The Development of the New Process of Design for Six Sigma (DFSS) and Its Application

The Six Sigma program has been widely adopted by industries worldwide since the late-1990s due to GE's successful implementation, though Motorola initiated it in 1987. Several quality experts, such as Juran and Feigenbaum and several researchers, have concluded that the poor quality in product design will cause vast and chronic costs, which the Six Sigma improvement may not eliminate. The focus of new product development is needed to transfer the quality improvement from the later phases of the Design Life Cycle to the early grades. It is necessary to adopt the "Design for Six Sigma" (DFSS) methodology to achieve the best performance in the early stages and focus on 'prevention' instead of 'problem-solving. In this research, we develop a new DFSS process, including Define, Identify, Measure, Design, Optimize, and Verify (DIMDOV), based on the in-depth study of DFSS and the author's rich consultant experience. The new DFSS process can be confirmed to be a robust methodology, used to assure the design quality of the product design and manufacturing process design by the application results.