Six Sigma arose during a time when the executives, engineering, and manufacturing, and at Motorola were just awakening to the need, an eye-opening picture: that leadership directly influences the quality of products.

Against this backdrop, statistical methods led to some quick wins and some dramatic results. An informal network of engineers shared success stories, problems and solutions, and started brainstorming similarities among the successes. Growing interest led to the development of courses on statistical methods.

These classes captured the imagination of a senior engineer and quality manager named Bill Smith. Bill Smith worked on field failures - products that would fail after people bought them and started to use them. Bill Smith's key insight was to relate the failures of products he dealt with as a quality manager to product properties that were marginal - just on the edge of missing customer expectations.

According to the recollections of Motorola's CEO, Bob Galvin:

“… Bill Smith called me asking for an appointment. He came to my office and explained the theory of latent defects. I called him back the next day to try to better understand what he was talking about. He soon became a sophisticated advisor in applying statistical methods to improve quality.”

Bill Smith had completed the most critical step - achieving Executive Engagement! In 1986, with CEO Bob Galvin's backing, the Six Sigma concept was communicated top-down and accepted throughout Motorola. In January 15, 1987, Motorola officially launched and announced Six Sigma and set the Six Sigma goal: achieving < 3.4 defects per million opportunities.

In 1988, Motorola won the very first Malcolm Baldridge National Quality Award, given by the U.S. Congress to recognize and inspire the pursuit of quality in American business. Shortly thereafter, a very proud Bob Galvin announced his willingness to share what we had developed and learned:

“…we will share Six Sigma with the world,and it will come back to us… with new ideas and new perspectives….”

Six Sigma provided Motorola the key to addressing quality concerns throughout the organization, from manufacturing to support functions.

Since 1986, the impact of the Six Sigma process on improving business performance has been dramatic and well documented by other leading global organizations, such as General Electric, Allied Signal, and Citibank. That's why investing in Six Sigma programs is increasingly considered a mission-critical best practice, even among mid-sized and smaller firms.

Today, Motorola continues to implement Six Sigma throughout its own enterprise, and extends the benefit of its Six Sigma expertise to other organizations worldwide through Motorola University.