Key Points

• The 5W1H Approach is used in problem-solving and process improvement.
• It is a low-cost means of analyzing a problem.
• No special software or additional tools are needed, just time and your team’s attention.

How do you implement the Six Sigma methodology? Consider the 5W1H approach when implementing it for your organization.

5W1H (who, what, where, when, why, how) is a method of asking questions about a process or a problem taken up for improvement.

Four of the W’s (who, what, where, when) and the one H are used to comprehend details, analyze inferences and judgment to get to the fundamental facts, and guide statements to get to the abstraction. The last W (why) is often asked five times so that one can drill down to get to the core of a problem.

5W1H of Six Sigma explains the approach to be followed by exactly understanding and analyzing the process, project, or problem for improvement. Here is an outline of the 5W1H approach for Six Sigma.

What: Concept

The “what” in Six Sigma is a concept, a subject whose basic goal is to focus on the basic steps and analysis. Six Sigma also is a level of quality applied to variations in any process.

Sigma, the Greek letter “σ” is the symbol in statistics used for standard deviation, a measure of variation in the distribution of values. Six Sigma (σ) equates to 3.4 defects per million opportunities, providing a stretch goal of near perfection in business products or services.

In the Six Sigma methodology, anything that dissatisfies the customer is a defect, and so understanding the customer and customer requirements is the most important issue in establishing a Six Sigma culture.

Six Sigma methodology can be applied to any type of business process to identify and eliminate the root causes of defects, ultimately improving the key business processes and saving costs for the organization. In this regard, the main goal of Six Sigma is that any quality improvements in an organization need to be economically viable.

Six Sigma, as a management philosophy, allows an organization to apply a disciplined, data-driven approach that continuously brings improvement in business process performance by reducing the variability in each business process.

It creates a culture in an organization aimed at learning to build processes that deliver the business output with flawless quality. Six Sigma also focuses on measuring and controlling the variation at each stage of the business process.

That sometimes creates a mistaken notion that Six Sigma is a set of statistical tools and a mere strategy for their use. The reality is that Six Sigma is a blend of the wisdom of an organization with a methodology and an extensive toolkit to improve the organization’s efficiency and effectiveness in meeting its customer requirements.

Why: Objective of Six Sigma Methodology

How to achieve the goals is accomplished in the “why” context. The goal of the Six Sigma methodology is to help people in their attempt to improve business processes to deliver defect-free products and services.

Six Sigma requires practitioners to consider both the voice of the customer and the voice of the process. It reduces the gap between the two voices.

That leads to more satisfied customers, and that is what makes the Six Sigma initiative a profitable business proposition. Not only does the Six Sigma organization save costs, but it also has a great opportunity to increase sales.

Six Sigma methodology focuses on long and sustained success for every improvement project, improving every process in the organization. That gives organizations a way to continue improving year after year. It even provides a system that rewards “out of the box” thinking, which can accelerate the rate of improvement.

Since it is a data-driven approach to problem-solving, Six Sigma builds robustness in daily management. This starts a set of chain reaction in strategic, tactical, and operational improvements, which compels the organization to set a stretch target for every business performance and set goals for everyone in the organization.

Who: People Involvement

Six Sigma eventually involves everyone in the organization, starting from the top management to the operator/staff level. It requires a companywide understanding of the processes, a commitment toward achieving the set goals, and an involvement in projects that accompany those goals. Since Six Sigma is for the total business process, it involves everyone in the organization.

The top levels of management appoint Sponsors, who are members of the leadership team who are responsible for selecting Six Sigma projects and are ultimately accountable for project results.

Just under the Sponsors are Champions, who typically have day-to-day responsibility for the business process being improved and their role is to ensure the Six Sigma project team has the resources required to successfully execute the project.

Next are the Master Black Belts, who mentor the Black Belts. They’ve been trained to manage Six Sigma projects and serve as leaders of project teams consisting of Green Belts and other employees. Green Belts are core project team members and even serve as team leaders on smaller projects. And the other members of project teams are regular employees.

