My perception has been that Six Sigma is simply a fancy name (or umbrella) for Total Quality Management. If the fancy name gets people to use the underlying techniques, it gets results--much like the folk tale about stone soup. It is, however, hardly innovative; DMAIC is simply a variant on Plan Do Check Act, as are all closed loop continuous improvement cycles. TOPS-8D is easier to understand, and applies to a wider range of projects.

Standardization, which was touted as an innovative feature of Six Sigma, dates back to Henry Ford and Frederick Winslow Taylor, if not earlier.

For whatever reason, Six Sigma leaders Motorola and General Electric both moved jobs offshore for cheap labor. Henry Ford did not need cheap labor, which suggests lean manufacturing is superior to Six Sigma--but the two approaches are emphatically synergistic and not mutually exclusive. This suggests that, as pointed out in the article, management commitment is vital (as it is with any program).

Perhaps there is a need for a new label like Productivity Improvement Method or Productivity Improvement System that encompasses any and all activities and techniques that remove waste--which can be quantified as waste of the time of things, waste of the time of people, waste of materials (ISO 14001), and waste of energy (ISO 50001). This would include all lean methodologies, design of experiments, DMAIC, 8D, CQI-10, PDCA, the seven basic quality improvement tools, and so on. The bottom line is that, if it eliminates waste (and poor quality is waste), just use it.

Tom Pyzdek's "Six Sigma Project Turkeys" (http://www.sixsigmatraining.org/six-sigma-projects/six-sigma-project-tu…) underscores the need for projects to go through to completion. TOPS-8D projects that get no further than D3 (containment) are another example of the problem. A good closed loop corrective action system will demand that all projects go to completion, which is in fact mandatory for those related to ISO 9001 audit findings.

There is also the "just do it" project, or Error Cause Removal (ECR) program that was described roughly 50 years ago. If, for example, a forklift's forks are damaging boxes on pallets behind the one being lifted, just shorten the forks (or put rubber blocks on them to prevent the forks from extending beyond the pallet, assuming the change in the load's center of gravity does not create a safety issue). One does not need DMAIC or 8D to reach a conclusion of that nature.

Six Sigma is dead!  As of December 4, 2014 China is now the number one economy in the world, surpassing the U.S.A.

The issue of it's death goes deep down to the use of Six Sigma in the U.S.A. by top management, (in the boardrooms), over the past decades.  It has been used extensively to make business systems and finances look good prior to a sale, merger, or for seeking financing.

The net result of all the empty promises, hard work, and positive results achieved by Master Black Belts, Black Belts, and everyone else involved is that most manufacturing companies that went through Six Sigma no longer exist, and/or all their manufacturing has been moved offshore.  And that is why it's dead!

The proof is in the pudding!

For those manufacturing companies that still exist in the U.S.A., hang on!  The use of the Six Sigma methodology will keep those American companies competitive in the global marketplace.......   Until the board members decide that the results achieved are good enough to sell the company, or move it offshore.

Six Sigma and Lean are both still around and the success varies with the change agent. I often find Six Sigma and Lean to be focused on efficiency - and not effectiveness. The best improvements come from effectiveness and this usually comes from focus on the largest producers of waste - management. Management is where I see Six Sigma and Lean fail.

Both Lean and Six Sigma need to have attached them a method for management. I have found only one that has endured the test of time - the Deming Management Method (DMM). 

Face it, Six Sigma was never really about quality, it was about marketing.  A lot of consultants got rich convincing CEO's this would save their companies and convincing people that this was the end all be all program (key word) for permanent job security.  Years ago I called GE out on their six sigma over light bulbs.  I bought three light bulbs, none of which worked out of the box.  How come I'm not that lucky when I play lotto?  And by the way, it happened again with refrigerators.

Quality is hard work, it's process focused.  Six sigma has some powerful tools, all of which we've seen since Roland Fisher.  The problem is none of the six sigma consultants really know how to teach the real essence of quality, rolling up your sleeves and digging in. 

80% of your problems can be solved with 7 tools.  It's all about fundamentals.

If Six Sigma was any other product, it would have been returned to the manufacturer as defective, the day it was taken out of the box.  The very name "Six Sigma" should have made people suspicious.  How on Earth could a philosophy based on counting defects with the farcical target of 3.4 ever hope to succeed?  The origins of the 3.4 show that it was more scam that just fallacy.

