Six-sigma is a marketing ploy

Apparently Six Sigma is a marketing ploy

First, it offers easy money, because both the training and qualification are controlled as though the concepts are unique and innovative and can only be understood, taught and implemented in one way. In reality, many consultants who promote the Six Sigma methodology lack consistency in their training materials and course content, and they themselves lack a knowledge base to build on. Second, Six Sigma sounds impressive because some major corporations claim exceptional returns on their Six Sigma investments. Although it’s true that some companies–and they constitute a small percentage of the whole–have had exceptional returns on investment, they only experienced such a tremendous turnaround because they attacked the simplest, easiest-to-solve problems first, and their quality levels were so low that anything they tried would have been a success.

Then:

58 large companies that have announced Six Sigma programs, 91 percent have trailed the S&P 500 since …. One of the chief problems of Six Sigma …. is that it is narrowly designed to fix an existing process, allowing little room for new ideas or an entirely different approach. All that talent - all those best and brightest - were devoted to, say, driving defects down to 3.4 per million and not on coming up with new products or disruptive technologies.

And:

Six Sigma is great in some uses, they say the system assumes that what exists is fundamentally sound and merely needs refinement. As a result, critics charge, Six Sigma is ill-suited for developing innovative products, finding fundamentally new internal processes, or setting overall corporate strategy.

However, doesn’t Six Sigma eliminate pre-conceived ideas that cloud the innovation process? In fact here (pdf file) is a roadmap for Integrating Innovation into Design for Six Sigma.

What do you think? Fad or not?