What does the phrase, "ninesigma worthy," mean?

A person whom I met recently said something that I consider a bit odd. During our conversation, the topic of lost items arose. "Personally," he said, "I'm glad that over all the years I have not lost a thing that is ninesigma worthy." Not knowing what he meant, I could only nod in assent and quickly change the subject.

Can anyone tell me what the phrase, "ninesigma worthy," means, and why a person might express himself in that manner?


Solution 1:

3 sigma is a statistical term for an event that is 99.7% likely to fit the data, i.e. only a 0.3% chance that it is random, and so generally assumed to be correct.

There was (is?) a business fashion called 6sigma where you were supposed to excel to such an extent that you were correct 99.99966% of the time, i.e. an error 3 parts per million.

9 sigma would be correct 99.99999999999999% (can't be bothered to calculate) so implies a very rare event.

So if the person is a management consultant / marketing type they mean that it is wonderful and high quality. If they are an engineer it might mean worthy of meaningless buzzword/fad made up by management consultants and marketing types!