Six Sigma is a data-driven quality-management method that seeks to hold process defects to no more than about 3.4 per million opportunities, taking its name from the statistical symbol sigma for standard deviation and the goal of fitting six standard deviations of process variation between the process mean and its nearest specification limit. Motorola engineer Bill Smith introduced the approach in 1986 after tracing a link between how often a defect occurred during assembly and how soon a finished product failed in a customer's hands; he brought the proposal directly to Motorola chief executive Bob Galvin, who backed it company wide. Motorola credited Six Sigma with major quality gains and won the first Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award in 1988, and the method was later adopted widely across manufacturing and service industries, building on the earlier statistical quality control practices Walter Shewhart and W. Edwards Deming had established.
Facts
Core PrincipleDefine, measure, analyze, improve and control a process, using statistical analysis to remove the causes of variation and defects, rather than only inspecting finished output. 1 Origin Year1986 is when Motorola engineer Bill Smith proposed the approach to CEO Bob Galvin; Motorola registered Six Sigma as a trademark in the early 1990s once it had spread beyond his original team. Connections
Associated With
Invented By
Smith drafted the statistical methods and proposed them to CEO Bob Galvin, introducing Six Sigma at Motorola in 1986.
Source Remembering Bill Smith, Father of Six Sigma (iSixSigma)
Preceded By
Source The History of Six Sigma: From Motorola to Global Adoption (Six Sigma Online)
Sources
1. The History of Six Sigma: From Motorola to Global Adoption (Six Sigma Online)
Six Sigma OnlineBill Smith at Motorola 1980s-1990s section
Six Sigma was introduced by Bill Smith at Motorola in 1986 to improve manufacturing quality.
- Preceded By: Quality Control
View the Source Remembering Bill Smith, Father of Six Sigma (iSixSigma)
Frequently Asked Questions
Where does the name Six Sigma come from, and who started it?
Sigma is the standard deviation symbol; Motorola's Bill Smith introduced the method in 1986.
The name comes from the statistical symbol sigma for standard deviation, and from the goal of fitting six standard deviations of process variation between the process mean and its nearest specification limit. Motorola engineer Bill Smith introduced the approach in 1986 after tracing a link between how often a defect occurred during assembly and how soon a finished product failed in a customer's hands, and he took the proposal to Motorola chief executive Bob Galvin, who backed it company wide. Motorola won the first Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award in 1988.
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