THE SIX SIGMA CALCULATORS
DPM (Defects Per Million) Calculator Process Design Calculator QC Design Calculator Limitations
How do your processes compare? Look up Quality Requirements Six Sigma Essays, Lessons, and Applications
Here are your Defects Per Million: Here is your Sigma-Metric:
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These Javascript calculators are for demonstration purposes only. In particular, if you enter nonsensical numbers, they will return nonsense. Entering 0 for Defects Observed, Sample Size, Quality Required, Observed CV will give you useless answers. More robust Six Sigma calculators are available upon request. Back to top
These Javascript calculators are for demonstration purposes only. In particular, if you enter nonsensical numbers, they will return nonsense. Entering 0 for Defects Observed, Sample Size, Quality Required, Observed CV will give you useless answers. More robust Six Sigma calculators are available upon request.
The following Sigma metrics are drawn from Nevalainen D, Berte L, Kraft C, Leigh E, Morgan T. Evaluating laboratory performance on quality indicators with the six sigma scale. Arch Pathol Lab Med 2000;124:516-519.
As shown by the variety of preanalytic, analytic, and postanalytic processes in this table, the approach of using outcome measures can be applied to virtually any process. The observed error rates for several of these processes are in the 3.0% to 0.3% range, which translates to typical sigma levels of 3 to 4. Even analytical performance, as estimated from proficiency testing data, is only at the 3.85 sigma level. The best process is "reporting errors" which has a sigma metric of 4.80. No process achieves the six sigma goal. Some rules of thumb: 3-Sigma performance is considered the minimum for any industrial process. Typical performance of business and industry processes is considered to be around 4-Sigma. The first goal of a Six Sigma project in business and industry is usually to improve from 4-Sigma to 5-Sigma. This is in fact a very significant improvement: a 100-fold reduction in defects in the short term! Some processes never reach 6-Sigma. But reaching 5-Sigma may be good enough. In some cases, the process can be reengineered to acheive 6-Sigma performance.
As shown by the variety of preanalytic, analytic, and postanalytic processes in this table, the approach of using outcome measures can be applied to virtually any process. The observed error rates for several of these processes are in the 3.0% to 0.3% range, which translates to typical sigma levels of 3 to 4. Even analytical performance, as estimated from proficiency testing data, is only at the 3.85 sigma level. The best process is "reporting errors" which has a sigma metric of 4.80. No process achieves the six sigma goal.
Some rules of thumb:
Here is a short list of available quality requirements. If you can't find a requirement for you test/analyte, see below for more Six Sigma resources:
Six Sigma Quality Design and Control manual