In well-functioning deployments, everyone in the organization is involved in reducing defects, reducing cycle times, and increasing customer satisfaction.

Where: Business Process Location

Six Sigma is applied to all business processes. To start with, it can be applied to key processes that have the highest impact on customers and shareholders. All business processes impacting customer satisfaction and profit growth of the organization need to undergo Six Sigma methodology implementation.

When: Application of the Six Sigma Methodology

As long as an organization has a desire to improve performance by identifying every process for improvement, the starting point of Six Sigma does not matter. Organizations can implement Six Sigma:

• When they find out that the customer satisfaction level is eroding.
• When they want to retain a leadership position through quality in the market.
• When there is a clear indication of losing market share due to quality.
• When their processes have not changed for a long time.
• When the quality of a product is dependent on human inspection skills instead of the production process.
• When they think their processes have all reached an improvement plateau.
• When they are required to improve performance in all areas of their business process.
• When they decide they want to survive and grow in today’s competitive market.

Why It Matters

Having a fast and effective way of solving problems is just one of the many tools and concepts encouraged by Six Sigma. Now, at first glance, this question approach might not seem as robust as something like an Ishikawa Diagram. However, it takes even less time to implement and might get you thinking outside of the box when it comes to finding a solution.

How: Six Sigma Methodology Followed

Depending upon the requirement of the organization and the type of organization different strategies are followed for Six Sigma implementation.

Main Strategies

• Process Management: Ongoing cross-functional ownership and measurement of core support processes.
• Process Improvement: Focused on problem-solving, eliminating the vital few root causes. Use the DMAIC roadmap:
  • Define – Select the customer’s critical-to-quality characteristics (CTQs). Define the process improvement goals consistent with customer demands and enterprise strategy.
  • Measure – Create a measurement system and validate the system. Measure and collect relevant data for future comparison.
  • Analyze – Identify the sources of variation from the performance objectives. Analyze to verify the relationship and causality of factors. Determine what the relationship is and attempt to ensure that all factors have been considered. This is done with one or more of the tools in the Six Sigma toolkit.
  • Improve – Discover process relationships and establish new and improved procedures. Improve or optimize the process based on the analysis.
  • Control – Sustain the gain with process controls. Controls ensure any variances are corrected before defects arise. Set up pilot runs to establish process capability and transition to production. Thereafter continuously measure the process and institute control mechanisms.
• Process Design/Redesign: The creation of a new process to achieve exponential improvement and/or meet the changing demands of customers, technology, and competition. It must handle dysfunctional processes and re-engineer them. It is also known as Design for Six Sigma (DFSS). DMADV is the most common roadmap followed for DFSS:
  • Define – Define the goals of the design activity that are consistent with customer demands and enterprise strategy.
  • Measure – Measure and identify CTQs, product capabilities, production process capability, and risk assessments.
  • Analyze – Analyze to develop and design alternatives, create high-level design, and evaluate design capability to select the best design.
  • Design – Design details, optimize the design, and plan for design verification. This phase may require simulations.
  • Verify – Verify the design, set up pilot runs, implement the production process, and hand it over to process owners.

Other Useful Tools and Concepts

While we’ve spent a fair bit of time today discussing the 5W1H approach, it isn’t your only tool. As such, understanding key performance indicators and how they can improve your projects is a must. If you need a handy resource, we’ve got a comprehensive guide on the subject you can read here.

Additionally, if you’re new to Six Sigma, it might be time to learn all about how this methodology works. Our exhaustive overview not only details how it works, but why you might want to use it.

Conclusion

The structure of 5W1H of Six Sigma can help organizations to consider all aspects in detail and can be implemented when analyzing a process for improvement. The interrelationships also guide practitioners to take systematic error-free steps to complete the project successfully on time, every time.