His job was to infuse the gospel of Six Sigma into Tyco management during its post-Koslowski recovery.

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What Mr Welch cared about was quality hence his embrace of the Six Sigma programme for total-quality management.

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However, as Mr Bonsignore takes over that task, a longer-term question still remains about the viability of conglomerates in an age in which management people talk about core competences even more than six sigma.

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