Lean 6 Sigma

Time is money. This axiom never truer than during rocky financial periods when the pressure to produce swift revenue results from any investment intensifies. In boom years and recessions alike, IT is expected to facilitate business efficiencies and innovations that yield significant cost reductions and increase profits. But during a downturn, many companies tighten or [...]

 
6 Sigma is a quality management program to achieve “6 sigma” levels of quality.
6 Sigma is a highly disciplined process that helps to focus on developing and delivering near-perfect products and services.
Why “Sigma”? The word is a statistical term that measures how far a given process deviates from perfection. The central idea behind 6 Sigma [...]

 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 [...]

Developed in the 1950s by Japanese companies like Toyota under the tutelage of U.S. Quality guru W. Edwards Deming,  the practices now referred to as 6 Sigma were originally just a way of reducing waste and cost on the factory floor, while improving quality, delivery and services.
In the 1970s, U.S. manufacturers began adopting it in [...]

6 Sigma Mystique Takes Beating In Downturn
Why are companies that embraced 6 Sigma – like GM, Caterpillar, and Motorola — doing no better in this downturn than the companies that ignored it?
Companies have spent hundreds of millions of dollars adopting 6 Sigma, the popular business management system inspired by Toyota Motor Corp’s legendary approach to [...]

Criticisms of 6 Sigma
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6 Sigma is controversial with the statistics profession. Some teachers of statistics are critical of the standard of statistical teaching found in 6 Sigma materials. Others object to the idea that a single universal standard can be appropriate across all domains of application. They argue that quality standards should be set [...]