he late Bill Smith, a reliability engineer at Motorola, is widely credited with originating Six Sigmo and sel ing it to Motorola's legendary CEO, Robert Galvin Smith noted that system fallure rates were substantially higher than predicted by final product test. He suggested a umber of possible causes for this phenomenon, including 2 dramatic increase in system complexity and the resulting opportunities for fallure ane a funda mental flaw in traditional quality thinking, He concluded that a much higher level of internal quality was required and convinced Galvin of the importance of setting Six Sigma as a quality goal. Smith’s holistic view of reli ability (as measured by mean time to failure) and quality (as meas- ured by process variability and de- fectrates) was indeed new, as was the Six Sigma quality objective. Prior to Smith’s analysis, a num- ber of gurus, including Joseph M. Juran, Dorian Shainin, Genichi Taguehi and Eliyahu Goldrat, had presented thelr programs for quality and productivity im- provement at Motorola. Mikel Hay, president Of the Six Sigma Academy and co-author of Six Sigma: The Breakthrough Management Strategy Revolutionizing the Word's Top Corporations, attended some of these programs and de- veloped a program for the Government Electronics Division of Motorola that included juran’s quality journey, statistical [process control (SPC) and Shainin’s advariced diagnostic tools (ADT and planned experimentation (PE), Harry later teamed with Smith on the Six Sigma initiative and created Motorola's Six Sigma Institute prior to forming his own ficm. Smith and Harry's initial Six Sigma umbrella included SPC, ADT and PE. Later, they adced design for manufacture (product capability and product complexity) and, as quality was linked to business performance, accom plishing quality through projects. Motorola's design margin had been 25 percent (or 4gor Cp = 1.33). When Smith noted that escaping and latent defects under this strategy were far too high, he reasoned that the disparity between actual reliability and the reliabil- ity expected at final test could be accounted for by increased product complexity and deviations ofthe process mean from the target value, arriving at a value of 1.5 sigma. The com- plexity phenomena had been noted previously by Wemher von Braun in the U.S. space program: Ifa large number of components must function for a system to accomplish its objective, the probablity of system success diminishes rap: idly asthe number of components increases unless the rel- ability of each is essentially perfect. The 1.5-sigma deviation remains controversial, but its nota fundamental issue. What is important is that Smith recognized that a process mean could not be maintained exactly on target, and when it de vated from target, the treitional three-sigma process pro- duced large numbers of parts that exceeded specications. Thus, this breaking with the three-sigma quality tradition was @ major contribution, as was the recognition of the role 30 Quality Digest/May 2000 Origin of Six Sigma: Designing for Performance Excellence ‘of complexity, which dramatically increases the number of ‘opportunities for (and thus, probability of) defects and the likelihood of subsequent system failure, But what about the then-existing theory of optimal qual- ity levels? Motorola observed that Japanese products were ‘of much higher quality than was predicted by the tradi- tional optimal quality level curves. Independently, Rob- ert Cole investigated thisissue and noted several reasons for this change in the quality viewpoint. Japanese quality professionals, he as- serted, realized that the costs of poor quality were far larger than had been supposed; recognized that fo- using on quality improvement as. 2 companywide effort improved a wide range of performance meas- ures; established a system that moved toward quality improvement and low-cost solutions simulta- neously; shifted the focus of quality’ Provement from procuct attributes to ‘operational procedures; developed a dynamic ‘model in which customer demands for quality rise along with their willingness to pay for these improvements, and focused on preventing error at the source, thereby dra~ matically reducing appraisal costs. ‘As Motorola set out on its quality journey, Harry noted ‘that the company ran into a five sigma wall. Motorola found that it could attain a three-sigma level by installing ppracess improvement and control in its own installations, and im- pprove this to the four- or five-sigma level through the edu- Cation of its suppliers. However, Six Sigma only became possible once the company had attained a better under- standing of the role of robust design—systems design, pa: rameter design and tolerance design. Not coincidentally, Motorola won the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award shortly after the rollout of Six Sigma Receiving the Baldrige Award requires the winning com- pany to present its concepts to the world. Thus, as Six Sigma was approaching adolescence, quality professionals at Mo- torola were describing their methods to their colleagues and earning how far Motorola had advanced in comparison to ‘other companies. At this point Harry wrote a strategic vi- sion for accelerating Six Sigma. This included a change in focus, anchoring quality by dollars and seeking a business transformation. It included a description of different com- ppetence levels in the Six Sigma methods, which, in the ka- rate tradition, were designated by belts-Green Belt, Black Belt and Master Black Belt. Elsewhere, GE's Jack Welch and AlliedSignal’s Larry Bossidy (first at GE Financial) led their organizations’ cul tural change through Six Sigma initiatives. In 1998, Busi- ness Week reported that GE saved $330 million through Six Sigma, doubling its CEO's previous prediction. Welch has predicted a savings of $10 billion over five years. I's no ‘wonder Six Sigma has gained industry's attention.