Lean Six Sigma : Combining Six Sigma Quality with Lean Production Speed

Lean Six Sigma : Combining Six Sigma Quality with Lean Production Speed | Michael L. George | A well beyond decent introduction

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Lean Six Sigma : C...

	Lean Six Sigma : Combining Six Sigma Quality with Lean Production Speed Michael L. George McGraw-Hill, 2002 - 300 pages average customer review:based on 29 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

This is the breakthrough program for increasing quality, shortening Cycle Times, and creating shareholder value in every area of your organization. Time and quality are the two most important metrics in improving any company's production and profit performance. "Lean Six Sigma" explains how to impact your company's performance in each, by combining the strength of today's two most important initiatives Lean Production and Six Sigma into one integrated program. The first book to provide a step-by-step roadmap for profiting from the best elements of Lean and Six Sigma, this breakthrough volume will show you how to: achieve major cost and lead time reductions this year; compress order-to-delivery cycle times; and, battle process variation and waste throughout your organization. Separately, Lean Production and Six Sigma have changed the face of the manufacturing business. Together, they become an unprecedented tool for improving product and process quality, production efficiency, and across-the-board profitability. "Lean Six Sigma introduces you to today's most dynamic program for streamlining the performance of both your production department and your back office, and providing you with the cost reduction and quality improvements you need to stay one step ahead of your competitors. "Lean Six Sigma" shows how Lean and Six Sigma methods complement and reinforce each other. It also provides a detailed roadmap of implementation so you can start seeing significant returns in less than a year. From the preface businesses fundamentally exist to provide returns to their stakeholders. "Lean Six Sigma" outlines a program for combining the synergies of these two initiatives to provide your organization with greater speed, less process variation, and more bottom-line impact than ever before. A hands-on guidebook for integrating the production efficiencies of the Lean Enterprise with the cost and quality tools of Six Sigma, this breakthrough book features detailed insights on: The Lean Six Sigma Value Proposition - how combining Lean and Six Sigma provides unmatched potential for improving shareholder value; The Lean Six Sigma Implementation Process - how to prepare your organization for a seamless incorporation of Lean Six Sigma tools and techniques; and, leveraging Lean Six Sigma Strategies for extending Lean Six Sigma's reach within and beyond your corporate walls. 'Variation is evil' - Jack Welch. Six Sigma was the zero-variation quality lynchpin around which Jack Welch transformed GE into one of the world's most efficient and valuable corporations. Lean Production helped Toyota cut waste, slash costs, and substantially improve resource utilization and cycle times. Yet, as both would admit, there was still room for improvement. 'Lean Six Sigma' takes you to the next level of improvement, one that for the first time unites product and process excellence with the goal of enhancing shareholder value creation. Providing insights into the application of 'Lean Six Sigma' to both the manufacturing processes and the less-data-rich service and transactional processes, it promises to revolutionize the performance efficiencies in virtually every area of your organization as it positively and dramatically impacts your shareholder value.

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Written for a specific audience ..

"Lean Six Sigma: Combining Six Sigma Quality with Lean Speed" is not a how-to book written for actual front-line practitioners of the techniques. Instead, George's effort is expressly directed to the possibly skeptical CEO who may be considering implementing a Lean/6 Sigma effort and who needs to know a bit more detail. As he says on page 70:

"One of the goals of this executive overview is to provide adequate depth . . . such that a rational CEO could judge whether this initiative is worthy of further study."

Given that purpose, the book often lapses into a sales pitch. "Hey, this is what the SMART kids are doing; you should follow along." George throws out a lot of bait about how a smart CEO can gain increase ROIC and an edge on his or her less-informed competition by implementing the methods he describes. (Of course, he and his partners will be readily available as consultants to assist in any such effort.)

At points, the tone is downright snide to those who might not instantly choose the enlightenment of "Lean Six Sigma." For example, on page 89, there is this observation:

"If, for whatever reason, your CEO does not have an intense interest in improving competitiveness and financial performance through operational improvement, then Lean Six Sigma is not appropriate for your firm at this time."

A similar messianic revelation appears on page 78:

"Lean Six Sigma is part of a large work-in-progress that continues to increase the wealth and opportunities of society despite the resistance to ignorance and intellect in many parts of the world."

While I am certain that there are significant advantages to be gained by a thorough and professional application of the tools and disciplines afforded by a simultaneous combination of Lean and Six Sigma, I have reservations about the breathless hyperbole in which George delivers his message.

Past the hyperbole, past the rah-rah, past the sales pitch, there is a good deal of value in this overview. But that's what it is: an overview. The material here is enough to orient a possible practitioner to look deeper into the processes, but this volume would be but the start of the investigation required.

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A well beyond decent introduction

Although the beginning of this book feels a little too "preachy" with a lot of arguments of why Lean Six Sigma is the best tool for ensuring maximum quality at highest speed with best profit, it actually is really good.

The author follows a red line throughout the book giving the reader no hard time following the concept of Lean Six Sigma. Compared to other books/guides of the same kind this is easily one of the better ones.

Good structure and content with lots of errors

First, let me say that this book is well structured for managers and beginning practitioners who want to learn about Lean Six Sigma (LSS). Its content includes background, tools, and case studies to assist the reader with learning what LSS is all about. However, I seriously question whether this book was ever edited at all. To me, this normally would be a minor annoyance. With this book however, I noticed entire sentences that are non sequitor - so bad in fact, that one can tell that someone accidentally hit the delete key and deleted parts of two sentences. This I can get over, but the errors with the graphs, tables, and math in the book really kills it for me. So much so that it would seriously mislead someone who is not familiar with some of the topics. Without these errors, this book has a shot at five stars. I highly recommend the author submit a second edition - the readers deserve it.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

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