This "Six Sigma" book is at once a novel with a very human storyline, and a straight-forward, easy-to-read textbook. The novel is a creative, semi-autobiographical work which takes the reader through a six sigma implementation process filled with realistic, and perhaps familiar, work situations and characters. The textbook explains in easy-to-understand terms, the technical principles and strategies behind six sigma-level achievement and performance. It includes a quick-reference Q&A section, as well as a glossary of six sigma and other statistical terminology.
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Editorial Reviews
About the Author
Mario Perez-Wilson is the founder and principal consultant of Advanced Systems Consultants. He is the author of four books: Machine/Process Characterization Study - A Five Stage Methodology for Optimizing Processes, Multi-vari Chart and Analysis - A Pre-experimentation Technique, The Design of Experiments - A Seven Stage Methodology, Total Control Methodology, and Positrol Plans & Logs.
He holds a B.S. in Systems & Industrial Engineering from the University of Arizona and was awarded the "Da N To Tsu" (Japanese for "Best of the Best") award from the Rochester Institute of Technology in the QED 90 Symposium. He is currently listed in The International Who's Who in Quality.
Mr. Perez-Wilson was Division Statistical Methods Engineering Manager at Motorola. During his tenure, he was successful in institutionalizing statistical methods into the manufacturing and engineering disciplines of Motorola's worldwide operations. His M/PCpS Methodology has received global recognition and has become the standard approach in the achievement of Six Sigma Quality. In fact, it has been successfully implemented in the electronics, automotive, medical, semiconductor, defense, and missile industries by Fortune 500 companies all around the world.
Mr. Perez-Wilson has conducted seminars for over 10,000 individuals in China, Hong Kong, Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, Philippines, Taiwan, Singapore, and all over the United States. He has consulted, trained, and implemented his methodologies in companies such as Alliance Technologies, Allied Signal Aerospace, Arvin North America Automotive, Bausch & Lomb, Burr-Brown Corporation, Carsem (M) Sdn. Bhd., Department of Energy, EG&G, General Electric, Intel Corporation, Korea Electronic Company, LSI Logic Corporation, Lucas/Nova Sensor, Maremont Exhaust Products, Martin Marietta Astronautics, Motorola, Olin Interconnect Technologies, Sandia National Laboratories, and Semi-Alloys.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Excerpt from Part I, Six Sigma - A Novel, Chapter 1 - Life Before Six Sigma:
"Definitely, I don't know how they do it. For the last three days the yield on that wave solder machine has been at its lowest level and nobody in my department can tell me how to fix it or what the hell went wrong." Harry, the Manufacturing Manager, spoke loud, proud and with a heavy Texan accent.
Well, he had a good reason for it: he was brought into the program from the facility in Texas, which had a reputation for doing things right. But somehow, the glow of efficiency and innovation wasn't coming from his department. It was coming from the quality department, which Harry considered more of a thorn in his side than a source of support.
Harry held his early meeting in his own office and all the manufacturing engineers had to stuff themselves in the little room, like sardines. "We're reworking every damn circuit board, we have over 180 defects per board, and the customer is making a special trip to come and see us. Meanwhile, all you guys can tell me is he has shown you a few boards that look beautiful with but maybe one or two defects. How in the hell can he do that when you guys have been working for the last three days and you keep on telling me it's the board supplier?" complained Harry.
"Well, Sir, apparently he and his team stayed after five and worked all night running an experiment, " answered Fred.
"Well, how can they do that? The machine is ours, the process is ours, the parts are ours! How did they get past us? Who gave them permission to mess with our equipment?" asked Harry.
"Well, Sir, Ned, the Production Supervisor; he stayed with them all night," said Fred hesitantly.
"Why do I have to be surprised with these things? Ned reports to me. How come Ned didn't inform me? I want you to call him now. I want him in my office, now!" said Harry raising his voice.
"Well, Sir, Ned wanted to learn how they have been figuring out how to set up the processes, and decided to stay with them the whole night; and by the way, he left this note on my desk."
"What does it say?" asked Harry quickly, without even letting him finish the sentence.
