FREE online courses on What is Six Sigma - The History of Six Sigma
The roots of Six Sigma as a measurement standard can be
traced back to Carl Frederick Gauss (1777-1885) who introduced the concept of
the normal curve. Six Sigma as a measurement standard in product variation can
be traced back to the 1920's when Walter Shewhart showed that three sigma from
the mean is the point where a process requires correction. Many measurement
standards (Cpk, Zero Defects, etc.) later came on the scene but credit for
coining the term "Six Sigma" goes to a Motorola engineer named Bill Smith.
(Incidentally, "Six Sigma" is a federally registered trademark of Motorola).
In the early and mid-1980s with Chairman Bob Galvin at the
helm, Motorola engineers decided that the traditional quality levels --
measuring defects in thousands of opportunities -- didn't provide enough
granularity. Instead, they wanted to measure the defects per million
opportunities. Motorola developed this new standard and created the methodology
and needed cultural change associated with it. Six Sigma helped Motorola realize
powerful bottom-line results in their organization - in fact, they documented
more than $16 Billion in savings as a result of our Six Sigma efforts.
Since then, hundreds of companies around the world have
adopted Six Sigma as a way of doing business. This is a direct result of many of
America's leaders openly praising the benefits of Six Sigma. Leaders such as
Larry Bossidy of Allied Signal (now Honeywell), and Jack Welch of General
Electric Company. Rumor has it that Larry and Jack were playing golf one day and
Jack bet Larry that he could implement Six Sigma faster and with greater results
at GE than Larry did at Allied Signal.
Six Sigma has evolved over time. It's more than just a
quality system like TQM or ISO. It's a way of doing business. Six Sigma is many
things, and would perhaps be easier to list all the things that Six Sigma
quality is not. Six Sigma can be seen as: a vision; a philosophy; a
symbol; a metric; a goal; a methodology.