| Whilst passing through Miami airport en route to Mexico City, Ron came across an article on Six Sigma in USA Today, 21 July 1998. It read: ‘Today, depending on whom you listen to, Six Sigma is either a revolution slashing trillions of dollars from corporate inefficiency or it’s the most maddening management fad yet devised to keep front-line workers too busy collecting data to do their jobs’. At that time Ron was coordinating a Global MRPII programme between all manufacturing sites of GlaxoWellcome, including the Xochimilco site in Mexico. The Global Manufacturing and Supply Division of GlaxoWellcome was considering a ‘LeanSigma’ initiative, which was meant to be a hybrid of Six Sigma and Lean Manufacturing. It struck Ron that the message in USA Today reflected not just the doubts (or expectations) in the minds of colleagues, but perhaps also those of quality practitioners worldwide.
These doubts or expectations addressed many questions. Isn’t Six Sigma simply another fad, or just a repackaged form of TQM? It appears to be successful in large organizations like Motorola and General Electric, but can a small firm support such a programme? How can we apply Six Sigma methodology, originating from manufacturing operations, to the far larger market of the service sector? Like any good product, Six Sigma will have a finite lifecycle – so what is next? Surely one big question is, how can we sustain the benefits in the longer term? It is good to be ‘lean’ but isn’t it better to be ‘fit’, to stay agile? The idea of writing Quality Beyond Six Sigma to address these issues was mentally conceived at Miami airport, and the concept of FIT SIGMA™* was born. |