Six Sigma was officially launched January 1, 1987, at Motorola, and it took more than nine months to make Six Sigma real. Twenty years later, Six Sigma has grown from a good baby methodology into a mature system that affects thousands of corporations and millions of people and that saves billions of dollars.

I had the good fortune to be in the right place at the right time. I joined Motorola in 1981, the year the company started its “quality” transformation. In early 1986, it started working on the development of something beyond three sigma in Austin, Texas; and, later that same year, the company joined Bill Smith on his journey to implementing Six Sigma in Schaumburg, Illinois. I remember brainstorming solutions during cigarette breaks or in Bill’s office. It was even more fun debating how many solder connections and washers to count to determine a sigma level. At that time, managers understood that the higher the number of opportunities, the better the sigma level, and it was all about riding a learning curve in good spirits.

The methodology was developed by an engineer, and it has a human touch, which makes it a practical methodology. However, it must be clearly understood that the Six Sigma methodology isn’t about facts or statistics. Six Sigma is all about good engineering consisting of process knowledge, graphical tools, statistical methods, leadership, aggressive goal setting for intellectual challenge and innovation.

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