Product Description

The only user-friendly beginner’s guide to Six Sigma
Six Sigma is the most common—and perhaps least understood—methodology for streamlining processes in manufacturing, service delivery, management, and almost any other business activity. For business leaders seeking increased efficiency and customer service, Six Sigma is the key.

Written specifically for Six Sigma beginners—whether they’re small business owners who want to implement Six Sigma, or professionals and students who need to get up to speed fast—Six Sigma For Dummies is the most straightforward, non-intimidating guide on the market. Hundreds of thousands of professionals work in Six Sigma companies such as GE, Sony, Toshiba, Microsoft, and Nokia, but have a hard time fully understanding the methodology. This simple, friendly guide makes Six Sigma make sense.

Intended to help readers implement Six Sigma in their small and medium-sized businesses to improve quality and reduce costs, this no-nonsense guide explains:

• What Six Sigma is
• What Six Sigma’s goals and objectives are
• The benefits of Six Sigma in both large and small businesses
• How the belt system works
• The DMAIC approach
• How to implement Six Sigma
• How to use Six Sigma tools
• How Six Sigma’s approach aims for zero-defects

Neil DeCarlo (Fountain Hills, AZ) is Chief Knowledge Officer and Craig Cygi (Eden, UT) is Chief Product Officer for Six Sigma Technologies, an Arizona-based firm that provides low-cost, high-quality Six Sigma solutions to small and medium-sized companies and organizations. Neil also owns DeCarlo Communications, while Craig is founder and President of TolStack, Inc., a provider of advanced analysis software tools designed to assist Six Sigma practitioners. Both men have worked directly with Dr. Mikel Harry, a member of the team that developed Six Sigma in the mid-1980s and one of the world's recognized authorities on Six Sigma management.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #9792 in Books
• Published on: 2005-03-04
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 360 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780764567988
• Condition: USED - VERY GOOD
• Notes:
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From the Back Cover
With tools and tips for making sense of Six Sigma

Use Six Sigma to improve business performance — and reap big profits

Millions of people work in companies that use Six Sigma to achieve quantum leaps in performance — in everything from products and processes to systems and even environments. But for beginners, Six Sigma can seem confusing and mysterious. Relax! Six Sigma For Dummies explains it all — whether you need help implementing the methodology, or just understanding it.

Discover how to

• Understand what Six Sigma is and how it works
• Utilize the right tools and technologies
• Speak the language of Six Sigma
• Know the responsibilities of team members
• Master the statistics skills you'll need

About the Author
Craig Kent Gygi began studying and applying the elements of Six Sigma well before they were formalized into today’s renowned breakthrough methodology. As a graduate student in mechanical engineering at Brigham Young University in the early 1990s, he integrated these cutting-edge improvement techniques into his coaching of student product development teams. Upon beginning his career in 1994 at Motorola’s Advanced Manufacturing Research Lab in Florida, he was formally introduced to the maturing Six Sigma method. It resonated deeply with his previous findings. From that time, Craig has applied, taught, and led Six Sigma in all his endeavors, including management and technical capacities at Motorola, Iomega, and General Atomics.
In 1998, Craig founded and led a software company to develop computational tools for Six Sigma practitioners. For several years, he also worked as a technical colleague of Dr. Mikel J. Harry, the original consultant of Six Sigma, co-developing and teaching new advances in its theory and application. Most recently, Craig has traded his mountain home in Utah for the Sonoran desert of Arizona to co-found Savvi International and direct and manage its Six Sigma products, services, and tools.
A Master Black Belt, Craig has wielded Six Sigma techniques now for over 12 years, spanning projects from design to manufacturing to business process management. He is also an expert teacher, having instructed and mentored at all levels of Six Sigma, from executives to White Belts.

Neil John DeCarlo has been a professional communicator in the continuous improvement and Six Sigma fields for more than 15 years, beginning with his work at Florida Power & Light company when it won the coveted Deming Prize for quality. Since that time, he has authored, ghostwritten, or edited more than 150 articles and six books in association with such companies as General Electric, Dupont, Bose Corporation, McKinsey consulting, UPS, AT&T, the Six Sigma Academy, and many others.
As a prolific author and writer, Neil’s past work has covered a range of subject matter, including Six Sigma, information technology, e-learning, knowledge management, change management, business integration, TQM, ISO, lean management, and other disciplines. He has also worked with several CEOs and consultants, including Japanese quality expert Dr. Noriaki Kano, and worked extensively with original co-architect of Six Sigma, Dr. Mikel Harry.
In addition to his writing pedigree, Neil has managed communication and publishing campaigns for a variety of companies and consulting firms, most notably, the Breakthrough Management Group, a Six Sigma, lean enterprise, and performance-improvement industry leader. While not working, Neil avidly practices Bikram yoga and contributes to that community through his advocacy and writing.

