worked there for 35 years. So I did meet some people through him if you must know. He worked in the main headquarters and I worked in Florida. You know, I don’t need to do it this way, if you want to hear from their attorneys, I’m sure I can arrange it just based on what you have posted today. And I worked in component engineering, not on the proverbial shop floor.
The attorney I worked with was Mark Kalher. He was Motorola’s Patent and Trademark attorney in Florida. Him and I had to hash out legal stuff about the software and Trademarks. With me being the software coordinator. Actually I’ve had dinner with Chris Galvin at a 15 year reunion. So, yea, I happen to know quite a few people there. Check my bio and it should be apparent why. See the link to my bio below.
>>You are damn right! I have vested interest in promoting Six Sigma, if you have visited my site you will know that it is non-commercial.
I was waiting for that. Of course it is non-commercial. In order to be commercial you must first be established. You cannot make money selling ad space if you don’t have enough traffic. Now maybe your site will never have ads, but, if at some point in the future you start to run ads, it could look as if you spammed wiki. Only time will tell. I mean that principal has been around since the first advertisements in any kind of media.
>>Because someone has not put in what you consider accurate information we should delete the page instead of improving it. … Also you say that you need some kind of training on six sigma to be able to write anything about it on a wiki … Again, you were saying we should just remove it cause you don't like what someone says and instead of sharing on your obviously IMMENSE six sigma knowledge! Wow! Good reasoning friend.
I detect a bit of anger. I could be wrong. Spreading rumors based on opinions from professional and/or unprofessional people does not contribute to the overall good of wiki or the world. I would say the same thing goes for assumptions. I did not say to delete the page based on that single item. For you to try to indicate that I did speaks volumes. I have been activity practicing six sigma for 20 years. (read as making a living) If one does anything for 20 years, then one has a tendency to get good if from nothing else than from the history of what has been tried and what did and/or did not work. Common sense. Doesn’t matter if it is six sigma or exploring volcanoes. If you are going to make a sarcastic remark, shouldn’t you fist know whom you are dealing with?
>>Would you be kind enough to tell us about your credentials?
My bio can be found here. I’m not spamming, I’m just not going to write war and piece. A long bio is the net result of doing anything for 20 years.
http://www.sixsigmaspc.com/about.html
>>... spam system that yahoo implements is based on user input … Do me a favour, next time you see a mail from treqna which is in the bulk folder, Unmark it please.
Since that was the first and only email I received from your web site I never had a chance to mark it as spam, so that is not what happened. I never had an email from your site to mark as spam. You are once again making assumptions that are incorrect. (which by the way is one but many reasons why I am asking that this page be deleted.) So there either must have been a lot of other users that marked it as spam before I received mine, or, notice how I give you a way out here this is real politics, you may have set your web site up on a server that was previously used by spammers, so your IP was already tagged before you set up shop. And I bet you would love for everyone to mark your emails a not being spam if that it is still going on, so you can get it reversed, for that is the only way, as far as I know, to get it reversed. Actually I went there to check it out and if it was worthy of a link from our site, but after the bulk mail thing, it was not, for whatever reason it ended up there.
>>if there is no difference between an IP and a username, no point in all of us having one.Actually, if there is no difference then why don't you use one. Telling you that you have no manners is exactly that. It is not a personal attack just a factual observation of your behaviour. Next time a mosquito bites you or a fly irritates you please take the issue to court - site personal attack as the reason! Calling someone an ASS(ume) may count as personal attack though.
I don’t use one because I am not required by wiki policy to use one. What is so hard to grasp about that? And yes, if you tell a person they have no manners or if anything bites me, it is a personal attack. How on earth could one see either as anything but? And who brought up personal attacks and court? Just you for some unknown reason. Since you obviously do not know the saying, I will fill you in, ASS U and ME. So if are not ignorant to the statement, or you are taking the statement out of context to try to make some kind of point, it is missed. Either way, now you know what it is. No it was not a personal attack just making a comment about all your assumption, which by the way continue to be wrong. Not good for your business my dear fellow.
>>I hope my points are clear now. Your apologies for ignorance have been accepted.
Not at all, all I see is what could be viewed a naive attempt at politics. You really need to research what you are saying closer, in my opinion, for you put at risk you professionalism if you continue to make incorrect assumptions. I have nothing to do with isixsigma. I feel about them the same way you do. And we both know why we both feel that way. Too bad Google doesn’t see it eh? Fortunately for us, users of Google and other search engines are getting smarter and typing in more than 2 keywords to find what they are looking for, which makes it much, much harder to spam the SERPs. Actually our page views have doubled this month for some reason that I haven’t had a chance to check out. Some common ground at least. Before your site was listed here, as shown in the archives, we had other common opinions, at least till you got your site listed here and there was a threat that it could be removed.
Oh yea, this is why I am bringing it up now. ...
Online encyclopedia tightens rules
Wikipedia article falsely implicated man in Kennedy killings
12/05/05 10:43 PM, EST
Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia to which anyone can contribute, is tightening submission rules after a prominent journalist complained that an article falsely implicated him in the Kennedy assassinations.
Source CNN http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/internet/12/05/wikipedia.rules.ap/index.html
It may be just a matter of time before more things like this happen, to include Trademark violations based on various criterias used by various companies. Each company has their own 'pet peeves' as far as I can tell. Is it worth one page out of the total number of pages on wiki to take the chance. From a business point of view, I wouldn't.

