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Six Sigma in Business

Even though Six Sigma was initially implemented at Motorola to improve the manufacturing process, all types of businesses can profit from implementing Six Sigma.

Businesses in various industry segments such as Services industry (Example: Call Centers, Insurance, Financial/Investment Services), Ecommerce industry (Example: B2B/B2C websites), Education can definitely use Six Sigma principles to achieve higher quality. Many big businesses such as GE and Motorola have successfully implemented Six Sigma but the adaptation by smaller businesses has been very slow.

GE is a pioneer in using Six Sigma. This article on Six Sigma GE Experiences explains how various GE divisions adopted and benefited from Six Sigma.

Here are some of the reasons to consider:

• Bigger companies have resources internally who are trained in Six Sigma and also have 'Train the Trainer' programs using which they churn out many more Six Segma instructors. Also many bigger companies encourage the employees to learn Six Sigma process by providing Green Belts/Black Belts as mentors.
• Effectively applying the Six Sigma techniques is difficult compared to actually learning the techniques in a class.
• Big companies make Six Sigma as part of the Goals for employees and provide incentives for employees who undergo training and mentor colleagues.
• Many assume that that Six Sigma works for bigger companies only as they  produce in volumes and have thousands of employees. This notion is not true and Six Sigma can be effectively applied for small businesses and even companies with fewer than 10 employees.