Here’s the first kick. Birkinshaw and Mol base their “well documented” history of Six Sigma on the following citation, (p. 81):
J. Folaron, “The Evolution of Six Sigma”, Six Sigma Forum Magazine, August 2003, 38 – 44. (oops, that’s a miraculous loopback :-).
The extremely well researched passages on the history of six sigma is as follows”
“A third type of dissatisfaction that can lead to innovation is the nagging operational problem. This is best exemplified by Motorola’s development of the Six Sigma methodology for controlling the quality of a manufacturing operation. This innovation can be traced back to the concept of zero defects proposed by Motorola quality manager Bill Smith in 1985 and “the Six Sigma Quality Program” that CEO Bob Galvin subsequently initiated in January 1987. But the inspiration for Smith’s idea was not a specific problem facing the company; instead, the methodlogy was developed as part of an ongoing drive for excellence in manufacturing quality that had been in palce since Galvin became CEO in 1981. Motorola, like many Western companies at the time, was struggling to keep up with the quality levels produced by the Japanese competitors. Six Sigma was revolutionary in its consequences for Motorola and for many other companies, but is was evolutionary in its origin” (p. 84).
The last piece of the history of six sigma reads as follows:
“A second common source of external validation is the consulting organization (…). Six Sigma was successful inside Motorola, but it only received external attention when Mikel Harry and Richard Schroeder, two Motorola executives, created a specialized consultancy operation to sell their methodology to other companies” (citation: Adams, Gupta and Wilson “Six Sigma Deployement” (Burlington, Massachusetts: Butterworth, Heinemann. 2003).
Wow, this is rich, highly well researched, nuanced and well documented historical work :-))))))).
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