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Why is Six Sigma important for business? This may seem like an ignorant question, but to people who don’t know what Six Sigma is, it is a perfectly good question. If there was a way to prevent a disease that ran in your family, you would likely do whatever it took to prevent from getting the disease.

In business, failure is the cancer that lurks, and Six Sigma will prevent many little cancers in your business from spreading.

First on the list is quality. Without quality and error control, business cancer will start to consume your business. Six Sigma methodologies strive for perfection, or as close as possible, which is 3.4 defects per million. The methodologies focus on many things, from skillful judgment to the quality of the product, and the processes that delivers them.

The quality of the product is also relevant to the customer’s needs and requirements, so another very important part of Six Sigma methodologies is the VOC, Voice of the Customer.

The implementation of all of the following methodologies is known as DMAIC, which stands for Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control.

Define: the problem, goal or reason the issue needs to be resolved.

Measure: use the current state of your business as a baseline and a starting point for improvement.

Analyze: figure out using data driven tools and validate as to why said issue is happening.

Improve: identify some creative solutions to get rid of the root causes of the problem.

Control: maintain the improvement to sustain its success.

The mindset of constant improvement is also at the core of Six Sigma implementation.  If you want your business to have a long and prosperous life free from failure, prevention and curing issues when they are small and manageable is the key. So in reality, all businesses need to stay healthy, and that is why Six Sigma is important to all businesses big and small.

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