Customer Reviews

Statistics for Six Sigma Made Easy

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I am a Black Belt and program manager at a Fortune 100 company. I use and teach Six Sigma regularly, and I strongly believe in the power of this methodology. However, Six Sigma can be complex, bureaucratic, and confusing. This sometimes makes it difficult to get buy-in from others.

I constantly search for books that make Six Sigma easier to use and understand. I have used Brussee's Statistics for Six Sigma Made Easy for over a year and have found no other book as successful in making Six Sigma truly useable for those who don't plan to make Six Sigma their life's major undertaking. Not everyone wants to be a Six Sigma Black Belt!

The author has simplified many of the Six Sigma tools, with no reduction in their usefulness. In fact, the simplification on the QFDs and the FMEAs make them MORE useful, because they aren't so tedious and boring. And the Simplified Gauge Verification, which incorporates aim into the formula, makes the output far more meaningful.

Testing for statistical significance, which in most Six Sigma books is either skipped completely or treated with the same complexity as in a high-level statistics book, is incorporated as a straight-forward test, with no unnecessary jargon. And all calculations can be done with Excel. Although I feel comfortable using Six Sigma specific software, I find that most people who are not doing Six Sigma calculations on a daily basis are much more comfortable using Excel.

The included Six Sigma case studies seem to indicate that the author has truly lived through Six Sigma projects, not just observed them as a consultant. As someone who has to live with the results of their work for many years, I appreciate this difference.

I think that Brussee's approach to Six Sigma will become the standard as this valuable methodology continues to be incorporated into more industrial and non-industrial processes. I highly recommend this book.

Dedicated Black Belt

Brussee's Statistics for Six Sigma Made Easy is a wonderful "how to" text for six sigma stat tools that is very readable, and usable, by anyone with at least a high school level background in mathematics. He has done a great job of simplifying much of what a Green Belt would use from the Six Sigma toolkit, and he presents the material in a format highly conducive to application. The result is a valuable statistics manual for the Six Sigma implementer.

Warren Brusee gets right into the thick of Six Sigma from the very beginning. The author discusses shortcuts and simpler methods than traditional Six Sigma processes that are equally as effective.

Statistics and Quantitative Methods have never been particularly friends of mine. This book is approachable, reads well, has very clear examples, and sample problems.

If you are looking for a book to introduce you to Six Sigma, and teach some very useful tools, make this the first book on the subject you buy.

On a whole not worth the $14 I paid. Your better bet is to get this book from a library and read it over a weekend. Looking at the manner in which the tools are simplified, I believe the methods dilute the overall value of a tool on a formal 6S project. If you are looking for the 99.999+% solution for a 50k+ problem you can not afford to risk using a lower accuracy tool.

BUT..If you are looking for a process improvement tool that is in the success rate of a Kaizan event, (more on the 80-90% success rate) the simplified version of the tools make sense. In point of fact this book could drive toward a wider use of more valid statistical tools in a production/operations environment.

I did like the step by step walk through probability that gives a validation of the why behind many of the 6S tools. I also liked the manner in which the book presented the exercises with the answers to assure reader understanding and correct use in excel. The other value in this book is that all the tools presented are producible utilizing MS excel which most people in a business environment have vs. a 1K+ purchase of Minitab or SPSS.

"Statistics for Six Sigma Made Easy" offers one of the better statistical overviews for Six Sigma Black Belt-level work and for exam preparation for the Certified Six Sigma Black Belt (CSSBB) examination given by the American Society for Quality (ASQ). While there are many references that position themselves as good Six Sigma statistical references, Warren Brussee presents an ideal balance of depth and breadth among other references in this book.

I used this book as one of my review sources for the CSSBB exam given by the ASQ. While the author suggests that the material covered in the book is more appropriate for Green Belt, as opposed to Black Belt, work, I found Brussee's book served as a good overview for the CSSBB exam.

The book does not cover all of the major statistical concepts included in the CSSBB Body of Knowledge, but Brussee's "Six Sigma Statistical Tool Finder Matrix", Chapter summaries, and compendium of formulas discussed in the book combine to offer an excellent base for a high-level Six Sigma statistical review.

I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in Six Sigma. It is especially useful as a statistical primer for the Six Sigma methodology. Brussee artfully combines real-world experience with a theoretical foundation in this well-written book.

The book brings a potentially intimidating component of Six Sigma to a level that is both approachable and understandable. I found it to be both a good read, with plenty of examples, as well as a very useful reference. A must have for the Green Belt's bookshelf.

I'm a Black Belt who has several books on Six Sigma and texts on statistics but, I found this one to be a very good book to use for Six Sigma, teaching problem discovery/solving critical thought, or even any statistics courses.

The book is an easy read and can be utilized against worksheet software most people have versus MiniTab, etc..

When I was getting trained in Six Sigma, one of the more challenging aspects was to obtain a firm grasp of the science and methodology behind the statistics taught in the program. This book presents a solid understanding for serious students and managers. What's also great is that it is also a good reference for managers at any level, whether you are involved in Six Sigma of not. P. Theo, National Association of Business Management Professionals,[...]

This book takes a very broad and complicated subject and boils it down to the very basics. Each chapter comes with case studies and example problems that illustrate the application of the principle being taught. I would recommend this book to anyone looking for ways to improve critical thinking and decision making.

I like the level of detalization in this book and simple language explaining the concept, application of statistics, and Sigma methods. The value of this book from my practical point of view is the Case Studies which help to better understand when and how statistics for Six Sigma can be used.