Ask yourself, do you want to deliver faster Six Sigma projects that don’t overstep your budgeting parameters? Then it’s essential for you to outline a detailed plan in your project charter. Your plan will act as your guide through the rough waters of process improvement.

Key performance indicators are highly useful tools here, enabling you to identify precisely which actions benefit you as a company. As such, there are numerous KPIs to help you on your Six Sigma journey, one of which we look at today: Project Cost Variance (PCV). Join us and learn how you can use PCV to deliver Six Sigma projects on time and on budget.

Stay Focused with Project Cost Variance

It’s important to know that Six Sigma relies on the measurement and analysis of process issues. Controlling problems allows you to create solutions that prevent them from recurring, benefitting the business in the long- and short-term. Without a strong plan to follow, you’re likely to lose sight of your goals and business needs. Losing track of your priorities will only send you veering off budget towards slow delivery times. Moreover, this doesn’t just impact you, but also your customers, who depend on you for quality products and services. If customers don’t see any value in your services, or if they see you as unreliable, they’ll take their business elsewhere. For you, this is detrimental, but Six Sigma can help. First, however, we must define cost variance.

What is a Cost Variance?

A cost variance is the amount by which your project exceeds or falls under your maximum budget. Cost variance is one of two key areas that you should monitor throughout your project, the other being schedule variance, i.e., how early or late you are to meet project deadlines. You can use the following equations to calculate both cost and schedule variance:

• Cost Variance = BCWP (budgeted cost of work performed) – ACWP (actual cost of work performed)
• Schedule Variance = BCWP – BCWS (budgeted cost of work scheduled)

What is Project Cost Variance?

PCV is the process of evaluating your project’s financial performance. You should compare the budget you agreed before starting the project with the actual amount you spend. You can calculate PCV by finding the difference between BCWP and ACWP. Your ideal project cost variance should be when your BCWP equals the same as your ACWP. Your project cost variance provides otherwise unavailable insight into your finances throughout the scope of your project. Using it to your advantage allows you to monitor when and where you breach your budget. When you use PCV together with DMAIC, you can actively control your finances, targeting areas for improvement, like overspending. The result is a more focused, efficient, and successful project.

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Data-driven supply chain management can bolster business efficiency and improve customer satisfaction. Data aggregated from across touchpoints in the supply chain can be analyzed to create optimized paths in the supply chain for goods to move through. Supply chain analytics also use data, and data is generated in large amounts at every step in the supply chain. This data needs to be streamlined and transformed before it can be used to yield actionable insights.

In this article, we will look at the role of data in supply chain management and understand how you can use it for your specific business needs.

The role of data in supply chain management

It is all too easy to use IoT sensors at all points of the supply chain to trigger data outputs, which can then be mapped, logged, and streamlined.

Before you can begin using data, of which there’s no shortage, you need to select the right data first. Only when the right sources of data are identified can you begin to make real sense out of the datasets. It’s also important to properly clean and process the data before using it to make critical decisions.

Data can help gauge supply and demand and enable businesses to strike the perfect balance between them both. It can help discover pain points in the supply chain and work towards eliminating them with the right solutions.

Data ultimately provides greater transparency and visibility into supply chain processes for informed decision-making.

Create a strategy for using data for your supply chain

One of the best strategies to use data for supply chain management is to improve collaboration. Consider sharing important data with your partners to reduce risks and vulnerabilities. Businesses can also benefit from cutting-edge technologies like the blockchain to track the movement of goods across sources in the supply chain.

Data can also help make your business more agile. An ideal supply chain that is agile can adapt itself to market dynamics and unpredictable changes. Obviously, it is difficult to achieve agility in everything, so strive to be agile in the most important sectors.

Supply chains have traditionally been linear. Businesses should now consider inculcating circularity in their supply chains. End products can often become raw materials themselves, so customers form an integral part of the supply chain.

Harness the might of data for your supply chain

We live in a world that’s ever-changing. Customers can be unforgiving when it comes to their demands, and businesses constantly need to keep up. Supply chain management is at the heart of business optimization, and it relies to a deep extent on data gathered from across touchpoints. It’s data that keeps the supply chain moving in the right direction.

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Data visualization has innumerable advantages in supply chain management, for it can reveal significant insights about supply chain KPIs (key performance indicators). These can help businesses optimize processes for greater returns and make the supply chain more sustainable. Suffice it to say it’s a win-win situation for everyone.

