Though Six Sigma (SS) was created in Motorola, a manufacturing company, it has become a popular method of achieving business excellence in service industries too. This book by Gitlow et al., concentrates on explaining the foundations, tools, the five phases of the approach to Design for SS (DfSS), and the certification of Greenbelts with examples from Services.
Howard S. Gitlow studied Quality Management with Dr Noriaki Kano in 1990, while he was a Visiting Professor at the Science University of Tokyo. He is also a Six Sigma Master Black Belt and he has co‐authored several books in the field of quality and productivity. David M. Levine is Professor Emeritus of Statistics and Computer Information Systems at City University of New York. Dr Popovich has over 15 years experience with Six Sigma, having worked in Motorola in the late 1980s and he is the President of Sterling Enterprises International Inc.
The book comprises 18 chapters (grouped into five parts), and three appendices, well supported with over 400 exhibits (187 figures and 216 tables). The appendices contain respectively, summation notation, various statistical tables such as normal curve areas, values of Binomial, Poisson and Student‐t distributions, factors for computing central lines and control limits, and a list of all the Minitab and JMP files found on the text web site located at www.prenhall.com/gitlow/designforsixsigma
Part I covers in three chapters DfSS basics. Chapter 1 focuses on the foundations of SS management such as the inter‐relationship between the voice of the process and the voice of customer, the technical definition of SS, and the fundamentals of inventing/innovating a product, service, or process. SS roles, responsibilities and terminology are the topic. In Chapter 3, attention is turned to the road‐map for getting started on the SS journey: preparing a transformation plan that includes a budget, training programs, a schedule and a “dashboard” to clarify and assign responsibility. Two examples are used to explain the concept of dashboard.
Part II comprises five chapters that deal respectively with the DfSS process's five phases. In Chapter 4 the authors explain the Defining Phase, to identify and clarify the worthiness of an SS project, with a proposal to construct on‐site housing facility to enhance student experience. In the following chapter the focus is on the Measure Phase to gain an understanding of the needs and wants of the market for a design by market segmentation. Other concepts and practices covered include developing Critical‐to‐Quality factors; using Quality Function Deployment, and establishing the validity of the measurement system for each of the factors. Comparing alternative designs to identify the best design to move forward to the Design Phase is covered in Chapter 6. The following chapter explains how to construct detailed designs by operationally defining Critical‐to‐Process measures and establish baseline capabilities.
Part III comprises eight chapters and deals with DfSS tools and methods. The basics of statistical studies are covered in the short first chapter; and these include introductions to MINITAB Version 14 and JMP version 6 statistical packages. The next four chapters respectively cover in some depth design of experiments, multiple regression, additional tools and methods such as brainstorming and affinity diagrams, and discrete event simulation models. The theme of Chapter 14 is “Articulating the Voice of the Stakeholder”. This is the first book that I have come across in which Noriaki Kano's methodology is fully explained (in 40 pages) clearly with examples. This is to be expected as Gitlow had studied with Kano. The last two chapters explain how to enhance creativity to develop alternative designs (using de Bono's “Thinking Habits” and principles of TRIZ, and professional interpersonal and team behavioural skills.
Parts IV and V contain only one chapter each. The former is a 65‐page DfSS case study about introducing new courses at the School of Business Administration at the University of Miami, USA. The latter chapter provides information on one course of action that can be followed to attain DfSS champion or green belt certification.
Each chapter's content and learning objectives are listed at the outset and the chapters conclude with a summary and references. The book includes a CD‐ROM which contains illustrated outputs from Minitab, JMP, and SigmaFlow® software. The book will be an asset to anyone interested in pursuing service quality.
