I haven't seen Six Sigma in action - it's a pity that it has become a fad or a buzzword because they are not sustainable.
If the target is < 3.4 defects per million, there is plenty of room for jiggery pokery.
Paper always has lots of artifacts that only are defects if they interfere with functionality. As you know, one of the manipulators of "quality" is to move the boundary for measurable parameters like size or frequency, or change the sample size. I am sure that this happens so that the magic number can be obtained for a customer.
I have short shrift for engineers and scientists who blame operators. I have had a couple I was not allowed to fire after the third incident (WOW principle). It was a pleasure to leave those managers.
Cheers
Dene Taylor, PhD New Hope, PA
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