Six Sigma

The Breakthrough Management Strategy Revolutionizing the World's Top Corporation

By: Mikel Harry Ph.D., Richard Schroeder

Narrated by: James Lurie

The extraordinary breakthrough management program--heralded by GE, Motorola, and AlliedSignal--that is sweeping corporate America with its unprecedented ability to achieve superior financial results.

Six Sigma is the most powerful breakthrough management tool ever devised, promising increased market share, cost reductions, and dramatic improvements in bottom-line profitability for companies of any size. The darling of Wall Street, it has become the mantra of Fortune 500 boardrooms around the world because it works.

What is Six Sigma? It is first and foremost a business process that enables companies to increase profits dramatically by streamlining operations, improving quality, and eliminating defects or mistakes in everything a company does, from filling out purchase orders to manufacturing airplane engines. While traditional quality programs have focused on detecting and correcting defects, Six Sigma encompasses something broader: It provides specific methods to re-create the process itself so that defects are never produced in the first place.

Most companies operate at a three- to four-sigma level, where the cost of defects is roughly 20 to 30 percent of revenues. By approaching Six Sigma--fewer than one defect per 3.4 million opportunities--the cost of quality drops to less than 1 percent of sales.

This is because the highest quality also results in the lowest costs. When GE reduced its costs from 20 percent to less than 10 percent, it saved a billion dollars in just two years--money that goes directly to the bottom line. This is the reason Wall Street and corporations as diverse as Sony, Ford, Nokia, Texas Instruments, Canon, Hitachi, Lockheed Martin, American Express, Toshiba, DuPont, and Polaroid have embarked on corporate-wide Six Sigma programs.

Six Sigma should be of paramount importance to every forward-thinking executive and manager determined to make their company world-class in their industry.Copyright ©2000 by Mikel Harry, Ph.D., and Richard Shroeder; (P)1999 Random House, Inc.

Critic reviews

What the business world is saying about Six Sigma:

"[Six Sigma] is the most important initiative GE has ever undertaken--it is part of the genetic code of our future leadership."
--Jack Welch, CEO, GE

"We've taken the difficult but basic Six Sigma skill of reducing defects and applied it to every business process, from inventing and commercializing a new product all the way to billing and collections after the product is delivered. Just as we think we've generated the last dollar of profit out of a business, we uncover new ways to harvest cash as we reduce cycle times, lower inventories, increase output, and reduce scrap. The results are better and more competitively priced products, more satisfied customers who give us more business, and improved cash flow."
--Larry Bossidy, CEO, AlliedSignal

"The [Six Sigma] Breakthrough Strategy gives new structure to the tools we already had. Structure has been the key element missing in Polaroid's drive for quality. I keep telling my people that the Breakthrough Strategy cookbook tells us how to use time-tested ingredients in new ways--For us, the results from the Breakthrough Strategy have been quick and powerful." --Mike Hart, Black Belt engineer, Polaroid

"Mikel Harry's innovation of Breakthrough Strategy has taken quality into America's boardrooms. While Dr. Deming's theory of profound knowledge built management awareness and Dr. Juran's trilogy helped to establish the foundation of a solid quality 'science,' Dr. Harry has demonstrated how to make theory become practice at companies like Motorola, ABB, AlliedSignal, and GE."
--Gregory Watson, President, American Society for Quality

Not for beginners.

Professional speaker did a great job. The content is not for anyone in the beginning phase of exploring Six Sigma; you will need a manufacturing and mathematical background to be able to follow along.

Not happy

When I read the review "Simply put, this book's content is strictly marketing the importance of six sigma without ever getting to the content. It read like the advertising for the next Ronco device and never gave any useful information for driving improvement or change." I should have listened...

Not the best candidate for an audiobook

Probably a good discussion of Six Sigma, but a bit math heavy to follow as an audiobook.

great overview of Six Sigma

a great over view of Six Sigma and its impact to an organization and individuals within. If you are expecting a How To Manual you probably should get into a training program. Great read would recommend to anyone involved with Six Sigma companies. great insight into desired results of initiatives.

OK Reading for an Introduction

I will agree with the other 2 reviewers there doesn't seem to be a lot of content behind the book but this book is the only one available via audio book, Jack Welch talks a good six sigma game too but in this book you would expect more. Maybe the subject matter is too complicated to properly document in a 5 hour businees book? I am currently listening to it for a second time and find it more interesting than the first