When people discuss Six Sigma, one of the most common questions are often whether or not someone thinks that it is it just a fad or another trend that will quickly fade away. Given due time, everything runs its course, unless it proves to be a flawless system that cannot be replaced. However, with all of the technological innovations as of late, it is likely only a matter of time before someone comes up with something bigger and better and more technologically advanced.

Six Sigma started out as a very simple tool that Motorola created for itself. Today, the process is used in thousands of different industries around the world on a daily basis. Obviously, Motorola did something right, otherwise Six Sigma would not have lasted 20 years if its only merit was popularity. When it comes to business practices, businesses need the best. If Six Sigma wasn't the best, or was not at least effective at what it was designed to do, it would've been replaced by now 10 times over. Even through it was termed the ‘here today gone tomorrow phase of 90s business process improvement trends’, Six Sigma remained strong.

The great thing about Six Sigma is that many people in many businesses around the world already employ different uses of Six Sigma Tools without even realizing it. Since the methodology focuses on a simple task and simple tools to complete that task, is not surprising that so many people are already employing some of the basic fundamentals without even realizing it. The reason Six Sigma is different, though is because it has a much broader scope and is much more forensic than any other business process ever has been. Business have always been analytical, and businesses have always been worried about numbers. However, businesses have not been worried about the big picture or have tried to take a scientific approach to analyzing their processes.

When Six Sigma was introduced, it brought to light so many great solutions for so many great companies. Now there are literally hundreds of well-known companies around the world that are saving literally billions of dollars every year simply by utilizing Six Sigma Projects. It's no wonder that this business process improvement tool has such good staying power. If your business had the potential chance to make a 10 to 20% increase in profits in the first year by improving processes, and then the subsequent chances to increase return on investment over time, why wouldn't you do what it took to accomplish that? You would, as would anyone else with a single grain of common sense, which is why Six Sigma is so successful.