Understanding the Essentials of the Six Sigma Quality Initiative [ILLUSTRATED] (Paperback)

~ Harold Star (Author), Stephen J. Snyder (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 116 pages
• Publisher: 1st Books Library; illustrated edition edition (December 20, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1588203441
• ISBN-13: 978-1588203441
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.1 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.3 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #2,347,258 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Clear and concise introduction to a complex subject, June 23, 2002

By	Linda Zarate "IT Ops Consultant" (Azusa, CA United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

This short book does one thing and does it well - clearly explains what Six Sigma is and why it's important. It accomplishes this in less than 100 pages, making it a succinct guides to a highly complex topic.

Practitioners will find the material too basic, but business managers will find it sufficient to see the value of a Six Sigma initiative. It's also useful for communicating an initiative and its importance to employees who are not directly involved, but need to be on board to imbue it into the corporate culture.

It devotes the first 35 pages to explaining the what's and why's in clear, non-technical prose, and the rest of the book covers the how's by explaining each of the tools that are used to achieve Six Sigma. Each tool, ranging from Analysis of Variance to Team Development, is quickly described at a high level, with all key factors and a brief summary of what it is and how to use it.

If you are a member of the organizational implementation team I recommend that this book used to communicate the reasons for the initiative and what Six Sigma will mean to your organization to employees. If you have a direct role in Six Sigma and your statistics are rusty I recommend augmenting this book with Visual Statistics by Jack R. Fraenkel, Enoch I. Sawin and Norman E. Wallen.

2.0 out of 5 stars Bad Quality!, October 28, 2002

By A Customer

This book was made without concerns on quality. Even for the price, it is too basic. Every two pages with almost no information and NO EXAMPLES OR EXCERCISES, there is a page for NOTES. Is this a joke? Every two pages with very basic information there is a BLANK page that could have been a place to place an example or a chart. It is a waste. I dont need to have 27 pages in blank from a book that is already very thin and that basically teaches you nothing. I can buy a notebook or use a PALM, but those two pages preceeding the blank page ARE THE NOTES! The paper is of bad quality and the text is printed too much towards the center of the book, so you have to open it too much. I am not an expert on Six Sigma, but I have read already four books about the subject. Dont buy this book. If you want a very basic book about Six Sigma, buy the book by George Eckes, The Six Sigma Revolution.