Book Description
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.