Okay this needs to be cleared up.I am making no policies for wiki and I don't assume to either.

  • Apologies for my assumption that you are from isixsigma.
  • I never said you marked email from treqna as spam, I was explaining to you that any number of people could do that - Just explaining the process,so I did not make an assumption - you did!.
  • I will check on your thoughts of treqna mail server being used by someone else earlier and hence getting marked as spam.Your comment on getting spam mail from treqna was therefore now well founded, it could be because of mail servers and it was just a confirmation email, anyway this is not the right forum to discuss that further.
  • Good to know that you don't represent Motorola but you must accept that no one here cares to know that you have had dinner with anyone at Motorola - fairly, that was vain.
  • About your comment on making sarcastic remarks and knowing who you are dealing with. Firstly by virtue of having worked at Motorola you do not become an expert of any sort, Secondly, please refer back, I suggested that I will help develop material to put on the page and you came in shooting - asking what my credentials were. I never questioned yours first. So all that you imply is wrong with my arguments is in practice wrong with yours.
  • Treqna is non-commercial and it will not necessarly stay that way. Things may change, I don't know the future any better than you do - but right now it is non-commercial.
  • Finally, don't tell me what's good for me in the long or short term, plainly its none of your business. ANd I am not the least bit angry at your pointing out treqna in the list. You havent said anyting about the site really, all you said is that you recd. email that yahoo marked as spam. Which is a fair observation and doesnt offend me.
I could pick a lot of assumptions from your arguments just as well as you can pick from mine. There are a lot fo things you havent answered in my questions to you. But going on will do neither us nor the wiki any good. So I suggest we get to the point.
If I understand correctly the reason you want this page to be deleted is because it uses the word 'six sigma' and that this may have legal ramifications. I personally don't think it will, I am not an expert though, but consider your sites URL - it incorporates the word 'six sigma' too.I have a limited understanding on legal matters so I don't know what other legal implications you are talking about, if you could discuss them in detail.
The other reason you want this page deleted is because it does not have good information, I recommend that we - 'You and I' fix it, along with anyone else who wants to help.
Now instead of nitpicking, lets resolve this. I suppose we should also suggest that your website is put up in the links section. I have always thought that Wiki should offer more than google and google only offers isixsigma which we both hold the same opinion of. :)
If I havent captured your thoughts clearly please mention them in brief bulletpoints so we can take this forward objectively. Cheers. FeralTitan 19:50, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
I’m got real busy all of a sudden, so I’ll just post a quick note for I don’t have time to address all the points.
Any company that starts seeing their legal Trademarks associated with sayings like ‘The Trademark for six sigma is free to use and everything is fine as long as you don't claim that you invented it.‘ and when people don’t even realize that it is a Trademark, they usually start to get real protective. It’s not a new revelation. Happens all the time. If you disrespect a Trademark, I believe that you can almost be assured that at some point it comes back to hunt you.
Right now Motorola has to make their stockholders happy, just like any company by raising their stock price back to pre-Chris levels. Motorola has not maintained their Trademark for all these years just for fun. They want to maintain control. At any time their priorities could change. Cask is very correct, if you are going to use the Trademark, you MUST respect it and give credit to the Trademark holder. And that is not going on here. But the Trademark was only one of the reasons I think the page should be deleted. Also, since wiki is looking at their submission policies, I thought since they mention copyright but not trademarks, at least I couldn’t find it, it was a good time to bring this up.
GE is using Six Sigma with permission from Motorola and I am sure the other BIG companies are as well. Changing the Trademark, even just a little makes it harder in court for a Trademark holder to win. isixsigma put an ‘i’ in front of it, Six Sigma SPC, has the SPC appended to it. For example, Coke-a-Cola, cola is not a part of the Trademark. Besides, I have agreements with Motorola as I’m sure Harry does. In my agreement, it is stated that I must say ‘Motorola does not endorse this product’. I have some stories I could tell about just how anal a company can be about their Trademark, but don’t have time to tell them now.