In this article, we take a look at what data visualization is at the fundamental level and how we can use data visualization principles to reveal important insights about the supply chain in an actionable manner. 

What is data visualization?

Data visualization is all about presenting data in a graphical format to tell a story using visuals. It gives a visual context for available information. Data-driven decision-making is nothing new, and approaches like Six Sigma and Lean routinely use data at every step to guide businesses. 

Dashboards are often harnessed to present a 360° bird’s eye view of the supply chain, which reveals latent problems and helps businesses identify the right solutions. With a holistic view of the grand picture, it’s much easier to identify and resolve challenges with innovative solutions.

Supply chain and data visualization

Supply chain data visualization is a great way for employees to track data in real timesupply, even when it is channeled from multiple sources. This improves transparency and visibility into key insights to both supply chain employees and customers and ultimately helps deliver greater value for higher customer satisfaction levels.

Data visualization when harnessed for supply chain management can be used to manage and fine-tune supply chains for improved efficiency. Data visualization can yield crucial insights such as alternatives to current suppliers and help hunt for the right replacements in the most cost-effective manner. All this would be impossible without an understanding of the current supply chain processes.

The globalization of supply chains has increased the complexity manifold for businesses. Amid this chaos, data visualization holds a shining light for companies to simplify processes and procure business inputs in an optimized manner.

Data visualization also helps visualize the state of inventories and manage them in an efficient manner. It will empower buyers to choose the right suppliers and goods in the interest of the company and the end users as a whole.

Use data to achieve supply chain perfection

Data visualization is the art and science of harnessing the might of data and using it in a visual framework to gather rich and actionable insights. When applied to the supply chain, it can greatly improve efficiency. 

Supply chain data visualization aggregates data from multiple sources and presents them in a unified single pane of glass view for everyone to see. This breaks down silos and cuts across hierarchy, helping everyone see critical information and use it to refine processes to ultimately reduce costs. It also helps reduce inventory management costs with greater visibility and helps achieve higher customer satisfaction levels.

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This one action is very basic, yet companies today would rather ask artificial intelligence than actually go to their own customers for their opinion, regardless of the method taken. Whether through customer ratings, surveys, market research or calls/interviews, getting the voice of the customer (VOC) is critical for feedback and improvement. Luckily, many large Fortune 500 companies have taken the leap and have proven that some things never change — the customer is always number one! 

View our infographic below for some basic steps on VOC!

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VOC: One of the Greatest Six Sigma Tools

Voice of the Customer (VOC) could have saved many businesses. If you aren’t pleasing your customer and fulfilling their requirements, you might as well close up shop now. There are many ways you can tap into the psyche of your valuable customers. Here are a couple:

Direct Customer Comments: This can range from simply asking them to write customer letters, emails, and phone calls (feedback reflected through transcripts from call centers). Then there are also the third party websites.

The best information is received from your actual customers that have used your product or service. Their specificity is crucial to your business, and any feedback coming from your customers to your business is gold. As for third party websites, such as Yelp, just make sure they are reputable. 

Market Research: You could do a one-on-one interview with your customers, or conduct focus groups with people that are inclined to use your product or service. A good point to remember is if you make this sound too formal, your customer might not want to give up his/her time to answer questions.

Surveys: Sending out surveys by email, or even putting a URL on a receipt so that your customer can go to that link on their computer and take a short survey. The problem is that most of your customers won’t do this, even if you say that there is a chance that they could win something. 

Important Note: If you provide excellent customer service, your customer will want to take care of you because he is made to feel like he is very important. Your approach when using the VOC tool is important; if they feel like they are having a conversation with a friend, your customer is more likely to open up and give you a wealth of information.

Learn more about the VOC tool through one of our Lean Six Sigma training classes! Visit 6sigma.com for more information.

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While Six Sigma and Lean methodologies are synonymous with large Fortune 100 manufacturers and the like, we’ve also seen these methodologies work in smaller companies and other types of firms, such as professional services, where the genius is just as large as it is in the Fortune 100 companies.

Now we’d like to bring up that professional service firms deal with many industries and have to be well versed on each and every industry that they are working with and along side. In this case, the firm is selling professional services, so the service is the product.

The precision has to be exact so that their client can visualize exactly what the processes have to be even though each situation could be very different in the working world. The genius of using Six Sigma and Lean, as an integral part of the advice given to other companies, is no doubt the reason these companies have achieved such success.

In honor of all these hard-working people, we wish everyone a Happy Labor Day!

