Six Sigma for Electric Power Plants: Really?

Mathematically, six sigma means that only one part out of 507 million are out of tolerance. (So you can't really apply it until you have manufactured 507 million parts.)

http://www.learneasy.info/MDME/MEMmods/MEM30012A/statistics.html

IMHO, the time and money spent on training and certification could be better spent fixing the actual problems.

"Over 99.99 percent of the outputs are expected to be defect-free statistically when it comes to 6 Sigma, or more specifically, less than 3.4 defects per million opportunities.

http://www.sixsigmaonline.org/six-sigma-training-certification-information/key-six-sigma-goals/

So what's a defective KWH look like compared to a correctly made one and how do I know if I get a bad one from the power station Vs one that was damaged in delivery?

An other-than-perfect kWh is called a kWs (kilowatt second).

I've done indirect lightning tests, and that's pretty easy: Smoke comes out of things.

According to Dave Barry, few people examine their electricity closely. After we use the electricity, the power company takes it back and sells it to us again.

http://www.comp.leeds.ac.uk/Perl/Misc/electricity.txt

"But the greatest Electrical Pioneer of them all was Thomas Edison, who was a brilliant inventor despite the fact that he had little formal education and lived in New Jersey. Edison's first major invention in 1877 was the phonograph, which could soon be found in thousands of American homes, where it basically sat until 1923, when the record was invented. But Edison's greatest achievement came in 1879 when he invented the electric company. Edison's design was a brilliant adaptation of the simple electrical circuit: the electric company sends electricity through a wire to a customer, then immediately gets the electricity back through another wire, then (this is the brilliant part) sends it right back to the customer again.

This means that an electric company can sell a customer the same batch of electricity thousands of times a day and never get caught, since very few customers take the time to examine their electricity closely. In fact, the last year any new electricity was generated was 1937."

"IMHO, the time and money spent on training and certification could be better spent fixing the actual problems."

Working in R&D departments, I told people the restrictions they put on engineering creativity, the emphasis they put on spending as little as possible, and the emphasis they put on just squeaking by reliability, safety, and regulatory compliance only made things worse.

I spent a number of years working on aircraft electronic systems.
"The Global Fatal Accident Review of the Civil Aviation Authority gives a total number of 0.6 fatal accidents per one million flights for the ten-year period 2002 to 2011.^[38] When expressed as per million hours flown, this number is 0.4."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aviation_safety

The electronic systems that actually manipulate controls and engine and systems operation may comprise millions of pieces. The environment may require continued operation when some 300,000 A of lightning current flows just 5 inches from the equipment and the wiring connected to it oor the landing gear struts on which it is mounted.

"And Boeing's new 787 Dreamliner, scheduled to be delivered to customers in 2010, requires about 6.5 million lines of software code to operate its avionics and onboard support systems."http://spectrum.ieee.org/transportation/systems/this-car-runs-on-code

How much quality control is required overall to ensure that this level of reliability is achieved?

Um... Wait a minute.

That electrical gear can handle a 300,000+ amp multi-million-volt electrical discharge only inches away yet I can't use my computer because it might interfere with the sensitive aviation control electronics and crash the plane? ?

Amen Rixter!!

Six Sigma is pure common sense impersonated by sophisticated language and expensive consultants (a.k.a. hacks)

Here's another article skeptical of Six Sigma entitled "Six Sigma is a Sheer Gimmick"

sanenet.com/six-sigma-flop-sucks/

If, and this is a big IF, you are building 100,000 automobiles then 6 Sigma probably will help you define the deficiencies in your processes.

DPMO, Defects Per Million Operations, came to be reviled at Motorola Government where I worked during the indoctrination into the 6 Sigma world.

My department molded plastic parts by the thousands. Every hole, feature and dimension was a potential failure.

It's ugly.

Six Sigma initiatives seem to rarely enjoy meaningful, lasting impact
That is because it is thrown in at the last minute in hopes that it will somehow improve quality. That is the mistake. It was never considered in the beginning.