¡¨Six Sigma¡¨ is one of the most popular quality initiatives in recent years. ¡¨Six Sigma¡¨ is based on the reducing variation to improve production process, enhance quality, reduce costs. Besides, the integration of them is viewed as a new trend in the next management wave. Six-Sigma was initially implemented by Motorola in 1987 but the whole world did not pay too much attention until GE re-started the Six-Sigma in 1995. Many enterprises in Taiwan also have been processing it since 1999. In view of the fundamental objective of the Six Sigma methodology which uplifted the competitiveness for Taiwan¡¦s industry, this thesis takes company A as an example to research this case was based on the application of the Six Sigma that has been adopted. The Six Sigma led to reduce costs of the material of process. This paper applies the Six Sigma DMAIC methodology (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, Control) and solve the problem during the implementation. The purpose of this study was using the Six Sigma with Design of Experiment to find out the key factor to identify the optimal operating conditions of key factors for further verification of the best process capability. The results indicate that the Six Sigma DMAIC methology has greatly reduced costs of the material of process to improve the lean management system of company.

In the ongoing pursuit of excellence in products and services, many enterprises have been seeking ways to ensure their superiority in process and quality. To improve competitiveness, many management techniques and concepts have been tried, for example; TQM, Lean Thinking (Lean Production), Six Sigma, and Design for Six Sigma, etc. These are quality management systems currently having widespread application in virtually all well-known companies. This empirical study utilizes a questionnaire to explore the relationship between Process Excellence (PE) with that of quality performance (QP). In a correlation analysis we have found a positive correlation between QP and such categories as ¡§leadership and information analysis¡¨ ¡§resource utilization and participation¡¨ ¡§improvement of quality process¡¨ ¡§clear objectives and customer oriented¡¨. We have also found that two of these categories ¡§improvement of quality process¡¨ and ¡§leadership and information analysis¡¨ play especially important roles in raising QP performance. We can conclude that the greater the emphasis on these two items the better will be the performance of QP. We are also assured that the company can experience continuous quality improvement by acting on the basis of the above research findings.

In this proposal, an advanced local oscillator with high resolution, low phase noise and fast switching characteristics is designed for wireless communication applications. The circuit is based on fractional-N frequency synthesis technique in which the use of delta-sigma modulator can remove the fractional spurs effectively. The mechanism in regard to fractional spurs and phase noise for a fractional-N frequency synthesizer will be studied and simulated by developing proper mathematical models. In the implementation of the local oscillator, the analog circuit includes a 1000-1033 MHz VCO, crystal oscillator and loop filter. The digital circuit includes a phase frequency detector, dual modulus divider and 3rd order delta-sigma modulator. At first a FPGA will be used to prototype the digital circuit. The final digital circuit will be implemented in a CMOS process and require 3V operation with low current consumption. The design specifications include that under 1 KHz resolution the phase noise levels are less than -90 dBc/Hz at frequency offets within a loop bandwidth more than 100 KHz. Spurious components are less than -90 dBc/Hz and switching time is less than 1 ms over a 30 MHz tuning range.

Abstract Six Sigma is a management philosophy that is widely accepted among global industries. This study reviews literature on the definitions of Six Sigma and business strategy. Also, the study constructs a preliminarily exploration model of integrating Six Sigma program with business strategy. The exploration model for business excellence includes independent dimensions of business strategy, Six Sigma implementation and the dependent dimension of quality performance. The dimensions of business strategy include the variables for organizational culture, organizational assessment, strategy formulation and improvement methodology. Meanwhile, the dimension of Six Sigma implementation includes steering organization of Six Sigma, skills of quality improvement, integrating orientation of quality improvement and performance bottom-line. The dependent dimension of quality performance is based on employees¡¦ motivation, customer satisfactory, increasing profit and deceasing cost. 1. For an exploration model integrating Six Sigma activities with business strategy, the organizational culture variable is the most important factor. The top management must have commitment towards the Six Sigma activities, involvement in the Six Sigma training and emphasis on customer satisfaction to enhance the integration of Six Sigma with business strategy. 2. The more integrated the dimension of business strategy, and then the variable of steering organization is more confirmed. The variable of skills of quality improvement will produce efficiently, performance bottom-line will be good outcome and integrating orientation of quality improvement is positively. 3. The 8 variables with the model of integrating Six Sigma activities with business strategy are positively related with the index of quality performance. The variable of strategy formulation within the dimension of business strategy and the variable of integrating orientation of quality improvement within the dimension of Six Sigma implementation are most highly related with the index of quality performance. It means that Six Sigma strategy must be confirmed and the business resource must be integrated to reach quality performance. 4. The key factors in the predicted model of quality performance by multiple regression methodology are as follows in sequential order: integrating orientation of quality improvement, performance bottom-line, organizational assessment, improvement methodology, organizational culture, skills of quality improvement, and steering organization. The best predictor is the variable of integrating orientation of quality improvement. It implies that the quality activities must be combined with management by objective, quality skills training must be implemented continuously and quality plans by executed by project for reach best quality performance. This study concludes that the firms do not necessarily have to adopt Six Sigma activity to reach excellent performance. Integrating the management activities of business strategy will help balance the technical elements of Six Sigma implementation for quality performance, and the business strategy dimensions that will make implementing Six Sigma more effective.

