Six Sigma

The Breakthrough Program for Increasing Quality, Shortening Cycle Times, and Creating Shareholder Value In Every Area of Your Organization Time and quality are the two most important metrics in improving any company's production and profit performance. Lean Six Sigma explains how to impact your company's performance in each, by combining the strength of today's two most important initiativesLean Production and Six Sigmainto one integrated program. The first book to provide a step-by-step roadmap for profiting from the best elements of Lean and Six Sigma, this breakthrough volume will show you how to: Achieve major cost and lead time reductions this year Compress order-to-delivery cycle times Battle process variation and waste throughout your organization Separately, Lean Production and Six Sigma have changed the face of the manufacturing business. Together, they become an unprecedented tool for improving product and process quality, production efficiency, and across-the-board profitability. Lean Six Sigma introduces you to today's most dynamic program for streamlining the performance of both your production department and your back office, and providing you with the cost reduction and quality improvements you need to stay one step ahead of your competitors. "Lean Six Sigma shows how Lean and Six Sigma methods complement and reinforce each other. If also provides a detailed roadmap of implementation so you can start seeing significant returns in less than a year."--From the Preface Businesses fundamentally exist to provide returns to their stakeholders. Lean Six Sigma outlines a program for combining the synergies of these two initiatives to provide your organization with greater speed, less process variation, and more bottom-line impact than ever before. A hands-on guidebook for integrating the production efficiencies of the Lean Enterprise with the cost and quality tools of Six Sigma, this breakthrough book features detailed insights on: The Lean Six Sigma Value PropositionHow combining Lean and Six Sigma provides unmatched potential for improving shareholder value The Lean Six Sigma Implementation ProcessHow to prepare your organization for a seamless incorporation of Lean Six Sigma tools and techniques Leveraging Lean Six SigmaStrategies for extending Lean Six Sigma's reach within and beyond your corporate walls "Variation is evil."--Jack Welch Six Sigma was the zero-variation quality lynchpin around which Jack Welch transformed GE into one of the world's most efficientand valuablecorporations. Lean Production helped Toyota cut waste, slash costs, and substantially improve resource utilization and cycle times. Yet, as both would admit, there was still room for improvement. Lean Six Sigma takes you to the next level of improvement, one that for the first time unites product and process excellence with the goal of enhancing shareholder value creation. Providing insights into the application of Lean Six Sigma to both the manufacturing processes and the less-data-rich service and transactional processes, it promises to revolutionize the performance efficiencies in virtually every area of your organizationas it positively and dramatically impacts your shareholder value.

Six Sigma is a data-driven management system with near-perfect performance that is a statistical target of operating with no more that 3.4 defects per one million chances. Six sigma has both created avid interest and raised concerns among executives and its practioners. This is all very well for multinationals like Motorola or General Electric but how can it help small and medium-sized enterprises or the service industry? How do you ensure that solutions stick? Quality Beyond Six Sigma responds to this challenge and provides a practical implementation of the issues of Six Sigma, Lean Enterprise and Total Quality and aligns the 'hard' sigma message with the softer sustainable 'strategic issues'. The result is FIT SIGMA. The authors utilize major and minor case studies to support principles and learnings of FIT SIGMA and include review examples and self-assessment that underpin the sustainable process. The three major case studies are contributed by General Electric, Dow Chemical and Seagate Technology. Senior Executives and Managers of organizations of all types and sizes, Management Consultants and Students of all disciplines will find this book a stimulating guide to quality and operational excellence.

