This is not your boss's book on Six Sigma! The remarkable process of Six Sigma, which has been touted by such management gurus as GE's CEO, Jack Welch, is beautifully explained in this engaging, true-to-life tale. Never before has a business initiative transformed corporations so dramatically. While it has been credited with improving productivity, slashing costs, and improving profit margins, it can cause much angst among employees who need to change the way they currently work and adhere to a new philosophy. Corporations have seen radical change for the better, and to achieve those improvements requires radical change by employees. And it all starts with acceptance. The Power of Six Sigma is unlike any other book on Six Sigma. This fictionalized tale simplifies a complicated topic and, through dialogue between Joe and Larry, explains the way Six Sigma works in a nonthreatening, easy-to-understand way. Everyone in the organization will learn what Six Sigma is and how it works.

Average Customer Review: ( 48 customer reviews )
Write an online review and share your thoughts with other customers.

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 found the following review helpful:

This book taught me what I needed to know and moreJul 30, 2001

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!

9 of 10 found the following review helpful:

Six Sigma, in an easy to understand format.Aug 23, 2001

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!

9 of 10 found the following review helpful:

A book for lazy managersJun 15, 2002

This book starts out fine enough. It describes the frustration of being laid off, feeling worthless and wondering how do you go home and deal with the reality. Then the book promises something revolutionary that will improve the company, fatten the bottom line and involve everyone from the CEO down to the guy in the mailroom.

Baloney!

This book is high on the quantitative and low on qualitative. Sure, there's a theme about improved quality, but what I mean by 'qualitative' is that we never ever see how the guy in the mailroom fits into the revolution. This is a problem that bean-counters like the author can't deal with and don't seem to want to deal with.

While the Blackbelts are supported by the Greenbelts, and the Masters are in 100% support ... what's to be said about the guy in the mailroom? While the Black belt is counting the mailroom letters, and timing the mail delivery ... what is there to say about a disgruntled mailroom clerk who doesn't feel like he's a part of the new program? Why does this matter?

It matters because a lot of mistakes and quality problems are due to sabotage and lost interest; it's not always about measurable processes. "The Power of Six Sigma" suggests that a few new machines and the dedication of the Masters will overcome whatever resentment or frustration that rises up against the implementation of Six Sigma. No! This kind of stuff you can't measure with statistics or negate with new machines.

In the book, the proponent of the Six Sigma program explains how he solved a problem by hiring someone to "just answer the phone." This adds one more mundane, rotten job that stands to only counteract the Six Sigma success once burnout sets in, and the phone person gets abrasive and less attentive with customers. Face it! We've all dealt with this when we call places and need help from someone who was hired "just to answer the phone." Six Sigma doesn't deal with this in any form shape or fashion. Maybe because you can't quantify or measure burnout.

"The Power of Six Sigma" is a lazy, feel-good book for managers and it says nothing new. It's full of corny analogies, and is a thinly-veiled advertisement for Six Sigma training. And it's printed in a huge font like the books we read in 1st grade. It's a sad thing that this book is so hot ... I'd hoped that managers were smarter and more motivated than this book.

7 of 8 found the following review helpful:

THINGS TO CONSIDER BEFORE MASS DISTRIBUTIONApr 26, 2001

I am an officer in a small corporationand read this book for possibly distributing across the company. So it was important to find a book that stays at the '30,000 foot level' and remains generic enough to apply to any company. The discussions abot REWARD and CAREER PROGRESSION and use of CONSULTANTS were too specific to the point of quoting dollar figures on rewards, and this did not reflect the aproach we have chosen given our culture and finances. The Black belts are said to be rewarded by 2-3% of a projects savings which is estimated to be 10k per project. In our opinion such decisions should be left to each company. It is stated " matter of factly " that the best green belts will become black belts and best black belts will become master black belts and the best master black belts will be executives. What about companies with a flat structure?. In addition it is stated that master black belts are hired consultants that come in and lead the black belts. All that is presented as standard procedures and that is not the way we see it best for our business. Also we will have many more green belts than black belts or Master black belts. Oddly there is a jeering directed at GB's which is not directed at BB's or MBB's not that there should be any at all. The Gb's are referred to as worker bees and that they can work themselves up to BB's. It is important to promote team work in the company. I do not want to create a Caste system instead. This definitely WILL NOT work for distributing across our company. I am glad I read it carefully before we created a huge problem.

See all 48 customer reviews on Amazon.com