The 2018 schedule for 6sigma.com is currently available! For more information on our courses or services please visit 6sigma.com.

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Moreover, forecasting can also affect your business’s growth and market potential, which is why accuracy is important. There’s no use expanding into a specific market if there’s no profit there! Think of it this way: if you have fewer competitors, you can price higher, but only when demand is also high.

When entering a new market, forecasting can provide essential insights to help you make the best decisions. Much of this comes down to estimation, but all predictions come from raw facts. You can’t refute facts. So listen to them.  You’ll be an astounding success for it. Learn how you can accurately forecast your company’s demand with Six Sigma.

Useful Forecasting Techniques

There are multiple different methods you can utilize when forecasting demand. In any business, it is typically the management and business owners that perform this role. Using historical data allows your higher-ups to identify demand for specific products and services. If demand points to something already in existence, simply take that product and deliver it to the customer. You can also use forecasting to recognize potential demand for new, different products. All you need to do then is use your findings to produce what customers want.

Similarly, test markets can prove highly beneficial when it comes to forecasting demand. Test markets are simply a type of micro-market, generally found in cities, that reflect the demands of larger markets. Look at your test market. Is the demand high? If so, this tends to suggest a similar demand in larger markets where your product will almost certainly perform well. The only way to know for sure is to try. And with strong forecasting to back up your decisions, you’ve nothing to worry about.

Why Forecasting Is Essential

For those new to forecasting demand, we can understand you may be skeptical. All we can say is, don’t be. The key to using Six Sigma to great effect is to open your mind to new ideas. Not every business responds well to Six Sigma ideas at first but is their resistance that causes such friction in the first place.  Demand forecasting and estimation are key tools in Six Sigma businesses, both of which are integral to effective inventory management.

Remember, businesses like yours purchase inventory based on information gleaned from demand forecasts. Imagine you have a chain of grocery stores that increase their stock of items like ice cream in summer because past data tells them demand increases then. By neglecting to utilize accurate demand forecasting, you run the risk of failing to satisfy, if not exceeding, your inventory needs. More is not always better, and too much inventory can lead to significant losses. You will lose some items, particularly perishables, as their expiration dates pass by.

Moreover, too little inventory will have customers in uproar, leading to missed revenue opportunities. They may even turn away from you completely, losing value in the customers’ eyes. Once that happens, you’ll find it difficult to recover.

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Ask yourself, do you want to deliver faster Six Sigma projects that don’t overstep your budgeting parameters? Then it’s essential for you to outline a detailed plan in your project charter. Your plan will act as your guide through the rough waters of process improvement.

Key performance indicators are highly useful tools here, enabling you to identify precisely which actions benefit you as a company. As such, there are numerous KPIs to help you on your Six Sigma journey, one of which we look at today: Project Cost Variance (PCV). Join us and learn how you can use PCV to deliver Six Sigma projects on time and on budget.

Stay Focused with Project Cost Variance

It’s important to know that Six Sigma relies on the measurement and analysis of process issues. Controlling problems allows you to create solutions that prevent them from recurring, benefitting the business in the long- and short-term. Without a strong plan to follow, you’re likely to lose sight of your goals and business needs. Losing track of your priorities will only send you veering off budget towards slow delivery times. Moreover, this doesn’t just impact you, but also your customers, who depend on you for quality products and services. If customers don’t see any value in your services, or if they see you as unreliable, they’ll take their business elsewhere. For you, this is detrimental, but Six Sigma can help. First, however, we must define cost variance.

What is Does Cost Variance Mean?

A cost variance is the amount by which your project exceeds or falls under your maximum budget. Cost variance is one of two key areas that you should monitor throughout your project, the other being schedule variance, i.e., how early or late you are to meet project deadlines. You can use the following equations to calculate both cost and schedule variance:

• Cost Variance = BCWP (budgeted cost of work performed) – ACWP (actual cost of work performed)
• Schedule Variance = BCWP – BCWS (budgeted cost of work scheduled)

What is Project Cost Variance?

PCV is the process of evaluating your project’s financial performance. You should compare the budget you agreed before starting the project with the actual amount you spend. You can calculate PCV by finding the difference between BCWP and ACWP. Your ideal project cost variance should be when your BCWP equals the same as your ACWP. Your project cost variance provides otherwise unavailable insight into your finances throughout the scope of your project. Using it to your advantage allows you to monitor when and where you breach your budget. When you use PCV together with DMAIC, you can actively control your finances, targeting areas for improvement, like overspending. The result is a more focused, efficient, and successful project.

