3. Six Sigma Launch Philosophy

With Ian Wedgwood

This chapter covers some general philosophical principles that have driven successful Six Sigma deployments in the past. Six Sigma is more than focusing on the money, finding the money, and delivering the money, as mentioned in the previous chapter. Six Sigma deployments, if done well, actually end up changing the culture of the organization. This was clear in the Motorola experience.

In just a couple of years, everyone in the company knew how to calculate a Sigma and was driven by the metric, defects per unit (dpu). Companies that have been successful with Six Sigma find that they operate much differently than before Six Sigma. For example, companies hear, “Where’s the data to support that idea?” ...

Get Six Sigma—The First 90 Days now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.