Design for Six Sigma (DFSS) evolved from the competitive crucible of the 1980s and 1990s and is based on four themes that permeated the cultures of excellent Japanese companies:

Statistical thinking – While U.S. firms focused on “excellence,” Japanese firms built their product development strategies on statistical quality control. Statistics, as applied to product and service performance, was driven by top leadership and integrated with business strategy.

Focus on customer satisfaction – Explicit, well-engineered business processes focused on the Voice of the Customer (VOC).

Designing for product/service and process alignment – Alignment was ensured between VOC and new service and product design concepts by using a problem-solving process for overcoming misalignment issues.

Concurrent engineering – Greater rigor in the design phase was accompanied by dramatically compressed new product and service development times.

In the U.S., Motorola innovated the DFSS methodology and used it to redesign its Bandit FN pager. Allied Signal and GE in the Six Sigma arena further added to the effectiveness of new product and service development. The success of these blue-chip companies convinced others of the advantages of adopting DFSS, including Siemens, Alstom, Johnson & Johnson, GE Capital, and Zurich Financial Services.

Integrating rigor, discipline, and creativity, DFSS ensures that the development process delivers new services and products that consistently perform at the highest sigma levels possible.

New Product and Service Introduction and Innovation

Our experience is that, in general, the processes used for designing services are less well defined than those employed in manufacturing. Service processes are less tangible, both in the configuration and in the output they deliver. Consequently, this provides a huge opportunity to gain competitive advantage in innovation.

A scan of the market shows that the adoption of DFSS is accelerating in the service sector, particularly in the financial services arena. We advocate that DFSS is as effective for developing life insurance policies, credit cards, or IRAs as it is for designing tanks and braking systems. From actuarial services to automobile manufacturing, innovative, leading firms use DFSS as the means to reap the benefits of:

• Direct access to customer knowledge
• Ownership and buy-in across functions
• Earlier detection of changing customer needs
• Broader perspective in understanding the market
• Faster time to market

And while Design for Six Sigma (DFSS) is a well-developed methodology used to guide the development of new products and services, it is also applied when existing processes are so dysfunctional that it makes sense to start from scratch.

The DFSS Road Map Applies to Services, Transactions, and Manufacturing Processes

The DFSS data-driven quality strategy and its methodologies are summarized under two widely used problem-solving, phased approaches:

IDOV: Identify, Design, Optimize, and Validate
DMADV: Define, Measure, Analyze, Design, and Verify

Both use the DFSS toolset – tools that have been added to facilitate the determination of customer requirements, as well as to support the decision-making process of the team as it moves through the phases of the development process. The DFSS toolset includes conjoint analysis, multigeneration product planning, concept selection methods, creativity tools, design scorecards, simulation techniques, nonlinear QFD, reliability engineering, and statistical engineering.

Rath & Strong helps businesses customize the DFSS road map to accommodate their specific needs.

DFSS Marries Scientific Methods to Creativity and Innovation

While statistical thinking and discipline are important in minimizing variation, creativity is equally important in accomplishing breakthroughs. DFSS from Rath & Strong emphasizes the need to develop creative thinking, and we include creative development in our DFSS consulting and workshops to hasten the generation of creative solutions.

Rath & Strong programs spur the development of creative solutions in that:

• Pressure is on the design team, as the contradictions between the established way of doing things and the goal defined for the DFSS project are explored.
• Stretch goals force the team to come up with unconventional ideas.
• Unequivocal commitment to asking the right questions and ensuring that they are answered with data focuses the creative process.

Three Powerful Advantages of Design for Six Sigma (DFSS)

Across the globe, Rath & Strong’s approach to DFSS is proving to be a powerful approach in that it offers these advantages:

1. A specific philosophy about how processes should be managed and resourced.
2. A specific methodology and road map to ensure that design teams consistently apply the tools in a disciplined manner at each of the critical phases of the development process, supported by tollgate reviews to ensure that the appropriate questions are asked and answered with data.
3. An array of tools and techniques support the team’s ability to answer the critical questions asked at each tollgate review. Starting with the customer requirements, teams work at every stage to meet those requirements in the most effective, efficient, economic, and elegant way.