So Where Did Six Sigma Really Start?

The day’s opening speaker provided an interesting insight to the origin of one of today’s business crazes. In 1982 Bill Grogan was an Accounting Director for IBM with the responsibility of closing the books for all of their USA operations. At the time Bill assumed responsibility for this position, the accounting function was responding to a major reorganization that created overtime numbers that ranged from 48-75%. Needless to say, stress was increasing with morale being the ultimate casualty.

Rather than attempt to manage an impossible morale problem, Bill decided to call all of his managers together and assert his leadership role by announcing, “We have got to stop or this is never going to end. We must step back and look at what we’re doing in a more thoughtful way.”

I was one of Bill’s team members who had been heavily involved in IBM’s Total Quality Management efforts from 1979. So with Bill drawing the line in the sand, I began working with the managers in questioning what they were doing, why they were doing it, whom were they doing it for and was it being done efficiently? Within a nine month period of time, Bill’s team created something they called Process Management. The team was breaking down functional barriers / silos by working as a process team and the results were incredible. The error rate dropped, overtime dropped to less than 10% and morale skyrocketed. Their success became a topic for the IBM Senior Executive Strategic Conference and Board of Director’s Meeting in November 1983. Before long word was getting to IBM’s vendors and companies. Motorola adapted the Process Management concepts and decided to name it Six Sigma. Now you know the rest of the story. ‡

- Tony Dottino, President of DCG

"The session was terrific!  I was amazed by the great results achieved by these companies and learned so much from them.  The story of Six Sigma as told by Bill Grogan was enlightening."

Fran Riemer,Strategic Outcomes