The past 20 years have seen the introduction of a succession of management techniques, each one heralded as the key to achieving business excellence. Unlike many, however, the latest of these techniques, Six Sigma, is based on a precisely defined statistical approach to eliminating waste and focusing on value-added activities. The concept has received accolades from US giants such as GE, AlliedSignal and Motorola. Its impact is now beginning to seep into UK industry. In the world of statistics, sigma is used to denote standard deviation. Industry has long applied a sigma measurement scale (ranging from two to six) to define how much of the output from a manufacturing process is contained within the specification.
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