• International Journal of Quality Innovation
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.132-137
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• 2002

The quality improvement methodology Six Sigma gained enormous international popularity in the past few years, mainly due to its successful implementation at General Electric. Six Sigma is now commonly understood not only as a statistical measure for process performance (6$\sigma$ stands for 3.4 defects per million opportunities) to improve product quality but it has also become a strategic initiative undertaken by many organisations to improve management quality. In the centre of the Six Sigma methodology is the improvement project, often referred to as Black Belt or Green Belt project. Although every business is different and business priorities differ from company to company, however all businesses face the same problem when it comes to Six Sigma projects: How to choose the right project\ulcorner This article intends to provide some answers to this and other frequently asked questions about Six Sigma projects.

• Journal of Korean Society for Quality Management
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• v.38 no.4
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• pp.521-530
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• 2010

Global regulatory pressures relating climate change and environmental responsibility are asking companies to find out the best way for sustaining their continuous business growths. It could be known that inadequate management for environmental issues are bad for business, negatively affecting brand image, causing unnecessary losses and costs for environmental preservation. For this reason, environmentally conscious green business growth has been recognized as an essential requirement for a company to stay in business. Many companies are looking for green business opportunities of improving their environmental and financial results, and struggling with how green fits into their business. In this paper, the Green Six Sigma, an environmentally conscious Six Sigma methodology, is presented as a way to find solutions for green growths. The Six Sigma is known as a disciplined, data-driven approach and methodology for achieving world-class performance in any process from manufacturing to transactional. In chronological order, the Six Sigma has been evolved from Motorola's quality-oriented methodology to GE's cost-oriented lean approach, and is being evolved and developed as an environment-oriented green growth approach. There is no doubt that the Green Six Sigma, as an engine of green growth, is a power tool for achieving competitive business performance and reducing the impact on the environment.

• Journal of Korean Society for Quality Management
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.154-167
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• 2004

The TOC/DBR and Six Sigma are the most attention-getting concepts for managing manufacturing companies in Korea. Using the ideas and methods of the TOC/DBR, companies can achieve a large reduction of work-in-process and finished-good inventories, significant improvement in scheduling performance, and substantial earnings increase. The Six Sigma approach derives the overall process of selecting the right projects based on their potential to improve performance metrics and selecting/training the right people to get the business results. These two concepts have different backgrounds and different viewpoints for production systems. So, if the two concepts collaborate each other, the synergy effects to innovate production systems can be expected. This paper proposes a new approach to implement the TOC/DBR concepts in production systems. This approach uses some concepts of Six Sigma which stresses educations, project approaches (step by step procedure using a Roadmap), and improvement philosophy.

• International Journal of Quality Innovation
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.87-105
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• 2001

More than a decade after their development and first wave of deployment, Six Sigma and Lean Manufacturing have recently returned on the corporate agendas of a larger number of corporations across industries and supply chains. In the wake of their re-surge, this commentary addresses the evolution, context, content and deployment patterns of the two distinct management concepts. It also analyses claims in the business press that a merger is taking place between Six Sigma and Lean Manufacturing. Here, it is found that there is not enough evidence to broadly support such claims, and it is only concluded that there is some evidence of an early tend towards a merger and that a possible merger would have many synergies and advantages. Finally, an example from a Scandinavian manufacturing company is provided that explains how Six Sigma and Lean Manufacturing can be used in a beneficial way for companies to reach world-class performance.

• Journal of the Korea Safety Management & Science
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• v.7 no.3
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• pp.121-135
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• 2005

The TOC and Six Sigma are the most attention-getting concepts for managing manufacturing companies. Using the ideas and methods of the TOC, companies can achieve a large reduction of work-in-process and finished good inventories, significant improvement in scheduling performance, and substantial earnings increase. The six sigma approach derives the overall process of selecting the right project based on their potential to improve performance metrics and selecting and training the right people to get the business results. These two concepts have different backgrounds and different viewpoints for production systems. so, if the two concepts integrate each other, the synergy effects to innovate production systems can be expected. The purpose of this paper suggest that integration strategy between Six Sigma and TOC for profit maximization.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.10 no.8
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• pp.2068-2077
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• 2009

While six sigma project management systems have been widely used as a knowledge management systems, no one has proposed an empirical explanation for impacts of project management systems on project performance. This study proposes a structural equation model of the project management system that relates learning/growth, internal growth, customer performance, and financial effects based on six sigma project performance. The relationships are investigated using data collected from a sample of green and black belts. The results indicate that there are a causal relationship with use of project management and learning/growth and internal process, internal process and customer performance, and customer and financial performance. However, there is no relationship between internal process and financial effects. The results suggest that six sigma project system could effectively be implemented as a knowledge management system to improve six sigma performance of green an black belts. This study also compares index of SEM's model fit of research model and that of alternative models for further analysis. The result shows that index of research model of index is better than that of alternative model.