The post Six Sigma KPIs: Defining Project Cost Variance appeared first on 6sigma.

Staying Aware and Accepting the Inevitable

It’s an unavoidable fact. If you’ve built a successful Six Sigma organization, sooner or later, someone will try to copy your success. While this is somewhat inevitable, you don’t have to sit back and accept it. Take an active hand in deterring fraudulent practitioners from stealing your business. Just look at companies like Coca Cola and Apple. There are countless rip-offs, knock-offs, fakes, and counterfeits floating around. The same is true of Six Sigma.

Countless Counterfeits, Frequent Fraud

Some companies try to pass their services off as the real deal via a flimsy copycat name, e.g., China’s Sunbucks, Wu Mart, and HiPhone. But Six Sigma fraudsters have the audacity to use the Six Sigma name while offering up sub-standard training services. Even more disturbing, some fake practitioners use Six Sigma as a ploy to clean out your wallets, promising the world and giving you nothing. They may recognize your success and try to piggyback off it with a similar-sounding name and list of services.

Moreover, it’s not uncommon for criminals to send phishing emails claiming to represent your organization. We’ve even heard of fraudulent websites, whose only purpose is to draw in customers to exploit, that are virtually indistinguishable from their legitimate counterparts. As such, accepting and building an awareness of these risks is the first step to deterring fraud in the Six Sigma industry.

Innovation is the Key to Success

Our advice? Keep innovating in every way possible, as quickly as you can. Use Six Sigma techniques to improve your training services. Employ Lean principles and continuous improvement culture for an added triple-effect solution. Outpacing your fake competitors through sheer innovation will put you at the top of the leader board, making it clear to customers why you deserve their custom. Once they realize their bait isn’t catching, fraudulent practitioners will throw it somewhere else.

Maintain Strong Company-Customer Relationships

Six Sigma stresses strong reliance on data which practitioners use to make improvements. Customer satisfaction is a key driving factor behind business success and one that Six Sigma aims to improve by proxy. It’s difficult to improve customer satisfaction directly. There’s more to it than simple hocus-pocus. Six Sigma streamlines processes for added efficiency while improving quality through systematic elimination of defect. All this adds up to greater quality products delivered quickly into customers’ hands, driving up customer satisfaction rates. The key to deterring fraud is to demonstrate to customers why your business is the one they need.

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What is Capacity Analytics?

Remember, your capacity utilization is inextricably linked to efficiency and productivity. These two keystones enable your business to move along at a rapid pace, making prompt, proactive decisions on the go. As such, both have a large impact on profit. You can use capacity utilization analytics to measure your capacity, providing insight into how you’re currently doing. This is extremely helpful when trying to find solutions to low revenue, as you never know how much more you could be doing.

While there are similarities between customer utilization analytics and employee capacity analytics, they focus on different things. The key difference is that the former focuses on machinery and equipment as opposed to employees. Modern production machinery feature sensors which collect information on their usage. You can then analyze this data to gain useful insights into your efficiency. Moreover, you can then apply Six Sigma techniques to devise improvement solutions.

Your Guide to Capacity Analysis

First off, decide what area you wish to assess, be it admin, production, or another sector of your business. You should lay out a plan for analyzing the data before commencing the analysis. Consider your current capacity levels. Take a holistic approach, and you will gain a holistic understanding of the issues affecting performance and inhibiting change. You can then act on this information to change your operations for the better. Moreover, the capacity types you find may vary from business to business. Don’t forget to zero-in on hard and soft capacities, as well as factors like power distribution and leadership.

You should also lay out which tools and approach you wish to use. You could take an incremental approach which begins by identifying your current capacity, allowing you to build on this information, to create viable solutions. On the other hand, a gap analysis may benefit you more. This technique begins by defining the optimal conditions for your business, i.e., how they should be, so you can identify what’s missing. All you have to do then is fill in the gap.

Remember, each entity within your business progresses at a different rate. Paying attention to past analyses will help you track the entity’s course from then to now, allowing you to make decisions that will affect your future capacity. Moreover, don’t fall prey to generalization, as your conclusions will suffer from inaccuracies. Pragmatism is important here as too much information can be redundant. You’ll never need to perform analysis down to the smallest detail, so don’t waste valuable time. Instead, develop strategies to expand your capacity using Six Sigma process improvement. Use business analytics well, and you can transform your organization for the better.

