Six Sigma's Best Kept Secret: Motorola and the Malcolm Baldridge Award

Discover the secret operational excellence tools Motorola chose not to tell their competition in 1988.

Gregg Young, CEO & Founder of Young Associates

When Motorola received one of the initial Baldrige Awards in 1988, Public Law 100-107 that created the Award required each Award recipient:

“to provide information about [its] successful quality improvement strategies and programs”,
“to provide specific guidance on how to manage for high quality and detailed information on how they were able to change their culture”,
and “to help others improve their quality management.”

The government also published guidelines that applicants had to follow. These guidelines state, “Recipients are required to share information on their successful performance and quality strategies with other U.S. organizations. However, recipients are not required to share proprietary information, even if such information was part of their award application.” 

This last sentence has had a massive impact on the success of thousands of organizations around the world over the last 20 years – every organization that has implemented Motorola’s MAIC Six Sigma® process...