— Overview
Six Sigma, formed in the late 1980s in the United States, was taken up in Korea at Samsung and LG. This account follows Samsung SDI. After the profitability of the display business had worsened, the company set aside its earlier quality-production method and moved production work to Six Sigma in 1996, began training in 1997, and extended the method to office work in 1998. In that period, black belts were set at 5 percent of employees and green belts at 50 percent.
The work took three forms: Six Sigma Quality Management on the shop floor, a quality qualification that ran from executives to all staff, and customer-satisfaction projects that included office work.
— Contents and key concepts
From the late 1980s in the United States to the line in 1996
Six Sigma was formed in the late 1980s in the United States, and this account places its spread into Korean firms at Samsung and LG. At Samsung SDI the occasion was concrete. The profitability of the display business had worsened, and the company set aside the quality-production method it had been using. Production work moved to Six Sigma in 1996. Training began in 1997. Office work followed in 1998.
The belt structure is left in that period. Black belts were set at 5 percent of employees, green belts at 50 percent. The account speaks, in the language of its own time, of a spread of Six Sigma inside Korea; that wording is not read as a later date, and no later official counts are added here.
The shop floor, a qualification, and the office
The work, as this account sets it out, took three forms. The first was Six Sigma Quality Management on the shop floor, at the electron-gun, flat-panel, and Cheonan sites. The tools named are modest and practical: checklists, a manufacturing analysis system, the process indices Cp and Cpk, and a PDCA cycle. The second was a quality qualification that ran from executives down to all staff, so that the method was not left only with specialists. The third was a set of customer-satisfaction projects, and those projects included office work as well as the line.
What the account does not give, and what is not invented here, is a later result: no later defect rates, no later share of belts, no later official score. The picture that remains is of a company that, after a squeeze in the display business, moved first the line, then the training, then the office, and tried to put a large share of its people through the belts in the late 1990s.
Sources
- an account of Six Sigma’s late-1980s origin in the United States, its adoption at Samsung and LG in Korea, and Samsung SDI’s move of production work to the method in 1996, training in 1997, and office work in 1998, including belt shares in that period and three forms of the work.
Last updated: 14 November 2026
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