February 08, 2006

by Peter Peterka

Design for Six Sigma (DFSS) is the application of Six Sigma principles to the design of products and their manufacturing and support processes. Whereas Six Sigma by definition focuses on the production phase of a product, DFSS focuses on research, design, and development phases. DFSS combines many of the tools that are used to improve existing products or services and integrates the voice of the customer and simulation methods to predict new process and product performance.

DFSS can be compared to DMAIC (Design, Measure, Analyze, Improve, Control) and often the acronym DMADV (Define, Measure, Analyze, Design, Verify) is used to describe the strategy of DFSS. The precise phases or steps of a DFSS methodology are not universally defined. Most organizations will implement DFSS to suit their business, industry, and culture. DFSS methodology, instead of the DMAIC methodology, should be used when.