Identifying weaknesses in the design for six sigma concept through a pedagogical structure

All product-developing organizations strive with challenges regarding how to organize and structure their development projects. Faster market changes, increased number of competitors, ambivalent customers, new regulations and standards have made product development become more complex. Due to these challenges organizations need to focus on product development to be able to stay competitive in the market. Therefor several concepts fostering improvement in product development organizations have been developed during the last decades. One such concept is Design for Six Sigma (DFSS) aiming to improve and structure development processes and their included activities. The concept is still considered as new and until today based on a complex structure. This article introduces a pedagogical way to structure the DFSS concept simplifying organizational implementations and benchmarking of the concept. Also remaining gaps in the concept and hypotheses regarding how to counter these gaps are presented in the article.