About Thomas Pyzdek

Thomas Pyzdek

Pyzdek Institute
Founder and President,
Thomas Pyzdek

Thomas Pyzdek holds more than 50 copyrights including the Six Sigma Handbook, The Quality Engineering Handbook and The Handbook of Quality Management. His works are used by thousands of universities and organizations around the world to teach process excellence. Pyzdek has provided training and consulting to employers and clients in all industries since 1967. He provides consulting guidance from the executive suite to “Belts” working in the trenches. In his online and live public seminars and client classes he has taught Six Sigma, Lean, Quality and other business process improvement methodologies to thousands.

Pyzdek is a Fellow of ASQ and recipient of the ASQ Edward’s Medal and the Simon Collier Quality Award, both for outstanding contributions to the field of quality management, and the ASQ E.L. Grant Medal for outstanding contributions to Quality Education. Pyzdek serves on numerous editorial boards, including The Quality Management Journal, Quality Engineering and International Journal of Six Sigma and Competitive Advantage.

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Resources for Six Sigma


Introduction to Six Sigma
Six Sigma Projects
Six Sigma Tools
Six Sigma Statistics
Six Sigma Videos (Requires QuickTime)
Leading Six Sigma
Healthcare Quality
Process Excellence Podcasts
Other Useful Links
Good books on Six Sigma and other topics

What is Six Sigma?

By Thomas Pyzdek, Author of The Six Sigma Handbook

For Motorola, the originator of Six Sigma, the answer to the question "Why Six Sigma?" was simple: survival. Motorola came to Six Sigma because it was being consistently beaten in the competitive marketplace by foreign firms that were able to produce higher quality products at a lower cost. When a Japanese firm took over a Motorola factory that manufactured Quasar television sets in the United States in the 1970s, they promptly set about making drastic changes in the way the factory operated. Under Japanese management, the factory was soon producing TV sets with 1/20th the number of defects they had produced under Motorola management. They did this using the same workforce, technology, and designs, making it clear that the problem was Motorola's management. Eventually, even Motorola's own executives had to admit "our quality stinks." Read More...