Power of Six Sigma (Hardcover)

by Subir Chowdhury (Author) "I held the cardboard box in my hands..." (more)
Key Phrases: black belt, Six Sigma, American Pizza, American Burger (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Using a format similar to that in Spenser Johnson's Who Moved My Cheese?, Chowdhury (Management 21C) has created a fictional story that exemplifies the benefits of the business philosophy called Six Sigma. In Chowdhury's rendering, Joe, a middle-aged manager unexpectedly laid off from his position at a fast-food franchise company, is depressed and uncertain about his next move. He calls Larry, an old friend and former co-worker whose career is thriving. Over lunch, Larry explains how he has practiced Six Sigma, both to advance his career and to increase profits for his employer, and he teaches the program's basics to an initially skeptical, then wildly enthusiastic Joe. At the crux of this strategic program, advanced by GE's Jack Welch and instituted at many other major corporations, is a renewed focus on eliminating mistakes, waste and rework. Six Sigma is based on designated teams ("people power") that focus solely on solving a specific problem ("process power"), which may lead to efficiencies that please consumers and, by saving the company money, enhance the bottom line. What distinguishes Six Sigma from other popular quality management techniques, such as Total Quality Management and ISO9000, is that each team has a clear goal; moreover, employees benefit because companies usually tie a financial incentive to a team's goal. While Chowdhury's is not the first book about Six Sigma, what makes his stand out is its engaging and simple approach intended for a broad audience, from the assembly line worker to middle managers and CEOs of smaller companies. (Apr.)Forecast: Given the attention paid to Six Sigma, and Dearborn's ambitious 50,000-copy announced first printing, this book has a reasonable chance of hitting business bestseller lists if Dearborn can jump-start word-of-mouth and find ways to encourage managers to make the book required reading for employees.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Review
“This book will become a source code for those who want to understand and execute Six Sigma successfully.” -- Dave Ulrich, Professor of Business, University of Michigan

”… will do for your customer centered, profit driven defect reduction efforts what The Goal did for cycle time reduction and supply chain improvement.” -- Steve Gunther, Vice President, Six Sigma Deployment, Seagate Technology

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 144 pages
• Publisher: Kaplan Business; 1 edition (March 16, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0793144345
• ISBN-13: 978-0793144341
• Product Dimensions: 7.3 x 5.2 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (46 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #370,986 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent!!! Finally A Book on Six Sigma for All of Us, April 3, 2001

By A Customer

Six Sigma is a NEW management initiative which has been successful in GE, Allied Signal etc. I always wanted to learn about the subject; and bought 2 previously published books on Six Sigma and all are DIFFICULT to understand as I am not from Quality field. I always embrace any book which explains in a simple tone.

The Power of Six Sigma is an EXCELLENT book that explains the complex subject in a non-threatning way for anyone to understand. The book reminded me 3 books: "THE GOAL", WHO MOVED MY CHEESE" or "FISH". If someone wants to understand what is the true power behind Six Sigma, please READ THIS BOOK. This is a STORY BOOK, which is for blue collars to white collars - for everyone.

All the organizations which are implementing Six Sigma MUST ADOPT THIS BOOK and MUST DISTRIBUTE THIS BOOK to EVERY EMPLOYEE. I mean every employee. I emphasize EVERYONE - because successful implementation of any major initiatives depend on everyone's acceptance. This Book WILL work as A CATALYST.

I strongly RECOMMEND THIS BOOK.

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This book taught me what I needed to know and more, July 30, 2001

By A Customer

I just finished reading "The Power of Six Sigma" and enjoyed it more than I had expected. My company is starting to implement Six Sigma and I wanted to get a jump on my other fellow employees. I read it over the course of a week during my lunch break, and because it is not overly technical enjoyed doing so. I always hated textbooks back in school because it seemed they were written by experts for experts and not for real people. I'm not a mechanical engineer and I'm no statistics expert but I have used statistics software before in school and now have a working knowledge of the concepts of Six Sigma. In addition to learning the basics such as what greenbelts, blackbelts, and executive champions are, I now understand terms such as DPMO, Critical to Quality, DMAIC, Standard Deviation, and the importance of assigning numbers to measurements. The explanation of the DMAIC process was also helpful, and although we don't make pizza or burgers we can apply the main concepts and adapt them to our business and develop our own strategy for how Six Sigma will work for us. We have recently chosen our first project and because I had read the book I could explain the main concepts to my line workers. Once they knew what we were doing they opened up to us and we quickly found the cause of the problem. Our shop guys always seem to get nervous whenever someone from the office comes out to the plant to examine a defect. But if they all knew about Six Sigma and understood that we were not out their to challenge their job, but instead to improve quality, things would go a lot smoother and quality would be better. I am now a big fan of the book!

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Six Sigma, in an easy to understand format., August 23, 2001

By	Henrik Liljeby (Örebro Sweden) - See all my reviews

I was looking for a book that would explain Six Sigma, and how i works in a simple way. I didn't want read about statistics and all the tools in Six Sigma, just how the statistics and tools apply in a "real" Six Sigma project. This book was just what i was looking for! The way that the book is written is very good. It's a story about two old friends that have been in the same company for a long time. One of them very successful, the other one not. The successful one has been working as a Black Belt for some time. He explaines a Six Sigma project over lunch, there is always a dialogue between them, the non successful one is asking questions, just the questions I would have wanted to ask, and he is getting more convinced about The Power of Six Sigma the more he gets to know. This is a great book to start with if you want to know more about Six Sigma!