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Calculate Your Customer Profitability Score

To calculate your customer profitability score, simply subtract the cost of supporting a customer from the revenues they generate for you. CPS is a highly useful decision-making tool, one that is pivotal when customer-company value exchanges are in flux. The company-customer relationship is often volatile, fluctuating in response to new information. Customers don’t always value the same things, with changing needs affecting profitability. Monitoring your value stream with Six Sigma provides insight into how you can manage changes to CPS. Moreover, it can also shed light on the value of new business versus the cost of lost business. Using Six Sigma techniques like root cause analysis, affinity diagrams, DMAIC, and hypothesis testing, you can do the following:

• Select customers to target that would benefit the company.
• Separate customers to retain from customers to drop.
• Decide which customers to cross-sell, plus what products to sell to them.
• Set prices for products and services.
• Set sales compensation rates and reward program entitlements.
• Recognize customer behaviors that generate or destroy value.

Multiple types of value determine customer profitability. If you are to make the most of CPS, we recommend getting to know each one.

Historical Value

Historical value derives from long-term company-customer relationships. It is most useful when ranking your customers regarding value, plus when selecting targeted marketing groups. Similarly, historical value also impacts on your assessment of pricing and budgeting.

Current Value

Current value comes from short periods of time, usually the current or previous month, as this coincides with reporting cycles. It tends to be highly volatile, as cyclical relationship factors don’t always register within such specific time frames. The benefit of current value is that it underscores the effects of changes in the customer relationship compared to previous values.

Present Value

Present value looks to the future, specifically at revenue and cost streams of current customer business. It projects future revenues and costs, helping to model the impact of price and service decisions before you implement them. Using it effectively requires patience, but the payoff is worth the effort.

Lifetime Value

Lifetime value also focuses on the future, while acknowledging projected revenue and cost streams from existing business and prospective customers. Implementing lifetime value requires insight into your customers’ repurchase behavior. Similarly, it also entails the likelihood of the customer increasing or reducing their future business with you. Lifetime value is the optimal customer value measurement and is appropriate for just about any decision-making situation. If you can use it effectively, you can maximize profit and increase customer exposure.

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Before You Begin

Planning is integral to Six Sigma project work. Remember, if you fail to prepare, prepare to fail. Before you commence any project work, ensure you have a sufficient plan to guide you through it. This should include your itinerary, as well as the strategies, techniques, and solutions you intend to employ. When working within a short time frame (weeks or months), it’s important you push yourself to create an effective plan.

Shorter time frames may seem like the easier option, but a lot can go wrong in a short time. Whereas, long-term Six Sigma projects allow you more time to course-correct if something goes wrong. With short-term projects, it’s imperative you take a disciplined and thorough approach to planning will ensure you don’t go off track.

Planning your project properly is beneficial for numerous reasons. Namely, it enables you to determine scope and outcomes. It also allows you to predict any would-be road bumps, and to measure, test, and correct visible problems before you begin. We’ve seen highly promising projects fail due to minor oversights snowballing into massive problems without project leaders realizing. When it comes to Six Sigma project work, you can’t afford to wing it.

In the Thick of It

Learning to leverage your Six Sigma tools effectively hones your creativity, allowing you to develop innovative solutions to problems you encounter. As a Six Sigma professional, you should know how to use your selection and decision-making tools to identify viable solutions. Don’t let yourself fall prey to intellectual snobbery. The answer isn’t always obvious. In fact, it’s sometimes a case of the more creative your solutions, the better. But, on the other hand, complex solutions aren’t always appropriate. Don’t forget about Occam’s Razor, i.e., the simplest answer is most often the right one. Don’t jump on your first idea, as it’s not always the most optimal solution. You should always approach problems from multiple angles to determine how to proceed. Once you understand the problem, you have the best chance of finding the right solution. The most common mistakes made in this area are.

Helpful Tools

We recommend applying hypothesis testing beforehand, to decide how to proceed, and DMAIC once the project has commenced. Hypothesis testing, while relying on data to first suggest a hypothesis, is primarily speculation. It helps to give ideas a test-run first, as doing so draws attention to problems that may crop up later. DMAIC, on the other hand, produces a data-centric understanding of problems you discover, on which you can then act. It’s essential to act quickly on short-term Six Sigma projects, and DMAIC provides all the tools for you to make short work of difficulties as they arise.

