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Do you believe in perfection?

Corporations that kneel at the altar of Six Sigma do, and they spend up to a half-billion dollars each year trying to achieve that heavenly goal.

The congregation includes some of the most influential and admired companies in the world: Fortune 100 fixtures GE, DuPont, Dow Chemical, Motorola, American Express, Lockheed Martin and AlliedSignal.

For this growing group of believers, Six Sigma is the Holy Grail.

OK, you’re asking, what’s Six Sigma and why is it important to me?

Some describe it as a comprehensive, statistics-based methodology that aims to achieve nothing less than perfection in every company process and product.

Sigma is a letter of the Greek alphabet used as a symbol by statisticians to mark a bell curve showing the likelihood that a process will deviate from the norm.  The narrow definition of Six Sigma is 3.4 defects per 1 million opportunities, or 99.9997 percent perfect. Today, most companies operate at Three Sigma, which allows 66,803 defects per million (93.332 percent perfect).

To insiders and experts, the concept of Six Sigma goes much deeper.

“Ninety percent of Six Sigma doesn’t have a thing to do with statistics,” says Mikel Harry, the world’s foremost expert, teacher and preacher on the subject.

Harry says it’s about learning, behavior, questioning and “having extraordinary leadership and will.”

“Six Sigma is about measurement and about new questions never asked before,” he says.  “Those new measurements drive, create new questions. In turn, those questions drive new behavior.  As new questions emerge, ambiguity diminishes.  As ambiguity diminishes, direction becomes clear.  Only when direction becomes clear can people be mobilized toward a common action.”

If you hadn’t heard of Six Sigma, chances are you will be exposed to it in the near future.  Either your company will adopt some facet of it or attempt full-scale implementation.  Or, one of your company’s competitors will implement Six Sigma and send financial shock waves to your company (and you).

Or, if your company is a Tier 1 or Tier 2 supplier to a megacorporation — for instance, a manufacturer of brakes to an auto maker — get ready.  If Ford takes on Six Sigma, it cannot reach perfection if the parts it gets from your company or your machines aren’t perfect.

While there are only two dozen or so companies currently living/ breathing/eating Six Sigma, that number is rising.  And while the current list almost exclusively contains large corporations, that soon will change.

Last year, the American Society of Quality formed an alliance with Harry’s training school, the Six Sigma Academy.  Through the agreement, ASQ makes Six Sigma training available and more affordable to small and mid-sized companies.  There is a waiting list to get ASQ training.

When Six Sigma touches your company, believe this, it will affect you.  Every employee plays a major role in a Six Sigma program.

You will do things differently.  You will learn.  The demands (and potential risks and rewards) will be great.

Are you prepared for Six Sigma?

This article appeared in the June/July 1999 issue of MRO Today magazine.  Copyright, 1999.

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