Greg Brue - The McGraw Hill 36 Hour Six SIGMA Course

To our devoted wives Kelly and Jo for their absolute support
and understanding during the creation of this long-awaited
book. A special thanks to all the Six Sigma zealots!

Copyright 2006 by Greg Brue and Rod Howes. All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the United States Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

ISBN: 978-0-07-144602-0
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This book is intended primarily for senior managers who are preparing to become Six Sigma champions, to be responsible for promoting the methodology throughout the company and especially in specific functional groups and for supporting project teams. Champions must understand the discipline, techniques, and tools of Six Sigma so that they can select projects, establish objectives, and serve as coaches and mentors to members of project teams. Champions do not need the intensive training that is required for black beltsthe people responsible for leading the project teamsbut champions must know enough about the discipline, techniques, and tools to facilitate the efforts of the black belts and their teams.

This book is intended, then, to provide an overview of Six Sigma, to explain the techniques and tools, and to outline the phases in the standard implementation model. Basically, this is a 36-hour workshop for Six Sigma champions.

Here are our basic objectives:

You will understand the essentials of Six Sigma.

You will know the roles and responsibilities of the people involved in Six Sigma.

You will learn the basic vocabulary of Six Sigma.

You will gain a high-level understanding of the methods and tools used in Six Sigma.

You will be able to identify the benefits of Six Sigma as a methodology for improving business processes.

You will be able to work as a champion with Six Sigma project teams, fulfilling all of the responsibilities with competence and confidence.

This book is intended for Six Sigma champions. When we address you, the reader, we are addressing you as a manager who is ultimately responsible for a Six Sigma project, although you share those responsibilities with a black belt, a master black belt, green belts, and your fellow managers as members of the executive team. How you share those responsibilities will depend on your organization and your situation. Please read with that understanding in mind.

Also bear in mind that this book is not intended as a substitute for the training that a manager should receive to become a champion. Your Six Sigma initiative should provide you with sufficient training to work with the black belts, who will be receiving more extensive training, and with a master black belt, who will have even more training and experience. In other words, you wont be doing any of this alone or without training. This book is intended as a 36-hour course to provide you with a sufficient knowledge of Six Sigma to be able to participate fully and actively in starting a Six Sigma initiative, to get maximum benefits from any training, and to work effectively and efficiently with Six Sigma project teams.

Finally, as we emphasize in , Six Sigma can be used for many types of business activitiesproduction, assembly, transportation, retail, services, transactions, administration, and support. Throughout this book, well refer generally to products, services, and processes for the sake of convenience.

Some of the material used in this book comes from Six Sigma for Managers, by Greg Brue (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2002), and