What is the voice of the customer (VOC) and how does it apply to six sigma

Before we can even begin to discuss what the voice of the customer is and how it applies to six sigma you are going to first need to understand what each of these concepts are and how they apply to your manufacturing plant. Some of you might understand at one of the concepts but you might not understand the other concept. And in order to fully understand how the voice of the customer applies to six sigma you need to fully understand what both of those concepts are and how they fit in with your manufacturing plant.

For those of who are unfamiliar with the term Six Sigma let's take a minute to find out what it is. Six Sigma is a method or a set of techniques and in the business world it has become a movement that is focused on business process improvement. Six Sigma is a quality measurement and improvement program that is designed to focus on improving the capability of a company's business processes. Basically six sigma was designed by Motorola in order to eliminate defects, which in this case the defects are any items that are not a part of the intended population. Six Sigma is used by numerous companies because to these companies the six sigma process actually symbolizes perfection. Something else that you should be aware of when it comes to six sigma is that six sigma is made up of six important concepts; if your company is only using one or two of these concepts then they are not a six sigma company.

Here are the six key concepts of six sigma.

1. Critical to quality: which basically are the characteristics that are the most important to a customer

2. Defect: failing to deliver what the customer wants, regardless of whether or not the customer was actually able to express what was wanted

3. Process capability: what your process can deliver to the customer

4. Variation: what the customer sees and feels, regardless of whether or not the customer was actually able to express what was wanted

5. Stable operations: producing consistent, predictable process to improve upon what the customer wants

6. Design for six sigma: designing to meet customer needs and process capability

Now that you understand what six sigma is and how it applies to your manufacturing plant we can go on to discuss what the voice of the customer is. Basically the concept of the voice of the customer is pretty straight forward, which is nice because it makes it that much easier to understand. Basically the voice of the customer is a term that is used in business to describe the process of finding out what your customer's requirements are, meaning you are going to find out what your customers want and need. This is accomplished by using surveys, focus groups and actual interviews with your customers as a way of gathering the data that you need.

Now that you understand the voice of the customer and six sigma we are ready to talk about how the voice of the customer applies to six sigma. Basically six sigma is designed to meet the needs and the wants of the customer and the voice of the customer is the way that you find out what the customer needs and wants. So basically by discovering what the customer needs and wants you are going to be able to achieve meeting what the customer needs and wants which is how your company will be on the road to perfection, which is basically meeting your six sigma goals.