"It says they have figured it out; a new setup that works just beautiful. No major changes and using the same boards. The boards come out almost perfect. Oh yeah, it also says he will be in late, around noon."
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Excerpt from Part II, Six Sigma - the Concept, Implications and Challenges, Understanding Six Sigma, Six Sigma before January 15, 1987:
Before, January 15, 1987, six sigma was understood by academia, and by the rest of the world, as plus or minus three sigma within specification limits.
To illustrate this, imagine there is a particular characteristic being measured in a process. Imagine the process builds computer keyboards, and the characteristic of importance is the force to depress a key. Let's call this characteristic the Key Tension Force. Such a characteristic has a design specification. If the force required is too high, it would take to much force from the user to strike a key. If the force required is too low, just by resting a finger on the key might produce a keystroke. The design specification has then an upper specification limit, USL, and a lower specification limit, LSL. Realistically, when these limits are exceeded, the product has failed its design requirements.
Later on, as we build a quantity of keyboards and test them, we collect data, compute the sigma and predict the process variability or what is also referred to as the process width. In our particular example of computer keyboards, the process variability is only related (or attributed) to one characteristic, the Key Tension Force. And although we might make reference to process variability, we distinctively mean the variability in the amount of tension-force needed to produce a keystroke.
The process variability, or process width, by convention is always measured by multiplying 6 times its sigma, that is, the sigma of the characteristic. This formula never changes! Why six? Because in a normal distribution the area under the curve between plus or minus three sigma (3s) encompasses or includes about 99.73% of the distribution. And although 99.73% does not encompass the entire (100%) of the distribution, it is for all practical purposes close enough to be considered all. So, when we compute the process variability we have included almost all, but accept the result as if it were all.
Academia understood six sigma to signify that process variability (3s) was equal to the distance between the upper specification limit and the lower specification limit.
Under this definition a six sigma process was understood to be a process with plus or minus three sigma limits within specification limits. Such a process would have a Cp of 1.0 and if the average was centered in the middle of the specification limits, then, it would also have a Cpk equal to 1.0. A process with a Cp and a Cpk equal to one, would then have about 99.73% of its product within specification and about 0.27% out of specification, or 2,700 ppm. As can be seen, none of these numbers agree with what is today understood as Six Sigma. Why is that? Because on Thursday, January 15, 1987, Motorola Inc., launched their "Six Sigma Quality Program", and that changed how six sigma would be understood from then forward.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
26 of 30 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Six Sigma is the way to go, but not with this book!,
By A Customer
This review is from: Six Sigma: Understanding the Concept, Implications and Challenges (Paperback)
I have just finished reading Mario Perez-Wilson's 396 pages of Six Sigma consulting propaganda. In fact, an entire chapter is devoted to promoting Advanced Systems Consultants-Perez-Wilson's consulting firm-as the best, if not only, way to achieve Six Sigma in an organization. A memorial to the overarching ego of Mr. Perez-Wilson, "Six Sigma: Understanding the Concept, Implications and Challenges" is repetitive, poorly edited, and gives only enough information about Six Sigma to allow the reader to engage in cocktail party small talk.
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Where's the Beef!,
By Sigmaguy "Sigmaguy" (New York, NY) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Six Sigma: Understanding the Concept, Implications and Challenges (Paperback)
Ok, so every now and then I ignore what may be a helpful book review, and get burned. After reading this book, I wish that I had heeded the advice of others posted here. This book will be of little value to anyone looking for serious info concerning six sigma. I did not find the "novel" approach used by Perez to be useful in any way. I also was offended by the blatant marketing that takes place at the end (sorry to ruin the ending for everyone). Take my advice--spend the >$ on other authors (Breyfogle or Pyzdek), who do provide the "meat" of six sigma. You won't be sorry...trust me on this! I've seen more useful six sigma pamphlets!
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Piece of History,
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Six Sigma: Understanding the Concept, Implications and Challenges (Paperback)
There is still a dispute on 'Who invented Six Sigma". Mr. Perez-Wilson claims he is the originator. I ordered the book to understand his perspective. The novel, nearly half of the book, gives a nice insight in Mr. Wilsons perspective and in the nature of systematical improvements
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