Confirmation is a key concept in Six Sigma and lean manufacturing. It’s also one of the most misunderstood elements of these two disciplines. Confirmation is simply the act of confirming your hypothesis about results, or making sure that what you think happened actually happened. For example, if you want to confirm that an improvement has been made on a process by looking at the data from that process, you need to make sure that it’s actually better before declaring victory
Overview: What is Confirmation?
Confirmation is one of the most important steps in a Lean process. It’s a systematic way to confirm that you’re on the right track and working toward achieving an optimized solution. Confirmation doesn’t mean that everything is perfect, but it does mean that you’ve identified any major issues with your initial hypothesis and tackled them head-on.
Confirmation differs from validation and verification because it’s not as black-and-white. Validation and verification are tools used to make sure your data collection methods are sound; they check whether or not what you’re measuring matches up with what you believe should be measured (i.e., if you’re measuring sales figures accurately). Confirmation, on the other hand, takes place after all this has been done—and focuses on determining how much confidence you should have in your results.
For certain tasks or specific projects within an organization, confirmation depends on testing different approaches or theories against each other until one stands out as being more effective than others.
3 Benefits to Confirmation
Confirmation is a key tool in Lean Six Sigma because it helps you to verify whether or not the results you are getting are accurate. It provides evidence that your assumptions and decisions (or, hypothesis) are correct.
There are three benefits to confirmation:
1. Confirmation allows you to verify the accuracy of your process, which can help identify issues that may be affecting it.
This means that you can make changes to improve the process, saving time and money.
2. Confirmation gives you confidence in the results, which makes it easier for others to trust them too.
When everyone knows they can rely on the data, it’s easier for everyone to work together towards their goals.
3. Confirmation allows you to reduce risk by ensuring that there aren’t any mistakes in your calculations or analysis.
Doing this before moving forward with any decisions based on those results (such as purchasing new equipment) is in the best interest of the organization.
Why is Confirmation Important to Understand?
In the scientific method, confirmation is the process of confirming that a hypothesis is true. It can be performed using statistical methods or other means.
In Six Sigma and Lean Six Sigma, confirmation is an important part of the six sigma methodology because it’s necessary to confirm your hypothesis before running an experiment. If you don’t confirm your hypothesis first, then you may waste time running experiments that aren’t even close to what you’re trying to test. It helps you make sure that your assumptions are correct, and that you’re not over-optimizing for a small part of the process.
Confirmation is also a key component of the DMAIC model, which stands for Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control.
In the case of Six Sigma, this mean that confirmation is additionally used to verify that a problem has been solved or an improvement has been made. It’s important because it helps you make sure that your solution is actually working.
An Industry Example of Confirmation
An industry example of LSS confirmation is the automotive industry.
The auto industry is one of the most data-driven industries in the world, and it uses lean six sigma to confirm that its processes are working as intended. When a car manufacturer wants to streamline its process for making one particular part, they will first identify the part that takes up the most time and effort during manufacturing. Then they will take that part and create a new process for making it, using only the equipment they already have on hand. They will then test this new process by making a small batch of parts using that process before shifting over to making large batches using the new system. Once they’ve confirmed that their new system works properly with small batches, they can scale up production without worrying about losing any efficiency or quality control issues.
3 Best Practices When Thinking About Confirmation
Confirmation is a key concept in Lean Six Sigma. It’s the process of taking action on some data, and then checking whether that action was effective. It’s important to remember that confirming an action doesn’t mean you know it was effective—it just means that you’ve done something and want to learn more about whether or not it worked.
In order to confirm an action, there are three best practices:
1. Do it quickly.
You should be able to move forward with your project without waiting long – if at all – for results.
2. Capture all relevant data.
The data you collect should be useful in determining whether or not your action was effective.
3. Be scientific.
You should keep track of what happens after taking an action so that you can draw conclusions about whether or not it worked.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) About Confirmation
What is confirmation?
Confirmation is a way of checking that a process works as intended and produces desired results. For example, if you have a customer survey process, you can confirm that it’s working by comparing your results with those from previous surveys. You could also use the process to check that customer satisfaction has improved over time.
Is there a difference between confirmation and validation in the context of Six Sigma?
Confirmation is an activity that is performed when a process is suspected to be in control, but its status has not yet been confirmed. Validation is a similar activity that is used to determine whether the process is capable of achieving its target. Validation can be thought of as confirmation with one important difference: validation seeks to determine whether or not a process is capable of achieving its target by measuring the capability of the process while it is under control.
Is there a difference between confirmation and verification in the context of Six Sigma?
Verification is also an activity that seeks to determine whether or not a process is capable of achieving its target, but it does so by measuring the capability of the process while it is NOT under control. Confirmation and verification are similar processes that seek to answer different questions: confirmation seeks to answer whether or not a process is capable of achieving its target while verification seeks to determine if that capability exists regardless of whether or not the process is under control at any given time.
Confirmation Before Action
So, what is confirmation? It’s a simple concept, but it can be confusing for some people. Confirmation is when you gather more information about something you think may be true before making major decisions that affect others or your company. Confirming before acting could save time in the long run by preventing errors or delays later on. Even though we try, nobody knows everything 100% at any given moment.
