Continuous Process Improvement – The Process Approach to Six Sigma

The Six Sigma methodology is a strategic approach for many of the world’s leading corporations and for medium and smaller sized businesses. By focusing on the elimination of errors and defects, companies realize a distinct financial and competitive advantage in the form of reduced costs, improved efficiency, and increased profitability and attain increased customer satisfaction in the process. More so than previous quality improvement initiatives, Six Sigma demands a measured approach in terms of project scope, resources, commitments, and anticipated benefits. Six Sigma is not new. Motorola, one of the world’s leading corporations, developed and deployed Six Sigma internally in 1986 and it is still a key discipline at the company. Since then, there has been an explosion in the number of quality conscious corporations adopting the discipline. Parallel with that growth, there has been an increasing recognition of the value of applying a process-centric approach to a Six Sigma initiative.

iGrafx was among the first solutions to make process modeling and simulation widely accessible and easy to use. iGrafx has worked with many of the world’s foremost Six Sigma professional institutions to create the first process-based solutions specifically designed to make Six Sigma projects more efficient, more powerful and easier to implement. As part of our commitment to Business Process Management (BPM), our goal is to help you realize the most from your Six Sigma initiatives with more certainty in less time.

This white paper introduces you to how a business process management approach can be applied within DMAIC, the five phases generally associated with the Six Sigma methodology.