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Rating: 
Summary: Lean Six Sigma for Service
Review: "Lockheed Martin is driving operating excellence in all work that we do. We recognized that our business support processes have as much opportunity for improvement as our design and build areas. By applying Lean process speed and Six Sigma quality tools to all elements of work, such as marketing, legal, contract administration, procurement, etc., we can drive competitive advantage. The lessons learned and practical case studies contained in Lean Six Sigma for Service provide a template which can create great value for customers, employees and shareholders." ---Mike Joyce, Vice President, LM 21
Lockheed-Martin
Rating:
Summary: Lean Six Sigma for Service
Review: "Lockheed Martin is driving operating excellence in all work that we do. We recognized that our business support processes have as much opportunity for improvement as our design and build areas. By applying Lean process speed and Six Sigma quality tools to all elements of work, such as marketing, legal, contract administration, procurement, etc., we can drive competitive advantage. The lessons learned and practical case studies contained in Lean Six Sigma for Service provide a template which can create great value for customers, employees and shareholders." ---Mike Joyce, Vice President, LM 21
Lockheed-Martin
Rating: 
Summary: Initiatives for Quality Improvement
Review: A customer is the King ! If there is Quality product, the customer satisfaction ratio level rises up. Customer chooses its high-end needs and service follows. This is the point when this Book comes in too informative to fill in service based approach. With the case studies, the book provides the Executives to go for a solution to satisfy a customer not only with quality but with the service to boost up the sales thereby with cost cutting factors and provide transactions quick and easier with added services and yet not adding the staff. The delivery process can be made much effective with the cost cuts with the clear examples and like other Six Sigma in Business, this one is sure pick for all Manufacturing unit Executives who also believe in Quality Service. Good Read.
Rating:
Summary: Innovative Approach to Lean Six Sigma in Service
Review: I admire Michael George for coming up with another innovative solution by applying the Lean Six Sigma approach to Service Industry. As Lean Six Sigma has helped companies in the manufacturing industry, this book will help the Service industry. Praveen Gupta
Author of Six Sigma Business Scorecard
Rating:
Summary: Michael George has opened my eyes
Review: I have heard Six-Sigma discussed often, but truly thought it was something that applied to manufacturing only. Same with Lean: Kanban, Toyota, JIT. I am a manager in a professional services industry. So, outside of memorizing the theory for exams during B-School, I thought little more of Six-Sigma.
Michael George has opened my eyes. He points out (in a non-technical way) both the differences in Lean and Six Sigma, and how they complement each other. He does this through some description of the Lean and Six-Sigma techniques, and follows up with some revealing case studies, how Lean and Six-Sigma tools can apply to services.
Six-Sigma brings an awful lot to the table. Six-Sigma was the backbone of Jack Welch's eye-popping success at GE, shaving hundreds of millions off of the company's cost structure. A proscribed series of steps, Six-Sigma's customer focused methodology (DMAIC) allows the practitioner, generally referred to as Green or Black Belts, to rationally Define a problem, Measure it, Analyze the causes, make adjustments to Improve the problem, and ultimately Control the corrected process. In each of these steps, Six-Sigma deploys standard tools that help the practitioner ensure that processes are producing standardized outputs well within specs. The result, if implemented correctly, is higher quality output. Increased quality= less quality costs (scrap, customer returns) =increased margins.
Lean is largely managing processes to increase the velocity of them. Increased velocity means less work in process (WIP). Lean means determining which activities are value added, and which are not. Then, you get rid of the bathwater and keep the baby.
When the two methodologies are combined, you have greater velocity (product turns), less inventory in the pipeline and processes that build value for the customer (Lean Concepts). You also have measurable quality standards that are continually fine tuning the processes, honing in on fitting more and more perfectly the specs desired by consumers. This reduces quality costs dramatically (Six Sigma Concepts).
George follows up with some interesting case studies of how Black and Green Belts have worked to improve processes in Lockheed-Martin, Bank One and, most interesting of all, the city of Fort Wayne, Indiana (Yes, Virginia, if there is rationality in government, there just may be a Santa Claus!). I would have liked to see more of the technical aspects: A case study from the problem definition phase through control, how the various Lean and Six Sigma tools were applied instead of the macro-level explanations of before and after.
I liked the book well enough. It gave me an overview, and an idea of how to implement the tools. However, I would have appreciated some down and dirty, nuts and bolts how-to. After all, the book jacket promises to teach you how to shave dollars from the bottom line. Still, an invaluable, thought provoking read for any manager in a service industry. You may want to pick up "Business Process Mapping" by Jacka and Keller, and "Statistics for Six-Sigma Made Easy" by Brussee to familiarize yourself with the nuts and bolts of Six-Sigma Quality tools.
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