What Is Six Sigma? by Pete Pande and Larry Holpp

Book Review

What is Six Sigma? by Pete Pande and Larry Holpp

Introduction

This book was developed to help readers to understand and successfully participate in the implementation of Six Sigma. We select the book “What is Six Sigma?” because we were informed that more and more companies have strategically adopted Six Sigma. targeted to improve customer satisfaction, reducing production cycle time and reducing defects.

Improvement in these areas usually represent dramatic cost saving to business, as well as opportunities to retain customers, capture new market, and build a reputation for top performing products and services.

The Six Sigma Success Story

Three key characteristic separate Six Sigma from quality programs of the past are:

(1) Six Sigma is customer focused.

(2) Six Sigma projects produce major returns on investment. Worth to note that at GE, the Six Sigma program resulted in the following cost versus returns:

1. In 1996, cost of $200 million and return of $150 million

2. In 1997, cost of $400 million and return of $ 600 million

3. In 1998, cost of $ 400 million and return of more than $ 1 billion

(3) Six Sigma changes how management operates.

Examples of Six Sigma Success

Six Sigma applies to every aspect of a business from manufacturing to delivery, from hiring to benefits, from taking a phone call to corporate travel, any place. All types of companies can benefit from the Six Sigma philosophy. Enlightened companies who are not afraid to roll up their sleeves have successfully applied Six Sigma to pure service companies.

It is important that we listed some success examples because they are prominently being discussed in relation to Six Sigma:

(1) American Express an Administration Assistant (a Black Belt-highly trained Six Sigma professional) discovered a way to combine seven customer forms into one. This reduced the process time, improved customer service, and saved employee time and materials. This project saved $10,000 the first month it was applied. In another example, Amazon.com applied Six Sigma to processing credit card purchases. The firm eliminated thousands of dollars in credit card