Six Sigma as an infrastructure for saving money.

Reducing defects will save you money. Reducing process variation will save you even more money. Doing six sigma the General Electric, Motorola, or Allied Signal way will save you a lot of money as well, but not any more money necessarily than a well-developed and soundly supported quality circle program would have in the 1980s. That's the real irony of this 'new' definition of six sigma. In a lot of ways, what is now being sold as THE way to do business is essentially repackaged theory from 15 to 20 years ago. Unfortunately, most quality circle programs in the 1980s failed because (1) teams were allowed to pick their own projects, (2) team members weren't properly trained about the costs of doing business, (3) not enough support resources were provided to help guide, train, and lead teams, and (4) circles were seen more as a benefit for employees instead of being the only right way for getting the projects a company needs to have completed ... and completed quickly.