6 Sigma Mystique Takes Beating In Downturn

‘SICK SIGMA’

It has always been easy to ridicule 6 Sigma. The name — given by Motorola (NYSE: MOT) Inc, which codified 6 Sigma in the 1980s and trademarked it — is a statistical term, meaningless to lay ears and yet vaguely sinister, perhaps conjuring thoughts of a certain medical procedure involving the lower colon and a semi-rigid probe.
In practice, it looks like a cross between “The Principals of Scientific Management” and “The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,” deploying teams of workers — with titles based on the colored belts used in the martial arts — to karate-chop waste and inefficiency out of their business processess.

Then there is the almost cultish devotion it inspires in some corporate adherents, a psychological effect that has prompted skeptics to dub it “Sick Sigma.”

And that’s the rub. So many top U.S.. companies have embraced 6 Sigma that it feels a bit unwise to mock it. What if its proponents are really on to something?

Dave Burritt, the chief finance officer at Caterpillar, who took a lead role in championing 6 Sigma when his company adopted it in 2001, certainly thinks so.

Asked if there were any areas of life where 6 Sigma was not relevant, Burritt did not hesitate. “6 Sigma,” he told to Reuters, “can be applied to everything.”

 

 

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