Six Sigma: History

Around 1920, Walter A. Shewhart (1891-1967) developped the statistical process control (SPC). He recorded the ecnonomic basis in his book Economic Control of Quality of Manufactured Product (released 1931).

The pioneer of quality management, William Edwards Deming (1900-1993) created the process-ortientated sight relating to activities and duties of a company around 1940. His development is a strong part of our present-day norms of quality and doctrines of quality management.

During the 1970's, the predecessors of the Six Sigma method have been introduced at the naval architecture in Japan - later the electrical industry and the consumer goods industry adopt this method.

But the Six Sigma methodology has been definitely developed by Motorola's employees Mikel Harry and Bill Smith in 1987. Bill Smith also created the definition "Six Sigma".

Nowadays a lot of companys use the Six Sigma methodology - not only in the production sector, but also in the service sector.