Group activity/discussion: Six Sigma jelly bean game In this activity, learners will simulate a production line using a large quantity of jelly beans, (or smarties, LEGO, or buttons, etc.). Groups will record and measure their process, putting the Six Sigma method into practice. Requirements  bags of jelly beans (or smarties, LEGO or buttons, etc.): o with 50% of one colour, the rest mixed colours (purchase or source colours separately to ensure one colour is 50% of the mix) o you will need enough jelly beans to allow each team to have 500 jelly beans  Jelly Bean Six Sigma Plot Chart (located on the following page). Procedure 1. Break the group into teams of four or five. 2. Instruct each team to divide themselves into servers, sorters, recorders and plotters. 3. Supply each team with: a. 500 jelly beans in a bag with exactly 50% of one colour and the rest mixed colours. b. Jelly Bean Six Sigma Plot Chart (see following page) for recording, plotting and calculating the results of the activity. 4. Instruct servers to remove ten jelly beans without looking from their bag of jelly beans. 5. Instruct sorters to sort out the primary colour (50% of the beans) from the other colours. 6. Recorders are to record the number of jelly beans of the primary colour in each batch of ten. 7. Plotters are to plot the occasions that the number of primary colour jelly beans equalled 0, 1, 2, 3 … 9, 10 on a graph (see following page). 8. Teams are then to work together using the information the recorders and plotters have collected and: a. calculate the standard deviation of the plot (an example of how to calculate a standard deviation can be found on the following page) b. draw vertical lines equal to 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 times the standard deviation from the mean on their plot. Follow-up questions Ask learners the following questions: ● Imagine you are contracted to a customer to provide jelly beans in batches of ten from your bag with no more than six of the primary colour and no less than four of the primary colour: ○ Keeping the same process, how sure can you be of meeting customer requirements? ○ What changes in your process might you undertake to improve the probability that the batches they created are within the customer specifications? ○ What other changes might you make to improve your process? Jelly bean Six Sigma chart