There are reasons why you see six-sigma, 6 sigma, etc. Will it happen, I don’t know, could it happen, no doubt, it has happen in the past and will happen in the future with various companies. If Motorola feels as though they are starting to lose their Trademark to the public domain, I feel you WILL see them react. Everyone here hopefully knows statistics, so you know that the more it is used the higher the probability that Motorola will start to see it being lost, just as the statements posted here indicate. Does that put wiki at risk, of course. From their business point of view where marketing is not a factor, it's just not worth the risk in my opinion.
The same thing that happen at DMOZ is happening here, and we all know what became of them. All the information here is all over the internet due to the length of time six sigma has been around. So this page is not something new and unique. Six Sigma should be a note in something like 'quality management systems' or something. Where ISO and QS, etc. would also be listed. To totally understand six sigma, well, it goes far past the numbers. The 'numbers' are nothing more than the unit of measure. With unqualified people posting, and then qualified people reposting, this article will always be in a state of flux with right and wrong information.
Jim Winings
Huh? There's nothing wrong with using trademarked names. The only place where an issue arises is if you are in a similar the same business as another company and you use a product name that's similar to their trademarked name. There would be a problem if Wikipedia were to call itself "Encyclopedia Brittanica" because the Encyclopaedia Britannica could argue that someone might confuse the two, and almost anyone would agree. Infocom, a defunct computer company that published a game called Zork, once had a product newsletter called "The New Zork Times" with stories about its upcoming products, and The New York Times wrote them a lawyer letter, claiming that people might confuse the two, and Infocom chose not to fight it. Sounds silly, but it was a "news" publication and it was called The New Zork Times.
But there's no problem at all having articles about Microsoft Windows or Coca-Cola or Adidas. I don't believe there's even any requirement to use a ® symbol or acknowledge the trademark. If Six Sigma is Motorola's trademark for its quality methodology, the article should say so and should call out any subtle differences between the true Motorola methodology and "generic" Six Sigma-esque methodologies. I don't see why anything more than that would be required.
By the way, notice that Infocom did not get sued. They used "The New Zork Times" for years, the New York Times complained, they stopped, end of story. Dpbsmith (talk) 19:06, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
>>The only place where an issue arises is if you are in a similar the same business as another company and you use a product name that's similar to their trademarked name.
Actually according to the precedence already set in a US court in Massachusetts I believe, it’s not if it’s the same business, but if someone could be confused. (the precedence I speak of is Motorola Inc. vs. Motorola Shirt Company, not the real name of the apparel company, I don’t recall the actual name.) Because this is NOT apparel vs. electronics or games vs. media giant, I don’t see how it is relevant. The six sigma we talk about here is Motorola’s six sigma. A quality system.
You may NOT have to use the registered trademark logo, but if you do not mention Trademarks, you are risking it. Why do you think people even bother to put Trademark disclaimers in their ads, etc? Just for fun? A lot of times one pays for ads by words or letters, so there would be no return on putting the disclaimer in if you didn’t have to, right?
Jim Winings

Deleting the article probably won't solve the issues discussed. I assume that many other readers will continuously try to re-establish the article with or without knowledge of this article. Recommend the flame-throwers go into arbitration, albeit on a page designed for that. Most readers coming to Wiki are looking for the info that is here. I doubt that many courts will sustain an infringement suit with what I've read here (...even in California or D.C....). Recommend giving Motorola credit where it is due - but also others where it is due. Don't throw the baby out with the bath water. Arbitrate. Peace, brothers and sisters. User:Cask05 12:04 Zulu, 8 December 2005


Sixsigmium

I know this is a) old, b) a variation of something that has been going the rounds since 1989, but it's still funny...

GE R&D Discovers New Element Dpbsmith (talk) 15:39, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

6 Sigma is good in many contexts -- BenGeyer

Deletion??