Software radio architecture can support multiple standards by performing analogto- digital (A/D) conversion of the radio frequency (RF) signals and running reconfigurable software programs on the backend digital signal processor (DSP). A slight variation of this architecture is the software defined radio architecture in which the A/D conversion is performed on intermediate frequency (IF) signals after a single down conversion. The first part of this research deals with the design and implementation of a fourth order continuous time bandpass sigma-delta (CT BP) C based on LC filters for direct RF digitization at 950 MHz with a clock frequency of 3.8 GHz. A new ADC architecture is proposed which uses only non-return to zero feedback digital to analog converter pulses to mitigate problems associated with clock jitter. The architecture also has full control over tuning of the coefficients of the noise transfer function for obtaining the best signal to noise ratio (SNR) performance. The operation of the architecture is examined in detail and extra design parameters are introduced to ensure robust operation of the ADC. Measurement results of the ADC, implemented in IBM 0.25 µm SiGe BiCMOS technology, show SNR of 63 dB and 59 dB in signal bandwidths of 200 kHz and 1 MHz, respectively, around 950 MHz while consuming 75 mW of power from ± 1.25 V supply. The second part of this research deals with the design of a fourth order CT BP ADC based on gm-C integrators with an automatic digital tuning scheme for IF digitization at 125 MHz and a clock frequency of 500 MHz. A linearized CMOS OTA architecture combines both cross coupling and source degeneration in order to obtain good IM3 performance. A system level digital tuning scheme is proposed to tune the ADC performance over process, voltage and temperature variations. The output bit stream of the ADC is captured using an external DSP, where a software tuning algorithm tunes the ADC parameters for best SNR performance. The IF ADC was designed in TSMC 0.35 µm CMOS technology and it consumes 152 mW of power from ± 1.65 V supply.

The thesis focuses on a higher order noise-shaping Δ ADC architecture which employs filtered quantization error as a dither signal. Furthermore, the work studies implementation challenges using Switched-Capacitor and Switched-Current techniques. Digitization in an IF conversion receiver can be accomplished either with a wide band Nyquist rate ADC or a BandPass Δ ADC. The use of the latter is the optimum solution since the bandwidth of the IF signals is typically much smaller than the carrier frequency and reducing the quantization noise in the entire nyquist band becomes superfluous. Instead by using BandPass Δ ADCs the quantization noise power is reduced only in a narrow band around IF location. We study state-of-the-art high dynamic range Δ data converter topologies suited for wide-band radio receivers. We propose a topology which achieves higher order noise shaping by employing filtered quantization error as a dither signal. We study implementation challenges for Δ converters in digital technology. Traditionally, Δ ADCs used Switched-Capacitor (SC) circuits to realize their building blocks. This analog sample-data technique is based on the idea that a periodically switched capacitor can emulate a resistor. The limiting factor that degrades the performance of SC circuits implemented in standard VLSI technologies is the continuous reduction of supply voltages, prompted by the continuous scaling-down process. This fact, which is advantageous for digital circuitry, makes the design of SC circuits difficult, which are forced to use clock boosting strategies for switches and to increase the power consumption in order to obtain high-speed and high dynamic range opamps with low voltage operation. In this scenario, the use of current-domain sampled data technique, also named Switched-Current (SI), instead of voltages results advantageous for several reasons. As the signal carriers are currents, the supply voltage does not limit the signal range as much as in SC circuits. Therefore, SI circuits are more suitable than SC for low-voltage operation. This work studies the feasibility and bottlenecks of implementing Δ modulator building blocks using SI technique. A BandPass filter, DAC and 1-bit quantizer have been designed in 0.18µm technology using SI technique. (For mathematical equations pl refer the pdf file)

Thesis--PlanB (M.S.)--University of Wisconsin--Stout, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references.

