• Journal of the Korea Safety Management & Science
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.293-301
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• 2013

The purpose of this study is to introduce the limit of previously used six sigma quality process evaluation metrics, $Z_{st}$ and $P_{pk}$, and a solution to overcome this drawback by using a metric based on performance evaluation of Z-factor quality innovation. Case analysis on projects from national six sigma contest from 2011 to 2012 is performed and literature review on new drug development HTS (High Throughput Screening) is used to propose innovative performance evaluation metrics. This research shows that experimental study on six sigma evaluation metric, $Z_{st}$ and $P_{pk}$, have no significance difference between industrial type (Manufacturing, Semi-Public Institute, Public Institute) and CTQ type (Product Technology Type CTQ, Process Technology Type CTQ). Following discovery characterize this quality improvement as fixed target type project. As newly developed moving target type of quality innovation performance metric Z-Factor is used for evaluating experimental study, hypothetical analysis suggests that $Z_{st}$ and $P_{pk}$ share different relationship or even show reciprocal relationship. Constraints of the study are relatively small sample size of only 37 projects from past 2 years and conflict on having interview and communication with six sigma quality practitioner for qualitative experimental study. Both moving target type six sigma innovation project and fixed target type improvement project or quality circle enables efficient ways for a better understanding and quality practitioner use by applying quality innovation performance metric. Downside of fixed target type quality performance evaluation metric, $Z_{st}$ and $P_{pk}$, is presented through experimental study. In contrast, advantage of this study is that high throughput requiring product technology, process technology and quantum leap typed innovation effect is evaluated based on precision and accuracy and Z-Factor that enables relative comparison between enterprises is proposed and implemented.

• Journal of the Korea Safety Management & Science
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.169-176
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• 2014

This research discusses the characteristics and the implementation strategies for two types of quality metrics to analyze innovation effects in six sigma projects: fixed specification type and moving specification type. $Z_{st}$, $P_{pk}$ are quality metrics of fixed specification type that are influenced by predetermined specification. In contrast, the quality metrics of moving specification type such as Strictly Standardized Mean Difference(SSMD), Z-Score, F-Statistic and t-Statistic are independent from predetermined specification. $Z_{st}$ sigma level obtains defective rates of Parts Per Million(PPM) and Defects Per Million Opportunities(DPMO). However, the defective rates between different industrial sectors are incomparable due to their own technological inherence. In order to explore relative method to compare defective rates between different industrial sectors, the ratio of specification and natural tolerance called, $P_{pk}$, is used. The drawback of this $P_{pk}$ metric is that it is highly dependent on the specification. The metrics of F-Statistic and t-Statistic identify innovation effect by comparing before-and-after of accuracy and precision. These statistics are not affected by specification, but affected by type of statistical distribution models and sample size. Hence, statistical significance determined by above two statistics cannot give a same conclusion as practical significance. In conclusion, SSMD and Z-Score are the best quality metrics that are uninfluenced by fixed specification, theoretical distribution model and arbitrary sample size. Those metrics also identify the innovation effects for before-and-after of accuracy and precision. It is beneficial to use SSMD and Z-Score methods along with popular methods of $Z_{st}$ sigma level and $P_{pk}$ that are commonly employed in six sigma projects. The case studies from national six sigma contest from 2011 to 2012 are proposed and analyzed to provide the guidelines for the usage of quality metrics for quality practitioners.

• Communications for Statistical Applications and Methods
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.451-464
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• 2008

Six sigma is the rating that signifies "best in clas", with only 3.4 defects per million units or operations. Higher sigma quality level is generally perceived by customers as improved performance by assigning a correspondingly higher satisfaction score. The process capability indices and the sigma level $Z_{st}$ have been widely used in six sigma industries to assess process performance. Most evaluations on process capability indices focus on point estimates, which may result in unreliable assessments of process performance. In this paper, we consider statistical inference for process capability indices $C_p$, $C_{pk}$ and $C_{pm}$. Also, we study better testing procedure on assessing sigma level $Z_{st}$ and capability index $C_{pm}$, for practitioners to use in determining whether a given process is capable. The proposed method is easy to use and the decision making is more reliable. Whether a process is clearly normal or nonnormal, our bootstrap testing procedure could be applied effectively without the complexity of calculation. A numerical result based on our proposed method is illustrated.