One study after the next shows that most employees are unhappy with their jobs and that less than a third actively engage with their work. That means that two out of every three are merely putting in their time, rather than maximizing productivity and attaining satisfaction. One could argue that such a malaise is the symptom of an unhealthy workfor

Six Sigma changed the face of manufacturing quality. Now, HumanSigma is poised to do the same for sales and service organizations. Human Sigma offers an innovative, research-based approach to one of the toughest challenges businesses face today: how to effectively manage the employee-customer encounter to drive business success. Based on research spanning 10 million employees and 10 million customers around the world, the Human Sigma approach combines a proven method for assessing the health of the employee-customer encounter with a disciplined process for improving it. Human Sigma is based on five rules to bring excellence to how employees engage and interact with customers: RULE #1: E Pluribus Unum. Employee and customer experiences must be managed together — not as separate entities. RULE #2: Feelings Are Facts. Emotions drive and shape the employee-customer encounter. RULE #3: Think Globally, Measure and Act Locally. The employee-customer encounter must be measured and managed at the local level. RULE #4: There Is One Number You Need to Know. Employee and customer engagement interact to drive enhanced financial performance. And this interaction can be quantified and summarized with a single performance metric. RULE #5: If You Pray for Potatoes, You Better Grab a Hoe. Good intentions alone do not constitute a plan of action. Sustainable improvement in the employee-customer encounter requires disciplined local action coupled with a companywide commitment to changing how employees are recruited, positioned in roles, rewarded and recognized, and importantly, how they are managed. Essential reading for global business leaders, Human Sigma shows how sales and service companies can flourish in the new global economy. It reveals a profoundly different method for managing human systems for growth. Blending strategic analysis with hands-on, practical steps and advice, Human Sigma will change how you view your work, your employees and your customers forever.

The New and Definitive User’s Guide to Lean Six Sigma If you’re a business manager, you already know that Lean Six Sigma is one of the most popular and powerful business tools in the world today. You also probably know that implementing the process can be more than a little challenging. This step-by-step guide shows you how to customize and apply the principles of Lean Six Sigma to your own organizational needs, giving you more options, strategies, and solutions than you’ll find in any other book on the subject. With these simple, proven techniques, you can: * Assess your current business model and shape your future goals * Plan and prepare a Lean Six Sigma program that’s right for your company * Engage your leadership and your team throughout the entire process * Align your LSS efforts with the culture and values of your business * Develop deeper insights into your customer experience * Master the art of project selection and pipeline management * Tackle bigger problems and find better solutions * Become more efficient, more productive, and more profitable This innovative approach to the Lean Six Sigma process allows you to mold and shape your strategy as you go, making small adjustments along the way that can have a big impact. In this book, you’ll discover the most effective methods for deploying LSS at every level, from the leaders at the top to the managers in the middle to the very foundation of your company culture. You’ll hear from leading business experts who have guided companies through the LSS process—and get the inside story on how they turned those companies around. You’ll also learn how to use the latest, greatest management tools like Enterprise Kaizen, Customer Journey Maps, and Hoshin Planning. Everything you need to implement Lean Six Sigma—smoothly and successfully—is right here at your fingertips. When it comes to running a business, there is no better way to improve efficiency, increase productivity, and escalate profits than Lean Six Sigma. And there is no better book on how to make it work than Innovating Lean Six Sigma.

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.

Six Sigma for Managers is a practical overview on how to implement Six Sigma practices in everyday business. Emphasizing straightforward explanations instead of complex charts and statistics, it shows managers how to map processes, measure smart, and follow other Six Sigma principles.

Automotive systems engineering addresses the system throughout its life cycle, including requirement, specification, design, implementation, verification and validation of systems, modeling, simulation, testing, manufacturing, operation and maintenance. This book is the first in a series of four volumes on this subject and features 15 papers, published between 2004-2010, that emphasize the importance of systems concepts in the automotive area, and stress the use of advanced tools and approaches. Topics covered include: Technology transfer Six Sigma deployment Systems engineering capability in automotive systems In addition to 11 SAE technical papers, this volume also includes two invited papers: "Systems Engineering Definitions" by editor Subramaniam Ganesan and "Systems Engineering for Military Ground Vehicles" by M. Mazzara and R. Iyer.

THE BRIEFCASE BOOKS SERIEs Now translated into 11 languages! This reader-friendly, icon-rich series is must reading for all managers at every level All managers, whether brand new to their positions or well established in the corporate hierarchy, can use a little "brushing up" now and then. The skills-based Briefcase Books series is filled with ideas and strategies to help managers become more capable, efficient, effective, and valuable to their corporations. DESIGN FOR SIX SIGMA Six Sigma has revolutionized the ways in which companies meet and beat today's stringent quality expectations. But achieving Six Sigma results first requires Six Sigma building blocks. Design for Six Sigma unveils a systematic methodology for enabling the design of products, services, and processes to meet Six Sigma quality levels. Designed to be easily read and implemented, this concise Briefcase Book shows managers at all levels how to include Six Sigma at the earliest stages of virtually any manufacturing process. Here are DFSS's techniques for: Optimizing the design process to achieve Six Sigma performance Integrating Six Sigma from the outset of new product development Self-examinations, explanatory sidebars, and chapter-ending checklists

Real executives talk about how Six Sigma changed their organizations for the better Backed by the real-world experience of executives who successfully implemented Six Sigma, this book shows how this powerful, data-driven quality improvement methodology can improve the learning cycle and financial and corporate reporting, as well as strategic planning, customer demand issues, and more. Case studies and interviews provide real-life best practices that make the implementation process that much easier for managers. The authors are Six Sigma experts affiliated with PricewaterhouseCoopers and here present an innovative examination of this powerful and popular methodology.

In the ever-changing world of business, we've arrived at a point where process has trumped culture, where the race toward efficiency has left us unable to reach our potential. Stuck in the land of status quo, we've forgotten how to think. The very structures put in place to help businesses grow are now holding us back;; it's time to Kill the Company. This book is a call to arms: to start a revolution in how we think and work. But instead of more one-size-fits-all change initiatives forced upon employees, we need to embrace small changes that create ripple effects throughout the organization. Lisa Bodell urges companies to move from "Zombies, Inc." to "Think, Inc." Thinking can no longer be exclusive to the creative team or lead strategists. A culture of curiosity must be fostered among the ranks to shake up our standard practices, from unproductive meetings to go-nowhere strategic planning. This revolution can and will awaken our ability to think, and ultimately, to innovate and grow.