The question: how could Motorola minimize-and, ideally, eliminate-defects from the manufacturing process?That's when Mikel J. Harry, a Motorola Engineer, introduced the concept of Six Sigma to Motorola. The idea was to set a steep quantitative target for all processes and then, parse each process into smaller and smaller sequences, each of which could be examined for their potential for errors, then that potential was eliminated. Breaking down and studying processes is a key element of result-oriented quality programs because this helps in tracking down the root-cause of defects.Until 1994, Six Sigma remained a guarded secret at Motorola. The outside world knew about it, but not how to use it. In 1995, however, CEO Gary L. Tooker decided to throw open the source-code. Six sigma did not gain acceptance globally until GE's CEO, Jack Welch, introduced Six Sigma across the length and breadth of his organization. Four years after Six Sigma was inserted into GE's culture it contributes 20 percent to the conglomerate's earnings that has spurred many others to follow suit.What Makes Six Sigma So Powerful?Six Sigma is a tool that can ratchet up quality-levels in every single process in your company, in fact that what makes it so versatile. From your accounts to your customer-service, from your supply chain management to your advertising, every process can be evaluated on the basis of its adherence to Critical to Quality (CTQ) parameters. After all, defects can-and do--occur in an engineering design, in the time it takes to treat a patient--or even in a banking transaction. All your processes, therefore, can deviate from the ideal level, and cost you additional time, labor, and material.By using the sigma scale from 1 to 6, you can study competing levels of capability and, then, raise yours to those standards. GE, for instance, has used Six Sigma with great success at GE Caps, whose processes are transactions-driven. Says Pramod Bhasin, 46, Pres...
