In 1985, Motorola developed a quality improvement plan with sets of strategies and processes. The company used Six Sigma to single out and eliminate defects in the manufacturing process. In addition, Motorola Company used Six Sigma to minimize variability in its manufacturing process. The first Step employed by Motorola Company was to define the problems that lower the quality standards. For instance, they singled out poor employee policies as one of the major problem that result to quality defects. The company came up with measures to improve their staffing policies. These included employee incentives, training and benefits for outstanding employees. In addition, they trained the employees to know ways of identifying the customer’s needs. This implies that the Six Sigma quality improvement plan is propelled by understanding of the needs of the customer (Narasimhan, 2002).
When Motorola Company used Six Sigma, the company ended up saving millions of shillings. This is because; they cut on the unnecessary staffing expenditures. They also improved the efficiency of their workers, resulting to quality products and services. However, Six Sigma can only be used in big companies like Motorola. Thus, when used in small companies with less than less than 500 employees, it is costly (Narasimhan, (2002).
Therefore, I think that Six Sigma is very useful in improving process capability of big companies. This is possible because, Six Sigma is designed to identify and remove defects as was used by Motorola Company. This will ensure that the ability of the process will be enhanced in meeting the design specifications for a product or a service. Thus, Six Sigma is the best quality improvement in ensuring that nominal and tolerance value are met.
Reference
Narasimhan, K. (2002). The Six Sigma Way: How GE, Motorola, and Other Companies are honing Their Performance. The TQM Magazine. Vol. 14 (4).
