Nobodys perfect. Thats what Mom has told me, and its pretty safe to assume, with a few possible exceptions (well, maybe just you and me), shes right.

But household-name companies have been testing Moms wisdom by adopting the Six Sigma methodology to address quality concerns throughout the organization. One often-cited example is GE, which defines Six Sigma as a highly disciplined process that helps us focus on developing and delivering near-perfect products and services. The word Sigma is a statistical term that measures how far a given process deviates from perfection. GEs document What Is Six Sigma: The Roadmap to Customer Impact continues: The central idea behind Six Sigma is that if you can measure how many defects you have in a process, you can systematically figure out how to eliminate them and get as close to zero defects as possible.

Since skepticism is a journalistic occupational hazard, I frequently question how much of any buzz is hype or fad. To Six Sigmas credit, its had some longevity. Nearing its 20th birthday, the concept was introduced in 1986 by a Motorola senior engineer and scientist. Alongside Motorolas well-known products, the company offers Motorola University, a service that trains other companies in Six Sigma. Motorola Universitys site provides such documented results as: Motorola saving $17 billion from 1986 to 2004 and GE saving $750 million by year-end 1998 and cutting invoice defects and disputes by 98 percent.Six Sigma also has spawned a mini-industry of information providers. For example, McGraw-Hill was kind enough to share some of its many volumes on the topic with me and indicate several upcoming titles. Then theres isixsigma, an online resource (with a financial services channel), and the International Quality & Productivity Center (IQPC), which organizes conferences, among them a Six Sigma for financial services event held last July.