Why 99.9% Just Isn’t Good Enough

By Anthony Akin
Manager, Lean Six Sigma

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Operating at an accuracy level of 99.9% should be pretty good, shouldn’t it? Not these days. Before companies like IBT started using Six Sigma as the quality standard, some people believed that 99.9% was good enough.

But, using the standard of defects per million opportunities (DPMO) 99.9% means that there will be 1,000 errors! Not even close enough for government work. By comparison, with nearly 11 million commercial airline operations in a recent year, 99.9% would have meant 11,000 crashes in a year. Not something the public or the industry would tolerate.

Six Sigma, on the other hand, will result in a quality process that yields only 3.4 DPMO, or an accuracy rate of 99.99966%.

Today, the world in which companies compete is far different from what we’ve previously experienced. Competition is stronger than ever. Customers have more choices and are demanding products and services that are delivered as fast as possible (speed), with no errors (high quality), and at the lowest possible price (low cost). Quality isn’t an option, it’s a necessity. And IBT is totally committed to providing the highest possible quality at all times and in instances.

As The Lean Six Sigma Distributor, IBT not only focuses on quality at a six sigma level, we also employ the tools of lean.

What exactly does lean mean? In 1990, James Womack, Daniel Roos and Daniel Jones coined the term “lean production” in their book The Machine that Changed the World. This book refers to Lean Production as a manufacturing paradigm based on the fundamental goal of continuously minimizing waste. Dr. Womack and Professor Jones followed that groundbreaking work in 1996 with Lean Thinking, a book that demonstrates how lean concepts can be applied to practically any business or industry.

The main goals of the Lean Enterprise are to define value from the customer's perspective; reduce total cost and create the most value while consuming the fewest resources; and eliminate waste by identifying which process steps create value and which are only waste.

As a company, IBT realizes that it must constantly lower its cost (Total Cost of Ownership or TCO) to remain competitive. To that end, we have instituted a number of process improvements, with many additional projects in the pipeline. These are aimed at eliminating waste. They enable us to increase our ability to meet our customer’s requirements, while earning us acceptable profits.

IBT has selected Lean Six Sigma (LSS) as our process improvement strategy. LSS incorporates Lean’s focus - process speed, and Six Sigma’s focus - process quality. Working in conjunction, they take aim at eliminating or minimizing waste.

Together, they also act to make IBT into the most competitive, most responsive and most preferred distributor available. We start with a tradition of pride and excellence. We intend to fully and energetically build on those traditions to continue to overachieve, moving towards achievable perfection and exceeding customer requirements.

If you would like to know more about IBT’s Lean Six Sigma programs – and how they can benefit our customers, please contact me.