The extraordinary breakthrough management program--heralded by GE, Motorola, and AlliedSignal--that is sweeping corporate America with its unprecedented ability to achieve superior financial results. Six Sigma is the most powerful breakthrough management tool ever devised, promising increased market share, cost reductions, and dramatic improvements in bottom-line profitability for companies of any size. The darling of Wall Street, it has become the mantra of Fortune 500 boardrooms around the world because it works. What is Six Sigma? It is first and foremost a business process that enables companies to increase profits dramatically by streamlining operations, improving quality, and eliminating defects or mistakes in everything a company does, from filling out purchase orders to manufacturing airplane engines. While traditional quality programs have focused on detecting and correcting defects, Six Sigma encompasses something broader: It provides specific methods to re-create the process itself so that defects are never produced in the first place. Most companies operate at a three- to four-sigma level, where the cost of defects is roughly 20 to 30 percent of revenues. By approaching Six Sigma--fewer than one defect per 3.4 million opportunities--the cost of quality drops to less than 1 percent of sales. This is because the highest quality also results in the lowest costs. When GE reduced its costs from 20 percent to less than 10 percent, it saved a billion dollars in just two years--money that goes directly to the bottom line. This is the reason Wall Street and corporations as diverse as Sony, Ford, Nokia, Texas Instruments, Canon, Hitachi, Lockheed Martin, American Express, Toshiba, DuPont, and Polaroid have embarked on corporate-wide Six Sigma programs. Six Sigma should be of paramount importance to every forward-thinking executive and manager determined to make their company world-class in their industry.

With the growing business industry there is a large demand for greater speed and quality, for projects of all natures in both small and large businesses. Lean Six Sigma is the result of the combination of the two best-known improvement methods: Six Sigma (making work better, of higher quality) and Lean (making work faster, more efficient). Lean Six Sigma For Dummies outlines they key concepts in plain English, and shows you how to use the right tools, in the right place, and in the right way, not just in improvement and design projects, but also in your day-to-day activities. It shows you how to ensure the key principles and concepts of Lean Six Sigma become a natural part of how you do things so you can get the best out of your business and accomplish your goals better, faster and cheaper. About the author John Morgan has been a Director of Catalyst Consulting, Europe's leading provider of lean Six Sigma solutions for 10 years. Martin Brenig-Jones is also a Director at Catalyst Consulting. He is an expert in Quality and Change Management and has worked in the field for 16 years.

Bring the miracle of Lean Six Sigma improvement out of manufacturing and into services Much of the U.S. economy is now based on services rather than manufacturing. Yet the majority of books on Six Sigma and Lean--today's major quality improvement initiatives--explain only how to implement these techniques in a manufacturing environment. Lean Six Sigma for Services fills the need for a service-based approach, explaining how companies of all types can cost-effectively translate manufacturing-oriented Lean Six Sigma tools into the service delivery process. Filled with case studies detailing dramatic service improvements in organizations from Lockheed Martin to Stanford University Hospital, this bottom-line book provides executives and managers with the knowledge they need to: Reduce service costs by 30 to 60 percent Improve service delivery time by 50 percent Expand capacity by 20 percent without adding staff

Streamline data analysis with an intuitive, visual Six Sigma strategy Visual Six Sigma provides the statistical techniques that help you get more information from your data. A unique emphasis on the visual allows you to take a more active role in data-driven decision making, so you can leverage your contextual knowledge to pose relevant questions and make more sound decisions. You'll learn dynamic visualization and exploratory data analysis techniques that help you identify occurrences and sources of variation, and the strategies and processes that make Six Sigma work for your organization. The Six Sigma strategy helps you identify and remove causes of defects and errors in manufacturing and business processes; the more pragmatic Visual approach opens the strategy beyond the realms of statisticians to provide value to all business leaders amid the growing need for more accessible quality management tools. See where, why, and how your data varies Find clues to underlying behavior in your data Identify key models and drivers Build your own Six-Sigma experience Whether your work involves a Six Sigma improvement project, a design project, a data-mining inquiry, or a scientific study, this practical breakthrough guide equips you with the skills and understanding to get more from your data. With intuitive, easy-to-use tools and clear explanations, Visual Six Sigma is a roadmap to putting this strategy to work for your company.

