The Quality Improvement Handbook: Team Guide to Tools and Techniques [Hardcover]

Roger Swanson (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 188401559X | ISBN-13: 978-1884015595 | Publication Date: May 1, 1995 | Edition: 1

This valuable new book provides quality improvement teams, and their leaders, with a comprehensive set of tools and techniques to solve problems and improve processes in their organizations. The book offers experienced teams instruction on more advanced, less frequently used tools as well as provides detailed guidelines on the basic tools for newly formed teams.
The seven quality tools, seven management tools, and an additional 20 tools and techniques have also been incorporated into this title. Both the service and manufacturing industries and environments will find the applications useful. Each tool and technique includes sections that describe the tool, key points in using it, typical applications, an example, and steps in using the tool.

Editorial Reviews

Review

...this useful book is a compendium of tools selected and arranged to support a team-based quality improvement effort. This handbook fulfills its purpose well and should be widely used for team efforts in many types of organizations. -- National Productivity Review

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: CRC Press; 1 edition (May 1, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 188401559X
• ISBN-13: 978-1884015595
• Product Dimensions: 10.3 x 7.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,711,491 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Practical and Useful, August 24, 2001

By 

T. R. Poe "hikeatrail" (Burlington, KY USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Quality Improvement Handbook: Team Guide to Tools and Techniques (Hardcover)

This textbook was required reading for a Masters Program. Consequently, I didn't purchase because I wanted to, I purchased because I had too. With that in mind, I found this to be probably the most useful textbook I purchased during my entire course of study. The writing was clear and easy to understand and the practical applications were limitless. I highly recommend this book to anyone attempting to "run" a quality improvement program effectively and efficiently.

4.0 out of 5 stars Good Methods Review, May 9, 2010

By 

Igor Zaychik "We love it." (NY) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Quality Improvement Handbook: Team Guide to Tools and Techniques (Hardcover)

This book is good point to start but not really deep and does not have good case studies.

4.0 out of 5 stars brief, good coverage of graphing and statistics, June 30, 2007

By 

W Boudville (Terra, Sol 3) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Quality Improvement Handbook: Team Guide to Tools and Techniques (Hardcover)

Swanson gives practical guidelines to anyone interested in running a quality improvement program. Many checklists are supplied. Often accompanied by top-down flowcharts. Jargon is explained.

And for those people without a strong maths background, there is an entire chapter on how to analyse and display data. It describes the most basic display graph types, like bar, pie, histogram, scatterplot and control charts. Along with the specialised but important Gantt chart for coordinating a project.

There is also a short discussion of statistical techniques. But if you find this useful, I would encourage you to then consult a fully fledged book dedicated to statistics. Swanson's coverage is necessarily miminal.