Six Sigma is a business process management system. It was developed by analyzing and refining the business management techniques used over the past century. Its goal is to improve production and distribution processes and eliminate errors. Six Sigma was created by an American but was first embraced in Japan. Today more than half of the Fortune 500 companies use some variation of it.
William Edwards Deming was an American management consultant. He went to Japan in the 1950s to speak on the principles and importance of quality control. Japanese companies began using his recommendations and they become codified into a system. When high quality Japanese products began to dominate the world market, Deming was hailed as a genius and began to be called ‘the father of quality control’.
The essence of Six Sigma is process analysis. The system calls for the production process to be analyzed, improved and controlled constantly. It requires strong upper- management leadership and support, a stratified hierarchy of specially trained experts to implement and supervise the system and decision making based on facts and not conjecture. Most companies who have met all of these criteria have had great success with the system.
The system uses a series of titles that reflects each person’s place in the hierarchy. They are Executive Leadership, Champions, Master Black Belts, Black Belts, Green Belts, and Yellow Belts. The Executive leadership sets up the system and the yellow belts implement it. The people on the intermediate levels train mentor and supervise the people on the level below them and earn a six sigma certification.
Aside from Deming, others have played a role in developing what has become one of the most effective management tools. People like Shewhart, Juran, Ishikawa and Taguchi have all played a role in creating Six Sigma, one of today’s most effective process management tools.
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