Idea 39 - Six Sigma Martial arts mixes with the Greek alphabet and a US electronics maker in a defects control discipline that has won many thousands of corporate converts - Six Sigma. It was designed to reduce. Defects and shorten cycle times, something it does very effectively, but today its sponsors are promoting it as a fully integrated management system. Six Sigma was developed in the 1980s by electronics and communications firm Motorola. It was part of that company's response to devastating competition from foreign - read 'Japanese' - manufacturers. Sales were taking a hammering and there was a rising tide of complaints from the field sales force about warranty claims. As Motorola tells the story, the senior sales vice president looked the chief executive in the eye and said: 'Our quality stinks.' The two of them agreed on a goal of tenfold quality improvement over the next ten years. The job of making that happen fell to Bill Smith, an enginee...