In the early 1980s, Matsushita’s Japanese management team bought the Quasar division from Motorola, and through the use of sound industrial-management techniques, significantly cut defect rates and cycle times.

At that time, Motorola was having major problems. Shortly thereafter, the company launched its Six Sigma program, which offered a huge opportunity for extremely high returns on investment. In addition to Six Sigma, Motorola also initiated active process redesigning activities focused primarily on cycle-time reduction. For the next five years, Motorola’s problem-solving approach was Walter A. Shewhart’s plan-do-check-act model. Motorola had no formal training to measure, analyze, improve, and control (MAIC); however, in 1991, Motorola developed the concepts of Black Belt and Master Black Belt training using the MAIC methodology, which was a slight modification of Shewhart’s model.

Motorola’s Six Sigma program consisted of the following:

• Record hard savings

• Focus on measurements

• Statistical analysis

• Process mapping

• Process capability analysis

• Statistical process control

• Graphical methods

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