DPMO stands for Defects per Million Opportunities, a metric from Six Sigma used to indicate the defect rate or the average number of defects per million opportunities.

DPMO is used when the number of opportunities for defects in a part is countable. The value is calculated by dividing the number of defects either by the number of defect opportunities or by the number of units produced times the opportunities per unit, and then multiplying the result by 1,000,000. DPMO, like PPM and DPU, is used for evaluating processes and enables a comparison of process capability with the aim of providing a basis for process optimization.