Quality CMMI-Six Sigma

Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI)
Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) is a process improvement training and appraisal program and service administered and marketed by Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) and required by many DoD and U.S. Government contracts, especially in software development.

CMU claims CMMI can be used to guide process improvement across a project, division, or an entire organization. CMMI defines the following maturity levels for processes: Initial, Managed and Defined. Currently supported is CMMI Version 1.3.

CMMI currently addresses three areas of interest:

1. Product and service development — CMMI for Development (CMMI-DEV),
2. Service establishment, management, — CMMI for Services (CMMI-SVC), 
3. Product and service acquisition — CMMI for Acquisition (CMMI-ACQ).

CMMI was developed by a group of experts from industry, government, and the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) at CMU.
CMMI models provide guidance for developing or improving processes that meet the business goals of an organization.
A CMMI model may also be used as a framework for appraising the process maturity of the organization.[1]
By January of 2013, the entire CMMI product suite was transferred from the SEI to the CMMI Institute, a newly created organization at Carnegie Mellon.[2]

CMMI originated in software engineering but has been highly generalized over the years to embrace other areas of interest, such as the development of hardware products, the delivery of all kinds of services, and the acquisition of products and services. The word "software" does not appear in definitions of CMMI. This generalization of improvement concepts makes CMMI extremely abstract. It is not as specific to software engineering any longer.

What Is Six Sigma?

“Six Sigma is a quality program that, when all is said and done, improves your customer’s experience, lowers your costs, and builds better leaders. — Jack Welch

Six Sigma’s DMAIC  (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, Control) process, 

• a problem is first defined and quantified; 
• then measurement data is collected to bound and clarify the problem; 
• analytical tools are deployed to trace the problem to the root cause; 
• a solution for the root cause is identified and implemented; 
• and finally, the improved operations are subjected to ongoing control to prevent recurrence. 

The Six Sigma toolkit includes a variety of techniques, primarily from statistical data analysis and quality improvement. Design of experiments (DOE), failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA), cause-and-effect diagram (aka fishbone diagram, Ishikawa diagram), process flow diagram and gage repeatability and reproducibility (R&R) studies are among Six Sigma’s many tools.


Integration of Project Management and Six Sigma:
By taking the process control strength of project management and combining it with the troubleshooting strength of Six Sigma, an organization can create a consistent, controlled and predictable process troubleshooting system. The integration can begin with the development of a project life cycle. Implementing the Six Sigma methodology for defining the problem adds statistical knowledge of the problem, reducing the chance of an incorrect assessment of the issue as defined by the customer and scope documents.
Six Sigma at many organizations simply means a measure of quality that strives for near perfection. Six Sigma is a disciplined, data-driven approach and methodology for eliminating defects (driving toward six standard deviations between the mean and the nearest specification limit) in any process – from manufacturing to transactional and from product to service.

The statistical representation of Six Sigma describes quantitatively how a process is performing. To achieve Six Sigma, a process must not produce more than 3.4 defects per million opportunities. A Six Sigma defect is defined as anything outside of customer specifications. A Six Sigma opportunity is then the total quantity of chances for a defect. Process sigma can easily be calculated using a Six Sigma calculator.

The fundamental objective of the Six Sigma methodology is the implementation of a measurement-based strategy that focuses on process improvement and variation reduction through the application of Six Sigma improvement projects. 

This is accomplished through the use of two Six Sigma sub-methodologies: 

DMAIC and DMADV. 

The Six Sigma DMAIC process (define, measure, analyze, improve, control) is an improvement system for existing processes falling below specification and looking for incremental improvement. 

The Six Sigma DMADV process (define, measure, analyze, design, verify) is an improvement system used to develop new processes or products at Six Sigma quality levels. It can also be employed if a current process requires more than just incremental improvement. 

Both Six Sigma processes are executed by Six Sigma Green Belts and Six Sigma Black Belts, and are overseen by Six Sigma Master Black Belts.

According to the Six Sigma Academy, Black Belts save companies approximately $230,000 per project and can complete four to six projects per year. (Given that the average Black Belt salary is $80,000 in the United States, that is a fantastic return on investment.) General Electric, one of the most successful companies implementing Six Sigma, has estimated benefits on the order of $10 billion during the first five years of implementation. GE first began Six Sigma in 1995 after Motorola and Allied Signal blazed the Six Sigma trail. Since then, thousands of companies around the world have discovered the far reaching benefits of Six Sigma.