I stumbled upon an interesting article featured on USA Today on October 30, 2002. United States of America was just recovering from the 911 attack a year before. Authorities were cracking their brains thinking of ways to catch the terrorists or even curb future attacks. Guess what they had considered as a weapon? A Six Sigma counterattack.
According to the article, Mikel Harry, often called the father of Six Sigma, says that Six Sigma can help in a major way. He estimates the USA would be safer from terrorist attacks by a factor of hundreds or thousands. Furthermore, Dell Computer CEO Michael Dell says that Six Sigma is “powerful stuff” that could work even in the sprawl of the U.S. government. Several other experts say that it can be used in thousands of homeland security projects.
The big question now is HOW?
We know that there are thousands of information that flood into the CIA office. These include intercepted phone calls and applications to pilot schools. Suppose an e-mail is intercepted that includes a disguised threat on the Golden Gate Bridge. A quick decision must be made to discard the e-mail or take it seriously. Discarding bad information is crucial because useless data can paralyze decision makers further up the line.
To decide quickly on say 50 points on the usefulness of a piece of information is crucial. In Six Sigma talk, these points are called “decision nodes.” If each of those 50 nodes passes judgment on 60 pieces of information each day, there are 300 opportunities for a decision error each day as intelligence moves up the chain to Security Chief Tom Ridge and President Bush.
Here’s how this situation can be interpreted using Six Sigma.
If decision nodes average 99.38% accuracy, they are at Four Sigma. If accuracy reaches 9.99966%, that means only one of about every 294,000 pieces of vital information would be erroneously discarded.
There is a 99.9% chance that all 300 decisions are accurate on a given day. There is a 97% chance all decisions in a month will be right. Where there is only a 15% chance that all decisions are right on a given day at Four Sigma, there is a 15% chance that all decisions will be right over a five-year period at Six Sigma.
“To achieve such efficiency would be invaluable when lives are at risk. That’s how attaining Six Sigma in the war on terrorism could make the USA 1,800 times safer,” Harry estimates.
This talk of fighting and saving a world from future attacks brings to mind another interesting article which links Six Sigma to the Star Wars movie.
* I’d say Yoda is a Six Sigma Jedi
* The Millennium Falcon runs about 3 sigma.
* R2-D2 would have to be a 7 sigma droid while C3PO operates at about 4.5 sigma.
* Princess Leia…definitely 6 sigma!
* While using the Force, Luke is 6 sigma but when he’s complaining and whining he drops to about 5 sigma.
* Little Ani was approaching six sigma but over time the 1.5 sigma shift pushed him to the Dark Side of the Curve…
*I wonder what the sigma level of a Wookie would be?The next generation of Six Sigma experts: Six Sigma Jedi, Six Sigma Padawan, and Six Sigma Wookie.
Articles
Feds May Unleash Six Sigma on Terrorism
Six Sigma and Star Wars
