What was the true innovation of SS?

From my perspective it was more structure than had been done with TQM or any of its predecessors. It was certainly not the tools, they had been around forever. By structure, I mean the infrastructure for deployment aka Champions, Belts, etc. The focus shifted to more issues linked with the strategic imperatives of the company rather than disjointed locally selected projects to work on. A greater emphasis was placed on real business impact and dollars rather than just feel good work. In the right environment it was top led rather than somebody’s functional job lower in the food chain. The combined effect of the deployment and structural changes plus a good bit more marketing has made SS a pretty solid approach that has had far more traction and staying power than any of us old timers ever imagined. You can knock it all you want but it has become quite a force for change in the business world.

As you sense, the answer is a bit more complicated then can usually be answered via a Forum such as this. I am sure others will pipe in come tomorrow and provide their insights as to what makes SS a bit different and has allowed it to outlive other similar attempts at transforming business. Personally, I think it is due to the Father of Six Sigma, the always delightful and informative Dr. Mikel Harry and his dearly departed side kick Reigle Stewart. That and the insightful and much maligned 1.5 shift sets this apart. Old timers like Stan and Carnell try to claim that they are the real developers but we know that they are pretenders and that Harry, Schroeder and Stewart where the real heart of it with some minor mention going to Bill Smith.

Hi Maer,
That’s a very good question.To understand the significance of the “true innovation” that was key to the development of six sigma, you need to mentally transport yourself to the late 1980’s. What was going on at that time with respect to Quality? Who were the Gurus and what was their message.Most of them were using Statistical Process Control and Control charts to improve quality.Nobody had a complete methodology to characterize the process from the beginning to the end. In other words, to understand the relationship of its input/output variables, measurement system, determine current capability, optimize to six sigma and put all the controls in place to maintain six sigma quality.You may remember, control charts are the last tool you implement, not the first, and the Gurus were preaching something that did not make practical sense.Mario Perez-Wilson had the understanding to know that all of these techniques, methods and tools could be linked together to provide a cohesive “Methodology” for improvement. He implemented the M/PCpS® Methodology in 1986, which is now a federal trademark of Advanced Systems Consultants. Working at Motorola, he negotiated to keep the right of his methodology – pretty smart on his part. Motorola granted him the rights to the M/PCpS, which was implemented in Motorola as the first six sigma methodology for improving process. In essence, he translated the six sigma goal into a methodology for improvement. The M/PCpS methodology was implemented in 1986 through 1991. Motorola announced in their 1991 annual report, by implementing six sigma, they saved over 2.2 billion since 1987 and over 700 million in 1991 alone.In 1992, Motorola formed the Six Sigma Research Institute with Mikel Harry as Director and started DMAIC and the belt system, which they adopted in 1994.

I attended the iSixSigma Live Summit last January, where Motorola presented that Mario Perez-Wilson was the developer of the first methodology for six sigma. This is years before they implemented DMAIC, the Black Belt and the Green Belts. After the summit I contacted Mario directly and he answered all my questions.

I must have been hungover from the party and Cuban cigars because I don’t remember Moto presenting anything let alone that Mario was the inventor. Apparently the old timers from Moto give him a lot of credit for early development of the methodology but that was not a presented topic of discussion.

Here is a link to a paper from the MIT Sloan School of Business.  It describes the evolution of Six Sigma and “who did what, when.”  Seems this paper spells it out and says it all.
http://viewswire.eiu.com/report_dl.asp?mode=fi&fi=1770754762.PDF&rf=0