TABLE OF CONTENTS Six sigma originally gained acceptance as a measure of product design for manufacturing (DFM), especially in the process-intensive industries such as integrated circuit (IC) and printed circuit board (PCB) fabrication and assembly. Today, it has become as widely accepted as the traditional measure of quality in manufacturing control systems such as statistical process control (SPC) and total quality management (TQM). Its unique blend of production variability versus design specifications makes it a natural method for setting, communicating, and comparing new product specifications and manufacturing quality levels for competitive manufacturing plants.
By focusing on six sigma, there is a commitment up front to measuring and controlling manufacturing variability through statistical process control (SPC) tools and methods such as control charts. In addition, it is an excellent tool for negotiating and communicating with suppliers to set the appropriate quality level and expectations.
Six sigma focuses on communication between the design, development, and manufacturing parts of an organization. By managing the relationship of design tolerance to manufacturing specifications, it shifts attention away from a possible adversarial relationship between design and manufacturing to a more constructive one, where the common goal of achieving a particular quality level facilitates negotiations and cooperation in new product development.
In this chapter, the relationship between six sigma the early traditions of TQM and SPC will be explored, in the following topics:
Manufacturing variability measurement and control (Section 3.1). Statistical process control (SPC) is the key to maintaining and improving the manufacturing process variability. The tools for SPC...