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Plan to Succeed

All you need do is browse the internet to find inspiration for your time-saving, cost-reducing process improvement plan. Using Six Sigma techniques like DMAIC and root cause analysis, you can identify problems on which to act. Similarly, Six Sigma also prompts you to devise solutions driven by data, with the potential for massive savings. For some businesses, it’s even possible to save up to 100 thousand dollars per year. Not only will this radically improve your cash flow, but you can then redirect that money to areas that need it, which could potentially drive greater savings. That’s like winning a scratch card, only to then win the lottery.

San Diego Six Sigma

Let’s look at some real-life examples of time and cost-savings. Only this year, San Diego enrolled city staff on a sixteen-week Lean Six Sigma course at UC San Diego Extension. The aim of this was to find ways of improving customer satisfaction and process efficiency. They certainly succeeded. Not only did they manage to reduce 911 call waiting times and speed up street light maintenance to minimize disruption, but also to improve customer service in local libraries. This shows that businesses big and small aren’t the only ones Six Sigma can benefit.

Almis Udrys, San Diego’s director of the Performance and Analytics Department, has a lot to say on the matter. For Udrys, Six Sigma represents a huge opportunity to reinvigorate city staff problem-solving skills. Skills that enable you to locate problems at the source and eliminate them to save time and increase cost-savings. Lean wastes like overprocessing, overproduction and human error are the usual causes of concern. Correcting these harmful issues will stand your business in good stead down the line.

The Secret to Saving Time and Money with Six Sigma

Six Sigma training doesn’t just revitalize your practical process improvement abilities. It helps you to look at problems from new perspectives. Naturally, you’ll want your employees to come complete with a wide array of skills that will benefit your organization. The business world is changing at a rapid pace, and Six Sigma can help you keep up by saving time and costs. The key to successful process improvement is for employees to open their minds to innovation, embrace data-driven decision-making, and commit to continuous improvement.

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Customer Focus

Airbnb takes advantage of the sharing economy’s popularity. Respect for customer expectations lies at the heart of their business practices, with their strong customer-focus overlapping with Six Sigma. One of several driving factors behind Airbnb’s success is the high rate of customer satisfaction they enjoy. Not only from those staying in the properties but also the owners who rent them out. Their motto is “A community build on trust,” which signifies some strong connections to Six Sigma thinking. Strong company-customer relationships are important in Six Sigma as they allow you to gain a greater understanding of customer need. The better your understanding, the greater your ability to serve the customer.

Enforcing the Rules

They also employ an extensive list of standardized community standards to which members should adhere. In fact, thousands of hosts, and guests become barred from using the site due to not following these guidelines. This is reassuring for the rest of Airbnb’s client-base and creates an environment of openness and transparency. But how does Six Sigma fit in here? Take a look at what Airbnb does. By actively monitoring processes and enforcing regulations to deter problems, it’s clear they’re using DMAIC.

While they seem to take a laissez-faire approach, they are, in fact, surprisingly hands-on when necessary. There’s no need for them to define their primary problem, as they already know it. But by measuring and analyzing issues such as rule-breaking, they can take actions to correct and improve them. As such, they exercise a great deal of control over their business operations often without having to interfere at all.

Resolving Problems with Six Sigma

One of the benefits of listing strangers’ homes for rental, means customers can see what they’re in for. TV and internet advertizing can sometimes be misleading. Who hasn’t booked a room thinking it was The Ritz, only to discover it was a hotel from hell? Airbnb provides an accurate picture while never setting up false expectations. Moreover, they originally got off to a rocky start, as many customers were uploading poor quality photos to the site. Naturally, this didn’t do their business any favors, and so they began professionally photographing all properties.

Here they recognized a problem – one responsible for poor quality and profit – devised a hypothesis, and implemented a solution. The impact of this was clear, prompting them to direct more resources to that area. Customers don’t like to be disappointed, and one mistake can lose them forever. Airbnb understands how Six Sigma can help prevent this right from the start.

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Fast forward to present day. Many businesses are global because of the internet, which includes social media, such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc. The size of the business doesn’t matter because even if the business is small, they might have customers in another state or country.

This becomes an obstacle when wanting to fulfill your specific customer’s needs. Let’s face it: if you aren’t giving your customers what they require, your customers will leave.

So knowing the specifics of your customer base (even if they live across the globe) is of utmost importance. Six Sigma’s core of beliefs are based on customers and their requirements.

This infographic shows the many tools that Six Sigma uses for obtaining VOC (Voice of the Customer).

Learn more about our Six Sigma training courses and services.

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