Bruce David Williams has been fascinated with complex systems since the launch of Sputnik on his third birthday. With undergraduate degrees from the University of Colorado in Physics and Astrophysics, he entered a career in aerospace systems, where he first encountered Six Sigma after Motorola won the inaugural Baldridge Award in 1988. Later, with graduate degrees in technical management and computer science from Johns Hopkins University and the University of Colorado, and as a member of the Hubble Telescope development team, he was intrigued by how breakdowns in the smallest components could lead to colossal system failures. He entered the Six Sigma industry in the mid-1990s, when he founded a software company to pursue product life-cycle traceability.
Bruce has since been founder and CEO of two Six Sigma research and technology firms, and is now Chairman and CEO of Savvi International, a provider of solutions for business performance improvement using Six Sigma, lean, and business process management techniques.

Customer Reviews

Title Should Be: Just Another Six Sigma Book
Title Should Be: Just Another Six Sigma Book

I guess I'm the dumb one, because I was expecting a book that simplified and clarified the Six Sigma process. After all, isn't that the purpose of the "for Dummies" series? Well, this book does neither.

On page 2 of the book, near the top of the page, it says, "Six Sigma For Dummies is ... a comprehensive, actionable description of the methods and tools of Six Sigma." A few lines later, however, it says that "...the field of Six Sigma is much too large to fit in only 400 pages." This indecision on the authors' goals permeates the whole book. The book has three authors, and as you read this book you suspect that they didn't collaborate at all on their approach to this topic.

For example, the statistics portion of the book is 165 pages long, with line after line after line after line of statistical info. Then you get to the "tool" section of the book, where you will supposedly learn how to actually apply the statistics. Even though at the beginning of this section it says, "You can't do Six Sigma without tools," the whole section of practitioner tools is less than 40 pages long. Only a brief overview is given of each tool, without enough detail for anyone to actually do Six Sigma work!

Sure, statistics are important for Six Sigma, but for a person just being introduced to Six Sigma, the coverage is excessive and not done all that well. If someone wants to learn statistics at this level, they would be far better off getting Basic Statistics, by Kiemele, Schmidt, and Berdine. If someone wants a general reference book for Quality, including Six Sigma, get the massive (over 800 pages) The Six Sigma Handbook, by Thomas Pyzdek. If someone wants a book that gives a practical and workable approach to Six Sigma in general, consider Statistics for Six Sigma Made Easy, by Brussee.

It isn't that anything presented in Six Sigma For Dummies is actually wrong. It's just, as an earlier reviewer observed, that the book does not have a target audience. And the book certainly doesn't fulfill the implied promise of a "dummies" book to simplify and clarify the subject.

Dedicated Black Belt

Useful for Learners, Teachers & Leaders
I work as a manager and Master Black Belt at a Fortune 100 company. This book has been very useful in my training of others. I just finished teaching a Six Sigma Black Belt course in which I referred students to this book to reinforce their learning and deepen their understanding. It has transformed the way I teach Six Sigma as well as the way my students learn it.

Not only am I suggesting that BB's and BB's-in-training get this book, but I'm also recommending that leaders who have GB's and BB's on their staffs read this book. It gives enough information for leaders to understand what their Six Sigma staff are going through in the trenches. And it also provides leaders with enough education to ask meaningful questions. (Nothing is worse than an uninformed leader trying to lead Six Sigma resources!)

Doesn't have a target audience
If you're just curious about what six-sigma is this is a good, easy to understand, book. But it teaches you little that can be applied.

I'm in a company that is begining a six sigma effort and I am assisting the black and green belts in their work. I had wanted a book that would help me do the things I would probably be asked to assist with such as building a SIPOC diagram. Instead, the book is devoted almost entirely to telling you what the black belts do on a project (half of the 300 pages are about statistics and much of the remainder is about things like project charter). The obvious problem is that a book like this can't actually teach you to be a black-belt. So after 300 pages I know some statistical principles, but not enough to actually do anything with, and I know nearly nothing about how to assist a black belt on a project.

Before you say "but six sigma is all about statistics" let me say that I know that. Stats are the core, and doing them takes training. You will not learn to do six-sigma stats from this book. You will probably not learn much else from this book either.