Businesses use Six Sigma as a strategic process to improve quality of products or services and at the same time reducing cost. Emphasis is on effecting bottom line for the organizations. Delighting customers with consistent quality products and services is the aim of Six Sigma.
The word sigma comes from statistics and represents extend of variation of results from target values. Motorola in 1986 popularized the term Six Sigma indicating over longer period of time six sigma quality produces 99.99967 percent defect free products or 0.00034 percent defective or 3.4 defects per million opportunities. Motorola also prescribed the DMAIC problem solving approach to achieve six sigma results. DMAIC stands for Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control.