Six Sigma Still Pays Off At Motorola

It may surprise those who have come to know Motorola (MOT ) for its cool cell phones, but the company's more lasting contribution to the world is something decidedly more wonkish: the quality-improvement process called Six Sigma. In 1986 an engineer named Bill Smith, who has since died, sold then-Chief Executive Robert Galvin on a plan to strive for error-free products 99.9997% of the time. By Six Sigma's 20th anniversary, the exacting, metrics-driven process has become corporate gospel, infiltrating functions from human resources to marketing, and industries from manufacturing to financial services.

It's still paying off for Motorola Inc., too. Consider the hot-selling, super-slim Razr phone. A creative, innovative design, sure. Yet "Six Sigma's stamp is all over the Razr," says Michael S. Potosky, Motorola's corporate director of Six Sigma. Engineers, for instance, applied the process to the phone's antenna, helping keep it hidden while maintaining call clarity. With hits like the Razr, the Schaumburg (Ill.) company has climbed from a 15.4% market share in mobile phones to 22.4% over the past two years. Motorola netted $4.6 billion on $36.8 billion in revenues last year, helping it earn the No. 13 spot on the BusinessWeek 50 list of top corporate performers.