History and Evolution of Six Sigma

History and Evolution of Six Sigma began with building stringent quality standards that are vaunted and in-demand. The Six Sigma techniques have resulted in savings across business process and product life cycles for corporations across the world.
We shall now discuss a brief history of Six Sigma, with its beginnings, and chart out its evolution.

Six Sigma principles has its origins in the quest for quality to facilitate mass production. The process began in the late 18th century, though the field of statistics itself – based on which many of Sigma’s tools.

Overview of Six Sigma

The set of principles that comprise Six Sigma has its origins in the search for quality in mass production, beginning in the late 18th century, though the field of statistics itself – upon which many of Sigma’s tools are based- has been around for a long time.

Central pillar of statistical theory, as utilized in Six Sigma, is German mathematician Friedrich Gauss’ Normal Distribution curve (also called a ‘Bell Curve’). One standard deviation, represented by the Greek alphabet ‘σ’ (‘sigma’), away from the mean in terms of statistical quality control, processes and products are measured and evaluated to find the variation from acceptable standards, and the spread of the distribution signifies variability.

Six Sigma methodology is not a revolutionary way of thinking, also it does not provide a radically new set of quality tools. Six Sigma is more of an evolutionary development moving towards continuous improvement that combines the best elements from many earlier quality initiatives. Some of the tools used in Six Sigma, such as quality function deployment (QFD), are relatively new, most, such as the fishbone diagram, etc have been developed long back.

Six Sigma holds a lot of importance in the field of quality and continuous improvement. Therefore, understanding quality’s roots and the reasons behind the methods will allow practitioners to be better prepared to launch successful projects for large scale initiatives.