Before we discuss Defects per million opportunities (DPMO), let us first understand the difference between

• Defect
• Defective.

Defect

• It is a fault, mistake, error, or some deviation from the normal thereby reducing the value of the unit.
• A single defect may or may not render the entire unit as defective

Defective

• A defect or a combination of defects deteriorate the value of unit that it can not be used or does not meet the customers specifications.

Summary

• Defect means that part of a unit is bad
• Defective means that the whole unit is bad

Opportunities

• It is the total number of possible defects that can happen.

Defect per opportunity

• Divide the total number of defects observed by the total number of opportunities

Example

• Consider a bank form that has to be filled up for account opening.
• If there are 300 information that has to be provided in one form then the opportunities to make an error are 30 per form
• If  out of the 100 customers that fill up the form, 3 defects (in this case errors) have been identified.
• Since 100 customers fill up the form, then the total opportunities to make an error are = 30X100= 3000
• Defect per opportunity = 3/3000 = 0.001

Since Defect per opportunity comes out to be a very small figure and does not trigger the people to take up an improvement project, so a resolution “Million” is used to magnify this figure.

So Defects per million opportunities in this case

= 0.001 X 1,000,000 = 1000