We have been an ISO 9001 company now since 1997. As you know, we are required per the standard to have in place procedures that deal with nonconformities. The problem I am having is knowing how the number of nonconformities relates to the whole picture. From what I have read about six sigma, is it is a comparison of the number of nonconformities as it relates to a million opportunities to create a nonconformity. Where the problem comes in for me is defining nonconformities per million opportunities. How do you know how many opportunities there are within the organization to create a defect or nonconformity? For example, if we have ten piece parts and the ten piece parts need ten holes punched in them which would be equal to one hundred holes. Would this then be one hundred opportunities to create a defect? If one hole were punched wrong from the one hundred holes that you had to punch would you then have a one in a hundred reject rate or 0.01%? Or would you have one in ten parts with a defect which would give you a reject rate of 0.10%? We do a good job of tracking whether our total nonconformities are going up or down but it seems like we are trying to compute our miles per gallon and all we know for sure is haw many gallons we have used, but have no idea how many miles we have gone. Figuring out how many opportunities there are to create a nonconformity within the office area becomes even more difficult. Can you help me better understand this X number of nonconformities Vs X number of opportunities to create a nonconformity?