What is Six Sigma?
Six Sigma is a corporate quality program, one that emphasizes identifying and avoiding variation. It was Motorola that conceptualised Six Sigma as a quality goal in the mid 1980s when it recognised that modern technology was so complex that old ideas about acceptable quality levels were no longer applicable. However, the term, and the company’s innovative Six Sigma programme, only came to real prominence in 1989 when Motorola announced it would achieve a defect rate of not-more-than 3.4 parts per million within five years. This claim effectively changed the focus of quality management, from one where quality levels were measured in percentages (parts per hundred) to a discussion of parts per million or even parts per billion. It was not long before many of the large organisations (Xerox, Boeing, General Electric (GE), Kodak) were following Motorola’s lead.Essentially, “Six Sigma” is a term that represents a stretch goal for process quality.
Six Sigma stands for Six Standard Deviations from the mean which implies to a system that will produce less than 3.4 defects per million. In practical terms Six Sigma is a methodology that provides the techniques and tools to improve the capability and reduce the number of defects or opportunities for defects within a process.
Six Sigma is defined as a type of business improvement methodology. Its main objective is to implement a vigorous process to systematically eliminate defects and inefficiency. It was originally developed by Motorola in the early 1980’s and because of its proficiency has become extremely popular in many corporate and small business environments around the world.
Six Sigma has evolved over the last two decades and so has its definition. Six Sigma has literal, conceptual, and practical definitions. At Motorola University, we think about Six Sigma at three different levels: • As a metric • As a methodology • As a management system Essentially, Six Sigma is all three at the same time.