Six Sigma is a management program that provides tools that help manufacturers obtain efficient, stream-lined production to coincide with ultimate high quality products. Essentials of Lean Six Sigma will show how the well-regarded analytical tools of Six Sigma quality control can be successfully brought into the well-established models of “lean manufacturing, bringing efficient, stream-lined production and high quality product readily together. This book offers a thorough, yet concise introduction to the essential mathematics of Six Sigma, with solid case examples from a variety of industrial settings, culminating in an extended case study. Various professionals will find this book immensely useful, whether it be the industrial engineer, the industrial manager, or anyone associated with engineering in a technical or managing role. It will bring about a clear understanding of not only how to implement Six Sigma statistical tools, but also how to do so within the bounds of Lean manufacturing scheme. It will show how Lean Six Sigma can help reinforce the notion of “less is more, while at the same time preserving minimal error rates in final manufactured products. Reviews the essential statistical tools upon which Six Sigma rests, including normal distribution and mean deviation and the derivation of 1 sigma through six sigma Explains essential lean tools like Value-Stream Mapping and quality improvement tools like Kaizen techniques within the context of Lean Six Sigma practice Extended case study to clearly demonstrate how Six Sigma and Lean principles have been actually implemented, reducing production times and costs and creating improved product quality

In Leading Six Sigma, two of the world's most experienced Six Sigma leaders offer a detailed, step-by-step strategy for leading Six Sigma initiatives in your company. Top Six Sigma consultant Dr. Ronald D. Snee and GE quality leader Dr. Roger W. Hoerl show how to deploy a Six Sigma plan that reflects your organization's unique needs and culture, while also leveraging key lessons learned by the world's most successful implementers. Snee and Hoerl share leadership techniques proven in companies both large and small, and in business functions ranging from R & D and manufacturing to finance. They also present a start-to-finish sample deployment plan encompassing strategy, goals, metrics, training, roles and responsibilities, reporting, rewards, and management review. Whether you're a CEO, line-of-business leader, or a project leader, Leading Six Sigma gives you the one thing other books on Six Sigma lack: a clear view from the top. * The right projects, the right people Identifying your company's most promising Six Sigma opportunities and leaders * How to hit the ground running Providing leadership, talent, and infrastructure for a successful launch * From launch to long-term success Implementing systems, processes, and budgets for ongoing Six Sigma projects * Getting the bottom-line results that matter most Measuring and maximizing the financial value of your Six Sigma initiative * Four detailed case studies: What works and what doesn't Avoiding the subtle mistakes that can make Six Sigma fall short. Proven techniques for leading successful quality initiatives. The Six Sigma guide designed specifically for business leaders Co-authored by Dr. Roger W. Hoerl, a leader in implementing Six Sigma at GE Draws on Six Sigma experiences at over 30 leading companies Covers the entire Six Sigma lifecycle, from planning onward Presents new solutions for overcoming the cultural resistance to Six Sigma initiatives Leading Six Sigma offers an insider's view of what it really takes to lead a successful Six Sigma initiative, drawing on the authors' experience at the top levels of the world's largest and most challenging organizations.Dr. Ronald D. Snee shares experiences drawn from executive-level consulting at over 30 major companies. Dr. Roger W. Hoerl teaches powerful lessons from his experience in pioneering Six Sigma throughout GE during the Jack Welch era. Together they offer unprecedented executive guidance on the issues most crucial to senior managers, covering every stage from planning through ongoingmanagement.Snee and Hoerl offer practical solutions for the cultural challenges and human resistance that face any executive seeking to initiate Six Sigma or improve an existing program. They even explain how and when to "wind down" initiatives, transitioning Six Sigma to a "fact of life" that doesn't require the support of a massive centralized infrastructure. " This is a truly insightful and well-researched book on Six Sigma by two of the leading experts in the field. Theirroadmap for successful deployment is supported by the experiences of major corporations, including GE and Honeywell. Itis extremely well presented in a step-by-step manner and backed up by real business-case examples. Bravo to the authors inbringing us a book that should be at the ready reach of leadership of organizations and the practitionersof Six Sigma. It reminded me so much of 'In Search of Excellence' as far as its potential impact on the way businessescan be successful. "&