CIO Wisdom II: More Best Practices

What Six Sigma Is and Why It's So Effective

Six Sigma is an industry accepted and proven methodology used for business process improvement. Six Sigma was first developed more than 15 years ago by Motorola in order to reduce the number of manufacturing defects and to thereby achieve a higher level of customer satisfaction. The primary driver of Six Sigma is to minimize “defects” in a process, an effort that may have the effect of retaining customers, creating new efficiencies, and even expanding sales. Throughout the years, many professionals have found that Six Sigma can offer as much promise for improving a service process as it does for a manufacturing process. A defect in a service process might be defined as too long a delay company response ...