The January 22, 2001, issue of Fortune contained an article "Why You Can Safely Ignore Six Sigma," that was highly critical of Six Sigma. Here are some of the criticisms levied against Six Sigma:
How would you respond to these statements?
a. The results often don’t have any noticeable impact on company financial statements. Thus, Six Sigma success doesn’t correlate to higher stock value. This criticism applies to 90 percent of the companies that implement Six Sigma.
b. Only early adopters can benefit.
c. Six Sigma focuses on defects, which are hard to objectively determine for service businesses.
d. Six Sigma can’t guarantee that your product will have a market.