The Six Sigma Revolution - How General Electric and Others Turned Process Into Profits
Forward by Perry Monych, President and CEO, GE Access

Author: George Eckes
File size: 1.51 MB
ISBN: 047138822X, 9780471388227
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Year: 2001
Subjects: business and economics, quality control, management, leadership
Pages: 274

Review:
"Eckes has turned this cutting edge management approach into easy-to-understand language..." (The TQM Magazine, Vol.14, No.1, 2002) 

Description:
Applying this revolutionary management strategy to drive positive change in an organization
Currently exploding onto the American business scene, the Six Sigma methodology fuels improved effectiveness and efficiency in an organization; according to General Electric's Jack Welch, it's the "most important initiative [they] have ever undertaken."

Written by the consultant to GE Capital who helped implement Six Sigma at GE and GE's General Manager of e-Commerce, Making Six Sigma Last offers businesses the tools they need to make Six Sigma work for them - and cultivate long-lasting, positive results. 

Successful Six Sigma occurs when the technical and cultural components of change balance in an organization; this timely, comprehensive book is devoted to the cultural component of implementing Six Sigma, explaining how to manage it to maintain that balance. 

The authors address how to create the need for Six Sigma; diagnose the four types of resistance to Six Sigma and how to overcome them; manage the systems and structures; and lead a Six Sigma initiative. 

This book applies the Six Sigma approach to business operations across the organization--unlike other titles that focus on product development. Plus, it provides strategies, tactics, and tools to improve profitability by centering on the relationship between product defects and product yields, reliability, costs, cycle time, and schedule.

From the Inside Flap:
THE SIX SIGMA REVOLUTION

It boosted productivity and increased profits for such top-shelf companies as General Electric, AlliedSignal, and Motorola. It is a way of life for managers driven to create world-class organizations. Its quantitative approach fuels effectiveness and efficiency--and has made it the most popular quality improvement methodology in history. How can you put the awesome power of Six Sigma to work for your organization?

The Six Sigma Revolution shows managers and implementers how to create and sustain a Six Sigma initiative in any organization. This hands-on resource explains how and why Six Sigma is superior to other quality improvement methods. Unlike other books on this topic, it lays out the strategic component of Six Sigma and demonstrates how to create the infrastructure for its successful implementation in any company of any size.

Simple but detailed Six Sigma tactics drive improved effectiveness, efficiency, and profits. This easy-to-use, step-by-step guide describes these powerful tactics and shows managers how to:
* Create charter teams to work on processes that directly impact strategic objectives
* Calculate sigma at the process level
* Create specific, measurable problem statements for project teams to solve
* Use analysis and improvement tools to optimize sigma performance
* Transfer an improved process and sustain it over time

Recognizing the need to manage cultural change connected with the initiative, this book helps you make the transition to managing with facts and data; diagnose and overcome four major types of resistance; and create a business quality management counsel to ensure the success of the initiative. Finally, you'll discover the ten ways in which Six Sigma initiatives can fail and how to avoid or overcome them to become another Six Sigma success story.

Filled with real-world case studies that illustrate the right and wrong ways to implement Six Sigma, as well as dozens of helpful charts and tables that help you track your progress, this practical guide makes for fast, easy reading that will help you transform your organization from an also-ran to the leader of the pack. 

About author:
George Eckes (Superior, CO) is the founder and principal consultant for Eckes & Associates. His clients include GE Capital, Pfizer, Westin, Honeywell, and Volvo. Eckes has published numerous papers on the topic of performance improvement

Contents:
Chapter 1. Introduction to Six Sigma
Chapter 2. The Strategy of Six Sigma: Eight Steps to Strategic Improvement
Chapter 3. Profits = Customer + Process + Employee
Chapter 4. Project Start-Up: Tactical Six Sigma
Chapter 5. Measuring Project Sigma: How Close Are You to Perfection?
Chapter 6. Data and Process Analysis: The Keys to the Project
Chapter 7. Root Cause Analysis: Never Stop  Asking ΓÇ£WhyΓÇ¥
Chapter 8. Selecting Solutions That Drive  Sigma Performance
Chapter 9. Holding the Gains: Making Sure Your Solutions Stick
Chapter 10. How Six Sigma Initiatives Fail and How to Avoid Mistakes
Appendix - Constants and Conversion Tables