How And Was Was Six Sigma Developed?

Developed by Motorola in the 1980s, Six Sigma is a business management strategy designed to locate and remove the causes of defects in manufacturing and company processes. Its objective is to improve the quality of products via a set of management protocols.

Six Sigma began as a way to improve manufacturing but has grown to cover many other components of the company world. It is now broadly defines defects as anything that will not meet the requirements or specifications of customers. The bar set by Six Sigma is very high; the name Six Sigma came from Motorola's goal of having a 99.99966% defect free production process.

At the time Six Sigma was developed the prevailing theory was that higher quality products caused higher production costs; however, applications of the Six Sigma principles showed that quality control actually lowered the costs of production by reducing the need for repair. The core tenants of this process are that results should be stable and that variation should be kept to a minimum, processes should have the ability to be measured and controlled, and that everyone in the organization needs to be apart of the effort.

This organization strategy differed from its predecessors in that its framework requires financial returns that are measurable, emphasis on management involvement in the process, an infrastructure to run and direct the system, and that proven data is the basis of decision making.

With the economy in flux, Six Sigma is something that many companies are taking a closer look at. The system is designed to make production as efficient as possible and reduce the loss of profits due to faulty products. In some industries a organization can get by cutting corners to increase profits, but most of the time this leads to dissatisfied customers. A leaner production system that will not detract from the finished product appeals to businesses that are struggling to maintain customer bases, but still want to improve profit margins.

Six Sigma isn't a fit for all companies though, some products do not require such exacting standards to be satisfactory. For example, a company producing electronics needs to have a system in place to make sure there are almost no errors, but a call center cannot function on the basis of an error free environment. Additionally, because Six Sigma requires deep management involvement, it requires reorganization of protocols from top to bottom, which is a large investment in time and manpower.