In today’s marketplace companies of all types and sizes are looking for top-line growth, reduction in their total cost structure, increased capacity without capital investment, improvements in customer satisfaction, better investor relations, and sound supply chain management practices, not to mention a substantial increase in organizational capability and capacity. 

To remain competitive, these companies must deliver an additional 5-6% to the bottom line – each year. It is interesting that most organizations do not realize that the average company (operating at four sigma quality) leaves about 15% of every sales dollar on the table owing to a loss of capability and capacity due to the inadequate management of their core business processes. Since its inception in the 80’s as a quality initiative at Motorola, Six Sigma has evolvedintoaworld-classsystemofbusinessmanagement. Itprovidesameanstoreachthe control function of a corporation and positively alter the genetic code of its leadership. It changes the way in which work is managed and executed – in every corner of the organization and in everything it does. 

In other words, Six Sigma forces us to reexamine the way we get the work done and not simplytweaktheexistingsystemforsomemarginallyacceptablelevelofimprovement. Six Sigma is more than a quality improvement initiative as originally conceived. It has evolved into a system of business management that produces quantum change – in everything that it is focused on. Owing to this, we can now say that Six Sigma is about improving the “Quality of Business” versus being caught up in the “Business of Quality.” 

Simply stated, to get the right thing, you must do the right things; and to do the right things, you must know the right things. So, from nearly thirty years of successful practice, we recognize there are seven basic subject areas that every executive should have some basic knowledge about in order to perform a due-diligence investigation of Six Sigma: