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from scratch. It also can be used for the redesign of existing products, services, and
processes where the defects are so numerous that it is more efficient to redesign it
from the beginning using DFSS than to try to improve it using the traditional Six
Sigma methodology. Although Christine Tayntor (2002) states simply that the DFSS
“helps companies build in quality from the beginning,” Yang and El-Haik (2008)
presents it in a more detailed statement saying that “instead of simply plugging leak
after leak, the idea is to figure out why it is leaking and where and attack the problem
at its source.”
Organizations usually realize their design shortcomings and reserve a certain
budget for warranty, recalls, and other design defects. Planning for rework is a
fundamental negative behavior that resides in most process developments. This is
where DFSS comes in to change this mentality toward a new trend of thinking that
focuses on minimizing rework and later corrections by spending extra efforts on the
design of the product to make it the best possible upfront. The goal is to replace as
many inspectors as possible and put producers in their place. From that point, we
already can make a clear distinction between Six Sigma and Design for Six Sigma
giving an implicit subjective preference to the DFSS approach. It is important to point
out that DFSS is indeed the best remedy but sometimes not the fastest, especially
for those companies already in business having urgent defects to fix. Changing a
whole process from scratch is neither simple nor cost free. It is a hard task to decide
whether the innovative approach is better than the improving one, and it is up to
the company's resources, goals, situation, and motivations to decide whether they
are really ready for starting the innovation adventure with DFSS. But on the other
side, actually some specific situations will force a company to innovate by using the
DFSS. Some motivations that are common to any industry could be:
They face some technical problem that cannot be fixed anymore and need a
breakthrough changes.
They might have a commercial product that needs a business differentiator
feature to be added to overcome its competitors.
The development process or the product itself became too complex to be im-
proved.
High risks are associated with the current design.
Six Sigma is a process improvement philosophy and methodology, whereas DFSS
is centered on designing new products and services. The main differences are that Six
Sigma focuses on one or two CTQ metrics, looks at processes, and aims to improve
the CTQ performance. In contrast, DFSS focuses on every single CTQ that matters
to the customer, looks at products and services as well as the processes by which they
are delivered, and aims to bring forth a new product/service with a performance of
about 4.5 sigma (long terms) or better. Other differences are that DFSS projects often
are much larger and take longer and often are based on a long-term business need for
new products, rather than a short-term need to fix a customer problem.
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