I would say there are probably thousands of articles that should be deleted before this one...even if Six Sigma is a "fad" (which is entirely possible--it could just be corporate America's latest trendy crap), its impact upon American business is more than significant enough for the article to be kept. I cannot think of a single good reason for deletion. Paul 16:50, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

I am shocked to see the above discussion. I agree with Paul that it should not be deleted. “Six Sigma” has helped business managers to manage their processes effectively leading to reduced variations & defects. At best (or worst) if it is a fad, it may be considered an excellent way to teach business managers some scientific and statistical management methods. I can never imagine deleting this article. I would even advocate restoring some of its old contents that were very informative. sks 21:36 (GMT+05:30) 11 December 2005

Back to content

The article states that there are two levels of black belt and green belt. In my limited experience I've known of 'Master Black Belts'. Is this worthy of inclusion? dvc214 14:40, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

The irony

It's hilarious that this article doesn't meet Wikipedia's quality standards.

Why? Wikipedia doesn't have any quality management leadership process methodology buzzword implementation planning process management continuous improvement system in place, so what do you expect?
On an unrelated note: so, this decade's fad is Four-and-a-half Sigma—which for some unfathomable reason is called Six Sigma—which allows a defect rate of 1 in 3.4 million. A few decades ago the fad was Zero Defects. I have to ask: why has the bar been lowered? Why would anyone want one defect in 3.4 million when they could have Zero? Particularly when it is well known that Quality is free? Why shouldn't we demand all the free quality we can get? Dpbsmith (talk) 13:50, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

It was realised that zero defects and 100% quality are impossible to attain over most ventures lifespans. Show me a man who has scored 100% in every exam he has ever sat, even the genius of genius must face failure at some stage, even if it is less than 3.4 ppm. Also note 0 defects would simply meet the criteria of 6 sigma, and be a six sigma effort Mattyj1 13:10, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

While I agree that it's odd that that they used the name "Zero Defects" for a methodology that does not achieve zero defects, it's no stranger than using name Six Sigma for a methodology that does not in practice actually achieve a one in 3.4 million defect rate, let alone the one in a billion defect rate implied by its name. Dpbsmith (talk) 14:42, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
Yes! This article is evidence that Wikipedia needs to adopt Six Sigma to ensure that articles meet required quality standards. Wikipedia needs a centralized top down chain of command with certified green and black belts to authorize changes to each article. Without this kind of proper procedure and structure, the quality of the Wikipedia doomed. Doomed! Jeff Carr 23:44, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

{{POV}} tag

User:Joshuarobertsteiner added a {{POV}} tag to the article, which refers to a discussion on the talk page, but did not start any such discussion. I don't see how the entire article can be considered non-neutral, so presumably he has a problem with some parts of it. He should explain here what he thinks the issues are... or edit the article himself to reflect a more neutral balance. I'm removing the tag, pending his comments here. Dpbsmith (talk) 13:03, 22 January 2006 (UTC)


Lean Six Sigma (Lean Sigma)

Just wondered whether anyone has the necessary expertise to provide a definition of Lean Six Sigma (referred to often as Lean Sigma), and differentiate it from the "regular" Six Sigma?PeterBrooks 19:29, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

The template Journal reference has been proposed for deletion here

Is it due to non availability of a web URL to the same? If yes, here are the URLs that can be verified:

sks 04:53, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Introduction

Currently, the introduction contains information on its founder, and its original function as a defect function. However, it doesn't actively talk about the current role of Six Sigma, until the next section, Definitions.

Perhaps someone could merge those two sections, as the main introduction should say the most about the article... Kareeser|Talk! 15:25, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Invite to Edit

I invite all you Six Sigma gurus to share the best practices for six sigma at Wiki Best Practices

Note on the Six Sigma page advises not to change any External links - have a question that not sure if it has been discussed - the 6sigma.us site is obviously a specific commercial consulting company site - why is this included? did not see a specific discussion on this link. VGarner 14:10, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Good point; it was added by an anon a few days ago and I missed it. I've removed it. —Spangineer (háblame) 21:30, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

-I have removed a link which wasnt in the list of orignal links. If you had put this link up please, discuss it here to get it added. Thanks. FeralTitan 08:17, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

-Could someone from the original link discussion group (FeralTitan, Spangineer) post on this discussion page a summary of the links that are currently approved-perhaps a very quick summary of reason or policy on external links. I have tried to follow the discussion & compromise, but would like to know for sure. I may like to suggest links but not re-hash old discussions. Thank you. VGarner 18:46, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

