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that went into it. Events that change the team’s perception of future
events may occur unexpectedly, and often suddenly. These events arise
from risk, that is, from the possibility that the future may be different
from what they expect. These possibilities may bring bad or good results,
generating threats of losses or presenting opportunities for gains.
In the context of a DFSS project, the discipline of risk management
has been devoted to addressing loss from poor scoping, conceptual
design vulnerabilities, lack of a business case, or errors in under-
standing customer needs. Risk management embraces both the upside
and downside of risk. It seeks to counter all losses, from unfortunate
business and technical judgments, and seize opportunities for gains
through design innovation and growth.
When you choose to take a risk, it is wise to aim to lessen any nega-
tive impact and increase any positive impact that might happen. Risk
is associated with events whose chances of occurrence are greater than
zero (probable), but less than one (certain). Where change occurs, risk
arises. For any company to succeed in its Six Sigma endeavor, its inter-
nal world must change; it cannot stand still, or expect to remain per-
fectly stable. Change brings risk, but without the change and its
accompanied risk there could be no progress. DFSS is about progress;
thus it is about change, and the team needs to learn to manage and tol-
erate a level of unpredictable risk.
Risk management is about visualizing other scenarios of the future
and having the respective plans to accept (low risk), mitigate, prevent,
or outsource risk. The most straightforward answer to the question
“Why manage risk?” is “Manage risk to reduce potential losses.” Risk
management counters downside risks by reducing the probability and
magnitude of losses (uncertainty); and recovery from these losses.
In the DFSS algorithm, the technical risk is usually handled using the
FMEA. The noise factor strategy should be linked to transfer function
optimization. Testing plans should be synchronized to reflect noise factor
treatment which spans a range of options such as poka-yoke, feedforward,
and backward controls (if applicable), and robustness. Project scoping risk
can be reduced by deriving business and customer-driven projects.

5.17 Other DFSS Roadmaps*
Design for Six Sigma can be accomplished using any one of many other
methodologies besides the one presented in this book. IDOV† is one
popular methodology for designing products and services to meet Six

* El-Haik, B. and Roy, D., (2005), Service Design for Six Sigma: A Roadmap for
Excellence, John Wiley & Sons, ISBN: 0-471-68291-8.
† See Dr. David Woodford’s article at http://www.isixsigma.com/library/content/
c020819a.asp.