The Impact of Six Sigma Improvement—A Glimpse into the Future of Statistics

Abstract Six Sigma improvements—a highly disciplined and statistically based approach for removing defects from products, processes, and transactions, involving everybody in the corporation—has been adopted as a major initiative by some of our leading companies. This is fundamentally changing the paradigm of how statistics is applied in business and industry, and has had a career-changing impact on those statisticians who have been involved. We describe the Six Sigma initiative and its evolution, the enthusiastic and visionary support by the CEOs at some major corporations that have embraced it, its successes to date, and the impact on statistics and statisticians. We then turn to a major theme—what statisticians must do to be maximally effective in this exciting new environment. These changes will not be limited to the companies that have adopted Six Sigma, or, for that matter, industry, but are all-pervasive. We discuss the dramatic longer term implications on our profession.