--VGarner - I think Spangieer would be the best person to summarize the whole discussion without bias. The links that were agreed upon were

  • GE Six Sigma
  • Motorola University
  • TreQna
  • Discover 6 Sigma
  • isixsigma.com

FeralTitan 08:59, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

The first three that were agreed upon were GE, Motorola, and isixsigma. GE & Motorola were key players in the early years of Six Sigma, and have well developed internal six sigma programs. The other one, isixsigma.com, is a good general resource—it has large amounts of information, but on the downside, it contains alot of advertising. The other two were more recently added. Discover 6 Sigma is a blog, and thus offers a different feel. It too is a good resource with alot of valuable information. Finally, TreQna, an open source Six Sigma community project, was added once it began to grow and develop. It offers what the others don't—a six sigma discussion area and resource area in one, all without advertising. These five I feel cover a variety of website styles and a variety of six sigma content. They may be could be replaced by other links in the future, and others may be added to them, but we have to be careful to prevent this from becoming a link farm. The idea is to provide a few relevant links, and I think we've accomplished that here. —Spangineer[es] (háblame) 18:34, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Problem with the "definition"

Currently, the article "defines" Six Sigma as

a methodology to manage process variations that cause defects, defined as unacceptable deviation from the mean or target; and to systematically work towards managing variation to eliminate those defects[6]. The objective of Six Sigma is to deliver world-class performance, reliability, and value to the end customer.

But this is not a definition at all. It would apply to practically any quality program; heck, it probably fits what Taylor was doing a century ago. And the stated "objective" is utterly vacuous. What other objective would a quality program have? The definition should say clearly what distinguishes Six SIgma from its rivals. How, operationally, is Six Sigma different from ISO 9000 or TQM or [insert buzzword here]? Dpbsmith (talk) 15:28, 30 March 2006 (UTC)


Roderick A Munro 17:31, 9 April 2006 (UTC) [Roderick A Munro] I am new to working with Wikipedia, so you may have to advise me on some technique and procedure - was about to add items and then saw the note about posting items here first, so:

Might suggest that we add to External Links -

Six Sigma Forum Magazine is a reference reviewed journal with no advertising and is the largest publication dedicated to Six Sigma technical community. Yes, isixsigma has a new magazine also, but not hearing much about how well it is actually selling.

The Qualtiy Digest Magazine has for a number of years carried to most number of Six Sigma articles of any player in the field - up side is that it is free (can also search there site for six sigma article topics) - down site it too has a lot of advertising

Also: might I suggest starting a new header for:

Professional Society Six Sigma Certification Processes

This category should be for Not-For-Profit entities only (which these three are) that provide certifications for Green/Black Belts. These are the three primary ones that I am aware of, however, there may be others out there as well.

I'd be OK with adding the Six Sigma Forum Magazine link, and the first two of the certification processes links. Not sure about the other two. The advertising of the Quality Digest Magazine is rather annoying, but we do link to isixsigma, which is pretty heavy in advertising. Also, how established is the IABLS? I'd rather link only to the major players rather than attempting to link to every non-profit who offers a six sigma certificate. If we do add the three I suggest, it might be a good idea to remove the Discover6Sigma link (since its information is probably largely repeated). --Spangineer[es] (háblame) 15:49, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

"It is often said that a six sigma process produces 3.4 defective parts per million."