CEO's bought the hype without ever considering the basis of the nonsense.  It was festooned with tools, simply to justify more loot for those doing the training.  Hopefully one day the masses will wake up and return to Deming.

Light dawns on Marble Head...

I started writing this article several months ago, under the working title "A Tale of Two Companies." The article is not about whether Six Sigma (or TQM, or Lean, or SPC, or BPR, or CPI, or any other brand name for continual quality improvement) is dead, but about why they all continue to be reported as dead.

When I sent the article into QD, it was under that title. My timing was bad, though, because unbeknownst to me, Don Wheeler had also submitted an article entitled "A Tale of Two Comparisons," to lead the QD Daily the day before my article. Clearly, an editorial decision was made to change the title on mine--for good reason. In retrospect, I think the choice for the new title may have been unfortunate...as someone who has often commented in other forums on whether TQM or SPC or LSS or Six Sigma had shuffled of the mortal coil, I know that lots of readers wait for articles with these titles to pounce and declare it DOA.

What I would hope might happen is that you read the article again, and wherever I have the words "Six Sigma," substitute your preferred methodology. My hope is that then you'll see the article as I intended it...a comparison of how two companies used the same approach to continual improvement, with one being successful (and eventually growing beyond the branding) and the other not--and some of the reasons for each result.

Nice article Rip - you got right to the correct point of management consistency and support, despite the distracting title.

Has the name 'Six Sigma' been used by hack consultants whose sole purpose was to get rich while defiling real quality methods and tools? yesBut so what?  They did the same thing in the eighties with SPC and are still doing it with 'Lean'.  These people will never go away, so we need to stop lamenting their existance and be the best quality professionals we can be.

Did some companies use it - and Lean - to put lipstick on their pigs before trotting it off to market?  yesBut companies have been doing this since the dawn of time with some brand of lipstick or other...again we need to get over it and do something productive.

Did the goofy hocus pocus gimmicks (Cpk, 1.5 sigma shift, etc.) get in the way of some deployments?  yesAnd there will always be goofy things because marketers need gimmicks and lazy people people want a pill that will cure their ills today...

Is China's accendancy to economic first place a result of the US use of Six Sigma?  no.  China is number one because they have the most people and they are finally leaving their agragrian economy...

At its heart - and in its origins - 'Six Sigma' is and was nothing more than a 'packaging' of quality methods and tools.  For those companies that took quality seriously it has been very successful and continues to be.  I have worked under the banner of 'six sigma' sine the beginning and I have seen both success and failure for exactly the same reasons Rip pointed out.  Companies that care about quality will continue to invest in it and companies that don't will continue to look for the miracle pill.  I have chosen to not partake in anti-stupidity rants and do what I can to teach, promote and use solid effective quality improvement methods - no matter what the banner du jour is...

Thank you for all your rich comments. I try to bring my Lean 6-Sigma milestones to your knowledge. The startup of digital (cellular) Mobile Telephone Systems at Ericsson in 1982 was a challenge. 1 single person employed first. I was joining the main production mgmt staff in 1985, then there were appr 700 R&D Engineers. I transferred from a position as an automotive R&D Manager for 5 yrs 1980-85, where I had two trips to Japan for my Lean 6S portfolio, but only one Benchmark theory - getting down to 1 PPM level incoming quality like many Japanese electronic companies then. Without much understanding of top management I started measuring PPM-levels of the processes by help of a freind close to the automation machinery and automatic test equipment. We were at 45 000 PPM in august 1986. We reduced the PPM-levels of the primary processes to 50 PPM in 1989, factor 1/1000 three years later. I put Monthly PPM-charts in front of R&D Designers, creating a competitive position for the product owners to reach the 1 PPM level very soon. Number of speech channels increased 10-fold every year from 1982 to 2000 well following the Moore's Law. In 1989 I heard of the Motorola Six Sigma Concept and Deming's book Out Of The Crisis. I found them very supportive and explanatory for my efforts and further educational mission for Scandinavian Industry. Maybe my early and rapid grassroot simplification from a designers view point was our success. I had no formal quality role at Ericsson. I worked off line of the line management structure.