Who is an important Six Sigma personality?

Posted by Taggart on October 8th, 2018

The name K. B. Gola may not sound familiar to most people. Interestingly, he is the person who introduced the concept of Six Sigma to Motorola in 1986. While he had nothing to do with the conceptualization of Six Sigma, the name of Jack Welch is known to every Six Sigma professional. He is considered an important Six Sigma personality because he made Six Sigma a strategic business initiative in General Electric in 1995. It is Mr. Welch who made the Six Sigma methodology popular throughout the world.

There are other names associated with Six Sigma other than Jack Welch. If you think of an important Six Sigma personality, one or more of these names mentioned below would surely feature in the list.

Bill Smith was the person who coined the term "Six Sigma" and he is aptly considered as the father of this methodology. He made Six Sigma popular as the VP and Senior Quality Assurance Manager of Motorola. It was under his leadership that Motorola won the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award.

Bob Galvin became the CEO of Motorola when he succeeded his father. Motorola saw unprecedented growth in sales from 1958 to 1987 under his leadership. It was Galvin who made Six Sigma implemented throughout Motorola and the entire organization benefited from his decision.

Larry Bossidy, the retired CEO of Allied Signal (now known as Honeywell) worked closely with Jack Welch at GE, where he spent 34 years of his career. While serving executive roles in GE, his largest contribution was in making Six Sigma a massive success.

There are numerous other personalities who have, over the years, made Six Sigma what it is today. Without their contribution, this methodology probably wouldn't be as valued as it is. Some of these names include those of Carl Gauss, Dr. Joseph M. Juran, Dr. W. Edward Deming, Kaoru Ishikawa, Michael Harry, Philip Crosby and Walter Shewhart.

As far as the Six Sigma methodology is concerned, it is set of tools and techniques that are used to improve business processes. Many businesses have failed because they didn’t address the business process issues on time or never at all. On the other hand, there are businesses that invested in Six Sigma for process improvement and they reaped the benefits. Take any Fortune 500 company and you will see Six Sigma implemented there.

Six Sigma is popular because it derives measurable results. A business process may have simple or complex problems, but when it is taken through Six Sigma, it always improves.

Six Sigma is always run in the form of projects. There is a project leader and there is a team that works under their guidance. The team finds out the root cause of any business process problem and comes up with solutions to implement. The entire concept is called DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, Control) and this is what drives Six Sigma projects.

Six Sigma training is provided by many professional training institutions. They certify individuals to carry out Six Sigma projects.

The list of important Six Sigma personality has quite a few names. These are the people who made the Six Sigma methodology popular.