Can it please be explained where the 3.4 comes from? --Rebroad 21:22, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Sure. There's no problem at all explaining where the 3.4 comes from. The big problem is explaining where the "six" comes from.
Let's say a widget is supposed to have a nominal strength of 10 frammistans. Because of variation in manufacturing the actual strength will vary from item to item. Let's say the strength is normally distributed and the variations are independent from one item to the next. One might be 10.5 frammistants, one might be 9.6 frammistans. Let's suppose we guarantee that the actual strength will be at least 9 frammistans, and consider the part defective if the strength is less than that.
If we can control our process tightly, then the strength will be closely clustered around 10 frammistans and the standard deviation will be small. In particular, if we can control it so the standard deviation is 0.22 framistans, then 9 frammistans represents a departure of 4.5 standard deviations below the mean. Statisticians use the Greek letter "sigma" for the standard deviation.
To find out what proportion of items are defective, we need to know what portion of a normal distribution falls 4.5 sigmas or more below the mean. That's called the "cumulative normal distribution" and Excel has a built-in function to compute it.
We can use Excel to calculate the proportion of items that will be defective: that is, the proportion that will fall more than 4.5 sigmas below the mean. The formula is =NORMSDIST(-4.5) and the result is 3.4008E-06, the "3.4 parts per million" everyone talks about.
Of course, if we had the process under REALLY tight control, the standard deviation might be tighter. If we could tighten it up to 0.1667, then the 9 frammistan failure level would be six sigmas below the mean, not four and a half, and Excel tells us that we would have only =NORMSDIST(-6.0) = 9.90122E-10 = less than one part per billion defective items.
So, take your pick. Sig sigma advocates either are implicitly claiming that the effectiveness of their methodology at preventing defects is thirty-four-hundred times better than it really is (six sigma should mean 1 defects per billion but really means 3400 defects per million). Or, they are claiming that its effectiveness in tightening process variation is 33% better than it really is (claiming six sigma while delivering four point five sigma).
Of course, if you believe that all of these numbers are handwaving (who decides that 3.4 parts per million is the appropriate defect level? Is 3.4 parts per million an equally appropriate defect level for sheets of toilet paper and for jet engines?) then it doesn't matter. "Six sigma" is just a random, vague, non-quantitative claim--like "Let's put 110% into this"--embellished by using the terminology of statistics. Dpbsmith (talk) 22:52, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
P. S. I am sure that six sigma advocates do, in fact, have some sort of explanation as to why 4.5 sigma should "count" as really being six sigma. I just don't happen to know what it could possibly be. Cynically, I have to suspect that someone once shot for six sigma, achieved only 4.5 sigma, and concocted some excuse for the discrepancy. Dpbsmith (talk) 22:57, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Where the "Six" might come from This may sound like a load of hooey - but here is an attempt to explain this "mystery" (from someone who agrees that there has been a lot of bull thrown around under the guise of Six Sigma - but that's another discusion) When you are actively measuring a process (working on a project) you are only seeing short-term variation - common cause variation from the process. In the real world - there is always some shift & drift in a process from special causes of variation. In the 80's and 90's Motorola (inventors of Six Sigma) determined that this "shift and drift" or Long-Term Dynamic Mean Variation from special cause variation over the long-term is usually 1.4 to 1.5 standard deviations. Therefore, if you have a process that you "observe" to behave at 2 defects per BILLION - you say it is operating at Six Sigma - but expect to see 3.4 defects per million due to this "mysterious" shift and drift. (6 minus the 1.5 special cause shift) This is how it was explained to me years ago - not sure what the current mythology is. In any event - I have found this mysterious shift and reporting issue with Six Sigma to be more hindrance than a help. Personally, I think that the original coiners felt that "Six Sigma" was a sexier term to sell than "four-point-five-sigma", or "three-point-four DPMO" and needed an obfuscated statistical explanation to explain it. VGarner 20:43, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

"Load of hooey" is a reasonably fair representation of my working hypothesis at the moment....
What would the reference for this "Long-Term Dynamic Mean Variation" magically always being 1.5 sigmas be? I don't remember anything like that from my statistics books. If process measurements are not independent random samples from a normal distribution, but rather are the sum of some time-varying function and a normally-distributed random variable, why shouldn't that time-varying function be anything it darn well pleases? Why should it obediently stay within 1.5 sigmas?
I've no doubt that one could come up with plausible models that would give that kind of behavior—for example, if the measurements weren't really independent but were low-pass-filtered or autocorrelated or something of the sort—but then you'd want to know the explanation of what it is about "manufacturing processes" in general that would make them all fit the same model.
Well, I've got one more grouchy question. In organizations that claim to be following the "six sigma" methodology, what defect rates are actually attained in practice It's obviously not one defect per billion, but is it really as low as 3.4 defects per billion? Dpbsmith (talk) 22:23, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

1.5 Sigma drift is not in any statistics book. I was hoping to give an explanation of where it is from, not a defense of the logic or statistics. After re-reading the talk page - I believe this is thoroughly covered under Why Six and the +-1.5 Sigma drift sections above.VGarner 22:54, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

You're absolutely right. That +-1.5 Sigma drift section is excellent. I wonder why it isn't in the article?
What it all seems to boil down to is, some guy said "This is the rule of thumb I use, derived from my personal experience," and it became holy writ. How absurd to even to mention falsely precise numbers like "three point four per million" in connection with it. Particularly when, at the tail, a tiny change in the standard deviation produces a humongous change in the area. If you're even going to say "three point four per million" rather than "in the neighborhood of three or four per million," then you've implicitly said that you know that you're somewhere between 4.495 and 4.505 standard deviations from the mean... plus or minus 1.5.
But I still want to know: do Six Sigma practitioners really get defect rates down to the 3-4 per million range?
OK, OK, I'll shut up now. Dpbsmith (talk) 10:46, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

The Question is: Where do the parts come from?