• Journal of Korean Society for Quality Management
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.223-231
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• 1999

The concept of six sigma was introduced at and popularized by Motorola in its quest to reduce defects of manufactured electronics products. When used as a metric, six sigma technically means having no more than 3.4 defects per million opportunities in any process, product, or service. More important than the technical definition is the concept of six sigma as a disciplined, quantitative approach for improvement of defined metrics in manufacturing, service, or financial processes. This approach derives the overall process of selecting the right projects based on their potential to improve performance metrics and selecting and training the right people to get the business results.

• Journal of Korean Society of Industrial and Systems Engineering
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• v.35 no.2
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• pp.220-227
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• 2012

The case company has driven the six sigma innovation programme company wide for the last seven years without any stop in spite of the CEO change. There was neither any benchmark nor the sufficient number of internal experts during the initial stage of driving six sigma. However, the company raised a lot of innovation experts such as MBB, BB and GB, thereby successfully changed the way of employees' doing work and reaped an enormous amount of either visible or invisible performances as a result of implementing the six sigma innovation programme. This paper deals with both main activities undertaken at each stage of the innovation life cycle of six sigma and their performances in a ICT (Information Communication Technology) industry. The performances are described from the four aspects of a balanced score card (BSC) and finally some strategic implications suggested.

• Journal of Korean Society for Quality Management
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• v.42 no.3
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• pp.361-372
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• 2014

Purpose: In this paper, we investigate whether the endeavors for 6 sigma quality management by a firm have positive effects on its financial performance and the length of 6 sigma implemented period affects its financial status. Methods: We conduct the analysis using the data from Workplace Panel Survey 2009. We use multiple linear regression in order to analyze the relationship between the efforts for quality management and financial performance. Specifically, the return on assets (ROA) and return on equity (ROE) are investigated as dependent variables and the efforts for quality management as independent variable. The Box-Cox transformation and Cook's distance are also used. Results: As a result of the analysis, the indication is that companies that put effect into the six sigma quality management have a positive result in its financial status. In detail, the efforts for six sigma quality management have positive effects on total asset turnover ratio and six sigma implemented period on net income to net sales ratio. Additionally, companies with longer(shorter) period of six sigma program have more (less) improvement in its financial status. Conclusion: It can be concluded that the company's efforts for quality management positively influence financial performance.

• Korean Journal of Clinical Laboratory Science
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• v.36 no.2
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• pp.121-126
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• 2004

The primary goal of six sigma is to improve patient satisfaction, and thereby profitability, by reducing and eliminating defects. Defects may be related to any aspect of customer satisfaction: high product quality, schedule adherence, cost minimization, process capability indices, defects per unit, and yield. Many six sigma metrics can be mathematically related to the others. Literally, six means six standard deviations from the mean or median value. As applied to quality metrics, the term indicates that failures are at least six standard deviations from the mean or norm. This would mean about 3.4 failures per million opportunities for failure. The objective of six sigma quality is to reduce process output variation so that on a long term basis, which is the customer's aggregate experience with our process over time, this will result in no more than 3.4 defect Parts Per Million(PPM) opportunities (or 3.4 Defects Per Million Opportunities. For a process with only one specification limit (upper or lower), this results in six process standard deviations between the mean of the process and the customer's specification limit (hence, 6 Sigma). The results of applicative six sigma experiment studied on 18 items TP, ALB, T.B, ALP, AST, ALT, CL, CK, LD, K, Na, CRE, BUN, T.C, GLU, AML, CA tests in clinical chemistry were follows. Assessment of process performance fits within six sigma tolerance limits were TP, ALB, T.B, ALP, AST, ALT, CL, CK, LD, K, Na, CRE, BUN, T.C, GLU, AML, CA with 72.2%, items that fit within five sigma limits were total bilirubin, chloride and sodium were 3 sigma. We were sure that the goal of six sigma would reduce test variation in the process.