Bring the miracle of Lean Six Sigma improvement out of manufacturing and into services
Much of the U.S. economy is now based on services rather than manufacturing. Yet the majority of books on Six Sigma and Lean--today's major quality improvement initiatives--explain only how to implement these techniques in a manufacturing environment.
Lean Six Sigma for Services fills the need for a service-based approach, explaining how companies of all types can cost-effectively translate manufacturing-oriented Lean Six Sigma tools into the service delivery process.
Filled with case studies detailing dramatic service improvements in organizations from Lockheed Martin to Stanford University Hospital, this bottom-line book provides executives and managers with the knowledge they need to:
Reduce service costs by 30 to 60 percent
Improve service delivery time by 50 percent
Expand capacity by 20 percent without adding staff
Helpful to Anyone Seeking Ideas to Improve Their Work Flows Targeted at upper management levels in non-manufacturing organizations, this book is nonetheless useful reading for anyone, at any level, who is concerned their work or process flows could use improvement to be more competitive or increase margins. Drawing on the same basics the author explored in his earlier work, "Lean Six Sigma", George takes on the additional hurdles posed by non-manufacturing groups, where what to measure in a service process in order to improve it is at least as important as the improvement methods themselves. Along with technical details on such measurements, George also focuses on the personal impacts such measurements may bring to the workforce in a service organization. Here is good thought-provoking reading, a prerequisite to taking even the first steps of improving one's organization's flows and processes.
A 'not for dummies' product The book applies various Six Sigma methods and instruments to a services environment, placing an emphasis on services being a "people's business".
However, the book relies that the reader has some basic Six Sigma knowledge, since the Six Sigma method is not explained by the author from the beginning, but rather apllied to a particular environment.
I would recommend it for those people who believe that services are completely different from the manufacturing and "what works there doesn't work here". The book proves that it does.
Very good book! For someone who is looking for how to improve the service quality, this is the right book!
More exposition of author expertise than examples of applications Lean Six Sigma for Service is a topic of increasing importance and economic and competitive factors require us all to make a difference rather than just doing more with less. That distinction is at the heart of Michael George's book and central to his idea of putting both Lean and Six Sigma practices together. This is a good introductory text for understanding both techniques and how they can work together.
Lean Six Sigma for Service has been out since 2003 so this is not the first review but in today's context the value and relevance of this book is in question. George does a nice job of describing the processes and its application at Lockheed Martin and Bank One. Those descriptions cement his credibility that he has done this work. However they do not shed light on what that work actually was. I found this book surprisingly conceptual and technical with limited applications and actual examples - illustrations of the principles yes - but this is what we did not so much.
The success story vignettes are written at such a high level as to categorize the scale of benefits that Lockheed Martin and Bank One achieved. It would have been much better for George to go deep on one project, show a worked example and create value for the reader. The success stories themselves also focus on back office activities (invoicing etc) which while a role for these technique are not the areas that will get breakthrough service levels.
These are weaknesses as that experience is definitely there but it does not come out in the book. When it was written more than 5 years ago, the author may have been concerned about revealing too much and devaluating his consulting practice. But now with people coming round to wanting to understand and implement, this is not a book for them.
There are other little things that are interesting gaps in the book. On a subject matter basis there is no mention of Motorola's role in creating and deploying six sigma. From the books perspective only the people that Mr. George worked with were the creators and the innovators. That is unfortunate. Another gap is the lack of discussion about information technology and the role that this plays. Even in 2003, IT had a role to play in Six Sigma and lean - particularly at an enterprise scale, but the book is mute on these things.
So, if you are looking for a general discussion of these concepts then this is as good as any other book. However, if you want to understand how to do these techniques and apply them to service you will need to look elsewhere.
Good but not great Good book to understand how lean and six sigma can be used together, but their examples in service enviroment are not that powerful.
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