The Six Sigma Performance Handbook: A Statistical Guide to Optimizing

Citation

Narasimhan, K. (2007), "The Six Sigma Performance Handbook: A Statistical Guide to Optimizing", Managing Service Quality: An International Journal, Vol. 17 No. 4, pp. 486-487. https://doi.org/10.1108/msq.2007.17.4.486.1

Praveen Gupta was there at the time and place of the birth of Six Sigma at Motorola, and his first Six Sigma project was completed in 1988. He is a Master Black Belt, and ASQ Fellow. He has taught Six Sigma at Motorola University for over ten years.

Though Six Sigma was created or invented in Motorola a manufacturing firm, it has become a popular method for focussing on customers and improving quality even in service industries such as banks, air lines, and government agencies.

The SS Performance Handbook comprises 11 chapters and an appendix that list 58 books on Six Sigma published between 1999 and 2003 categorized based on what the book covers/is intended for (for example, whether it is intended to create awareness or gives details of methods, etc).

The first two chapters are devoted to considering challenges faced by organizations in implementing SS and explaining the need for taking a balanced approach to planning. The focus of Chapter 3 is on explaining a roadmap for applying SS tools. The next five chapters successively explain the 5 stages or phases (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, and Control) of implementing SS. The tools covered in the define phase include not only the usual tools such as affinity diagrams, Pareto analysis, but, more importantly, it also covers Noriaki Kano's model of the relationship between customer satisfaction and quality. Similarly, in considering the supplier to customer value chain, the role of stakeholders is explained very clearly. The emphasis in the next two chapters is on developing statistical thinking rather than on covering all the tools used. The importance of understanding process variations, determining the root cause(s) of variations using cause‐and‐effect diagrams, identifying potential failures using failure mode and effects analysis, multivariable analysis, and hypothesis testing, are covered in some depth. Similarly the chapter on improve phase covers breakthrough improvement using TRIZ methodology and design of experiments. The chapter on the control phase includes a comprehensive list of audit questions, in addition to covering new concepts such as Scorecard and knowledge management.

The next two chapters successively deal with the topics of Optimizing SS (using Theory of Constraints and supplier‐customer value chain); and speeding up of SS methods by integrating it with Lean production tools, Value‐Stream Mapping, the Japanese 5‐S system and Mudas (i.e. elimination of wastes). The final chapter gives brief answers to frequently asked questions on SS.

By covering concepts which others have not covered hitherto Gupta has extended the field of SS. The book is quite readable and informative too. It is a useful addition to a manager's collection.