Re SIGMAS. Dear Rebroad, Dpbsmith has given you already 3 sigmas (summaries) on this page, all of them correct, of how the 3.4 is derived from 4.5 sd: 3.4 parts in a million, 1 part in 3.4 million, 3400 parts in a million.
We are, of course, talking about OPPORTUNITIES, and not about parts. But as it is true that a part (such as a lose screw) can often be the cause of missed opportunities, we might as well accept parts in everyday language.
Unfortunately, Dpbsmith (like everyone else on this page) has failed to explain the SIX sigmas. So pay attention now: The bell curve has TWO sides. The three sigmas that Dpbsmith has given you refer only to the left side of it. Behind the curve is the terminus technicus. An equivalent three must be found on the right side. So there you have your SIX.--BZ(Bruno Zollinger) 11:36, 6 April 2006 (UTC)


Here is a link from a human resources site that talks about the HR implications of the Six Sigma initiative. I put it in and noticed that there has been significant discussion on the external links on this page. Could / should I add this link:

Is there more material somewhere, or is this the only relevant page? I think more information is necessary to warrant a link on this article. --Spangineer[es] (háblame) 15:42, 8 May 2006 (UTC)


References

One book, keeps showing up as reference no. 18, despite many people deleting it. Could it be an attempt to advertise the book? ramit 06:57, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

Slocum1946 and BezLocu - Please see the Three revert rule on the Wikipedia policy. Secondly, I also advise you to go through the Wikipedia style guide on what the References section may or may not contain. Please do not keep adding or deleting in this section ramit 12:59, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
Slocum1946 (talk · contribs), pls dont go on adding the book written by you to Six Sigma. Please list it on the talk page and try to build consensus around it. There are many editors who have helped in building this page. Please respect their views. Lost 18:26, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Micromanagement?

Would it be reasonable to say Six Sigma is a revival of Micromanagement? In my reading about it, it would appear that it's goal is to track as many variables as possible even if the advantage is not readily transparent?? Maybe I'm missing something,jme66.72.215.225

I dont think so... I find it a very structured way to fix things. Especially in areas where there should be a process, such as SCM, manufacturing, finance, operations, etc, it faciilitates one very well.. ramit 18:53, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Category

Any reason why Category:Motorola was removed? I'm going to restore it. Paul 04:33, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Hi there... Do u think we should add Category:General Electric too? Lost 05:07, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

I have come across a website that offers more six sigma resource than any on the web and I think that it is way better that isixsigma. visit it and I am sure you will consider adding it to the list. http://www.sixsigmafirst.com/ Rodney

Thank you. Will go through it and give my comments.. -- Lost 17:59, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

reworking of lead

I wandered into this article from dabbawala and had to look below the table of contents to figure out what it is. I have reworked the lead so the definition comes before the details of who has used it or developed it. Also, does anyone else notice an unencyclopedic tone (nevertheless non-standard formatting) to this article? Less management jargon advocacy and more straightforward explanation about what it is and what it is used for would be appreciated. - BT 16:11, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

flowery POV redundant trivial writing

"In truth, there is very little that is new within Six Sigma. However, it does use the old tools in concert, for far greater effect. The telephone, the internal combustion engine, and the computer were all made from existing technology, used in a new way. The same is true of Six Sigma."

I feel that this passage is idiotic and removed the last two, especially unneccessary sentences, but it was reverted... why? --anon —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.193.220.142 (talk • contribs)

Additionally, claiming a "far greater effect" is POV given that the previous paragraph discussed criticism of six sigma's lack of originality.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.193.220.142 (talk • contribs)

Edits by user:70.215.251.48

The anon user had made some changes which I disagree with and had reverted. He has however made the changes again. Since this is not blatant vandalism but more towards POV, I do not want to approach WP:3RR. In case anybody else agrees with me, please feel free to revert the changes. -- Lost 09:35, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

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