Pulsed neutron capture (PNC) logs are commonly used for formation evaluation behind casing and to assess time-lapse variations of hydrocarbon pore volume. Because conventional interpretation methods for sigma logs assume homogeneous formations, errors may arise, especially in thinly-bedded formations, when appraising petrophysical properties of hydrocarbon-bearing beds. There exist no quantitative interpretation methods to account for shoulder-bed effects on sigma logs acquired in sand-shale laminated reservoirs. Because of diffusion effects between dissimilar beds, sigma logs acquired in such formations do not obey mixing laws between the sigma responses of pure-sand and pure-shale end members of the sedimentary sequence. We introduce a new numerical method to simulate rapidly and accurately PNC logs. The method makes use of late-time, thermal-neutron flux sensitivity functions (FSFs) to describe the contribution of multi-layer formations toward the measured capture cross section. It includes a correction procedure based on 1D neutron diffusion theory that adapts the transport-equation-derived, base-case FSF of a homogeneous formation to simulate the response of vertically heterogeneous formations. Benchmarking exercises indicate that our simulation method yields average differences smaller than 2 c.u. within seconds of CPU time with respect to PNC logs simulated with rigorous Monte Carlo methods for a wide range of geometrical, petrophysical, and fluid properties. We develop an inversion method to reduce shoulder-bed effects on pulsed neutron capture (PNC) logs in the estimation of layer-by-layer capture cross sections, Σ. The method is based on the previously developed rapid approximation of PNC logs. Tests performed on synthetic examples that include a variety of lithology, saturating-fluid, and bed-thickness configurations confirm the efficiency, reliability, and stability of the inversion procedure. Inversion consistently improves the vertical resolution and Σ definition of PNC logs across beds thinner than 45 cm. Our fast, iterative algorithm inverts sigma logs in seconds of CPU time, and is therefore suitable for joint petrophysical interpretation with other open- and cased-hole logs. / text

Γίνεται μια προσπάθεια προσέγγισης των επιχειρήσεων οι οποίες είναι πιστοποιημένες κατά ISO:9001, μέσω ενός πιλοτικού ερωτηματολογίου, προκειμένου να διερευνηθεί το κατά πόσο είναι σε θέση να υιοθετήσουν την φιλοσοφία και τις τεχνικές του 6 σίγμα. Η εργασία αποτελείται από δύο σκέλη. Το πρώτο είναι η θεωρητική προσέγγιση της φιλοσοφίας 6 σίγμα και ανάλυση της, και το δεύτερο σκέλος είναι τα αποτελέσματα και τα συμπεράσματα της έρευνας. / There is an attempt of approaching bussinesses qualified by the standard ISO:9001, through a pilot questionnaire. This attempt is focusing in the ability of bussinesses in adopting the filosophy of 6 sigma and its techniques. The essay is being contained of two parts, the first one is the theoretical approach of the filosophy of 6 sigma and the second one contains the results of the investigation and the conclusions.

Traditional project management has been implemented by most of the companies in today’s business world in order to monitor and control the projects (Tonnquist, 2008). Project management techniques have been proven for decades and its performance has been maximized (Heldman, 2011). We think that the PM techniques have gradually reached its limits. For today’s companies, it is vital to find a more effective and innovative method which can be integrated into the project management in order to maintain their competitive advantages (Pyzdek, 2003).   As a relatively new business management approach and strategy, Six Sigma seeks to improve the quality of the product and process by using some quantitative methods and tools (Michalski, 2003). Actually, Six Sigma has been broadly implemented in many companies and received a positive effect (Pande et al., 2000). However, most of the Six Sigma usage happens just in the Six Sigma projects and these projects need the great support from the top-management level and require plenty of resources for training and maintain (Pande et al., 2002).   The purpose of this thesis is to suggest an approach/methodology for how simple Six Sigma tools and methods can be combined with the traditional project management. In this case, those non-Six Sigma projects can still use some easy Six Sigma techniques to maximize the benefits. In order to achieve this purpose, the following methodologies are implemented: literature review to identify relative factors including quality, time, cost, communication and customer satisfaction, surveys and interviews to find out the current situations and problems in Siemens Industrial Turbo machinery (SIT) project management, empirical studies to develop some models and methods in which Six Sigma tools are integrated in the project management in SIT.   In this thesis, based on the empirical research of the case company of SIT, we are going to suggest some Six Sigma tools to be integrated into project management. The research questions include:   How can the selected Six Sigma tools improve the project management? The Pros and Cons of implementing Six Sigma methods and tools in the project management. What tools of Six Sigma are suitable to increase the performance of the project management in SIT   As the result of this thesis work, once it is testified it is feasible and fit in the SIT project management process, we think that there is a great chance it should be amplified and spread to many more business areas.