There are several issues about the Six Sigma approach to quality that bother me. First, Six Sigma is a performance standard that hardly anyone can understand. Secondly, it’s an engineering approach to quality management. It’s more of a defect-management program than it is defect-prevention. However, what bothers me most is that it doesn’t give front-line employees the opportunity to participate in eliminating defects in their work.

Back in the early 1960s, there was a quality revolution underway. It was called zero defects (ZD) and everybody was doing it.  The idea behind ZD was (and still is) to set a performance standard that no defects are acceptable; a standard that everyone could understand. Backed by the Department of Defense and all the military services, ZD was an enormous success. It soon spread to suppliers of major companies and companies outside of defense. Ford, General Motors, and Chrysler, all had a ZD program. However, some companies soon found interest waning in their program. The problem wasn’t with the zero defects concept or techniques, it was that employees doing the work didn’t have a say in what was going on. Being only preached to about quality improvement and not having a say in how to improve quality, they soon lost interest. Regardless of the posters, pins, and platitudes, they still had to do the same old job with the same old methods and tools.

 …