Six Sigma Best Practices: A Guide To Business Process Excellence For Diverse Industries

Continuous improvement has become synonymous with the Six Sigma process, where cost reduction and quality improvement have led to greater market share and profits. Leading organizations in diverse industries have begun to further deploy Six Sigma outside of manufacturing to maximize its benefits.

This comprehensive training tool and implementation guide delineates how Six Sigma methods can be applied to processes within numerous functional areas of the organization and in diverse industries to achieve strategic and operational business excellence. It presents step-by-step techniques and flow diagrams for integrating Six Sigma as best practices into business development and management. It provides a seamless integration of Six Sigma statistical methodologies that help businesses execute their strategic plans and track both their short- and long-term strategic progress within various areas of their business. Statistical methods employed in Six Sigma are thoroughly explained. Six Sigma Best Practices is an ideal text for executive training in planning and leading Six Sigma programs, for Yellow, Green and Black Belt certification programs, for college courses and as a desk reference for practitioners and consultants.

Key Features:

• Illustrates how Six Sigma can be applied and implemented within numerous areas of an organization to achieve business process excellence that will lead to sustainable growth in profits and market share
• Presents Six Sigma concepts in common business terms as well as in applied statistics, where the benefits of the tool are better understood, and process centering, which is a prerequisite to Six Sigma implementation
• Details the measure phase of the DMAIC process extensively and develops the relationship between operational and financial metrics to show the biggest leverage points in an organization
• Covers project selection, planning, team development and management and shows how to develop and understand a project summary, which is critical to effective Six Sigma implementation

About the Author

Dhirendra Kumar has over thirty-five years of technical, management, teaching, and research experience with major U.S. corporations and universities. He has a Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering with a minor in Reliability Engineering and has been an adjunct professor at the University of New Haven since 1989. He started his career in the heavy equipment industry with John Deere, working on the reengineering and expansion program of Tractor Manufacturing Operation. In the mid-1980s, he reestablished his career in the aerospace industry with Pratt and Whitney, working on the total reengineering of the manufacturing facility from World War II to 21st century technology to introduce the production of new jet engines. He joined Pitney Bowes, Inc. in 1994 where he led the business optimization and development programs, providing modeling, hardware and software solutions, as well as coached and led continuous improvement (Kaizen, Lean and Six Sigma) programs.