24.2. THE SIX SIGMA PROCESS

Each of the four phases—measure, analyze, improve, control—takes 1 month. Each begins with 3 days of training, followed by 3 weeks of "doing" and 1 day of formal review by the Master Black Belts and Champions.

A "successful" project is one in which (a) defects are reduced 10 times if the process began at less than three sigma (66,000 defects per million operations) or (b) there is a 50 percent reduction in cases where the process started at greater than three sigma.