Lean Six Sigma For Dummies

Book description

Maximise the quality and efficiency of your organisation with Lean Six Sigma

Are you looking to make your organisation more effective and productive? If you answered "yes," you need to change the way it thinks. Combining the leading improvement methods of Six Sigma and Lean, this winning technique drives performance to the next level—and this friendly and accessible guide shows you how. The third edition of Lean Six Sigma For Dummies outlines the key concepts of this strategy and explains how you can use it to get the very best out of your team and your business.

The jargon-crowded language and theory of Lean Six Sigma can be intimidating for both beginners and experienced users. Written in plain English and packed with lots of helpful examples, this easy-to-follow guide arms you with tools and techniques for implementing Lean Six Sigma and offers guidance on everything from policy deployment to managing change in your organisation—and everything in between.

  • Gives you plain-English explanations of complicated jargon
  • Serves as a useful tool for businesspeople looking to make their organisation more effective
  • Helps you achieve goals with ease and confidence
  • Provides useful hands-on checklists

Whether you want to manage a project more tightly or fine-tune existing systems and processes, the third edition of Lean Six Sigma For Dummies makes it easier to achieve your business goals.

Table of contents

    1. Cover
    2. Introduction
      1. About This Book
      2. Foolish Assumptions
      3. Icons Used In This Book
      4. Beyond This Book
      5. Where to Go From Here
    3. Part I: Getting Started with Lean Six Sigma
      1. Chapter 1: Defining Lean Six Sigma
        1. Introducing Lean Thinking
        2. Sussing Six Sigma
      2. Chapter 2: Understanding the Principles of Lean Six Sigma
        1. Considering the Key Principles of Lean Six Sigma
        2. Improving Existing Processes: Introducing DMAIC
        3. Reviewing Your DMAIC Phases
        4. Taking a Pragmatic Approach
    4. Part II: Working with Lean Six Sigma
      1. Chapter 3: Identifying Your Customers
        1. Understanding the Process Basics
        2. Getting a High-Level Picture
      2. Chapter 4: Understanding Your Customers’ Needs
        1. Considering If You Can Kano
        2. Obtaining the Voice of the Customer
        3. Researching the Requirements
        4. Avoiding Bias
        5. Considering Critical To Quality Customer Requirements
        6. Establishing the Real CTQs
      3. Chapter 5: Determining the Chain of Events
        1. Finding Out How the Work Gets Done
        2. Painting a Picture of the Process
    5. Part III: Assessing Performance
      1. Chapter 6: Gathering Information
        1. Managing by Fact
        2. Developing a Data Collection Plan
        3. Introducing Sampling
      2. Chapter 7: Presenting Your Data
        1. Delving into Different Types of Variation
        2. Recognising the Importance of Control Charts
        3. Testing Your Theories
      3. Chapter 8: Analysing What’s Affecting Performance
        1. Unearthing the Usual Suspects
        2. Getting a Balance of Measures
    6. Part IV: Improving the Processes
      1. Chapter 9: Identifying Value-Adding Steps and Waste
        1. Interpreting Value-Added
        2. Looking at the Seven Wastes
        3. Looking Beyond the Seven Wastes
        4. Focusing on the Vital Few
      2. Chapter 10: Discovering the Opportunity for Prevention
        1. Keeping Things Neat and Tidy
        2. Looking at Prevention Tools and Techniques
        3. Profiting from Preventive Maintenance
        4. Avoiding Peaks and Troughs
      3. Chapter 11: Detecting and Tackling Bottlenecks
        1. Applying the Theory of Constraints
        2. Managing the Production Cycle
        3. Looking at Your Layout
      4. Chapter 12: Introducing Design for Six Sigma
        1. Introducing DfSS
        2. Introducing DMADV
        3. Defining What Needs Designing
        4. Considering Quality Function Deployment
        5. Making Decisions
    7. Part V: Deploying Lean Six Sigma
      1. Chapter 13: Leading the Deployment
        1. Looking at the Key Factors for Successful Deployment
        2. Understanding Executive Sponsorship
        3. Considering Size
        4. Introducing the Deployment Programme Manager
        5. Starting Your Lean Six Sigma Programme
        6. Understanding What Project Champions Do
      2. Chapter 14: Selecting the Right Projects
        1. Driving Strategy Deployment with Lean Six Sigma
        2. Generating a List of Candidate Improvement Projects
        3. Working Out Whether Lean Six Sigma Is the Right Approach
        4. Setting Up a DMAIC Project
      3. Chapter 15: Running Rapid Improvement Events
        1. Seeing Rapid Improvement with Kaizen or Kai Sigma Events
        2. Understanding the Facilitator’s Role
        3. Creating a Checklist for Running Successful Events
      4. Chapter 16: Putting It All Together
        1. Working Your Way through DMAIC
        2. Defining Where You’re Going
        3. Getting the Measure of Things
        4. Analysing the Data to Find the Root Cause
        5. Quantifying the Opportunity
        6. Applying Solutions in the Improve Phase
        7. Confirming the Customer and Business Benefits
        8. Implementing, Standardising and Controlling the Solution
        9. Conducting the Final Benefit Review
      5. Chapter 17: Ensuring Everyday Operational Excellence
        1. Making Everyday Operational Excellence a Reality
        2. Clarifying the Role of the Manager
        3. Getting Better Every Day in Every Way
      6. Chapter 18: Comprehending the People Issues
        1. Working Right, Right from the Start
        2. Creating a Vision
        3. Understanding Organisational Culture
        4. Busting Assumptions
        5. Seeing How People Cope with Change
    8. Part VI: The Part of Tens
      1. Chapter 19: Ten Best Practices
        1. Lead and Manage the Programme
        2. Appreciate that Less is More
        3. Build in Prevention
        4. Challenge Your Processes
        5. Go to the Gemba
        6. Manage Your Processes with Lean Six Sigma
        7. Pick the Right Tools for the Job
        8. Tell the Whole Story
        9. Understand the Role of the Champion
        10. Use Strategy to Drive Lean Six Sigma
      2. Chapter 20: Ten Pitfalls to Avoid
        1. Jumping to Solutions
        2. Coming Down with Analysis Paralysis
        3. Falling into Common Project Traps
        4. Stifling the Programme before You’ve Started
        5. Ignoring the Soft Stuff
        6. Getting Complacent
        7. Thinking that You’re Already Doing It
        8. Believing the Myths
        9. Doing the Wrong Things Right
        10. Overtraining
      3. Chapter 21: Ten (Plus One) Places to Go for Help
        1. Your Colleagues
        2. Your Champion
        3. Other Organisations
        4. The Internet
        5. Social Media
        6. Networks and Associations
        7. Conferences
        8. Books
        9. Periodicals
        10. Software
        11. Training and Consultancy Companies
    9. About the Authors
    10. Cheat Sheet
    11. Advertisement Page
    12. Connect with Dummies
    13. End User License Agreement

Product information

  • Title: Lean Six Sigma For Dummies
  • Author(s): John Morgan, Martin Brenig-Jones
  • Release date: December 2015
  • Publisher(s): For Dummies
  • ISBN: 9781119067351