Click Here To Purchase From Amazon Design for Six Sigma for Green Belts and Champions: Applications for Service Operations – Foundations, Tools, DMADV, Cases, and Certification

Authors: HOWARD S. GITLOW, DAVID M. LEVINE and EDWARD A. POPOVICH

 ISBN: 0-13-185524-7.

Design for Six Sigma for Green Belts and Champions is a hardbound book, comprised of eighteen chapters and 3 supplemental appendices.  It is six-hundred and eighty-eight pages in length and includes a limited use, SinmaFlow simulation software package CD-ROM.

            This book represents and extension of Gitlow and Levine’s earlier work on Six Sigma (Six Sigma for Green Belts and Champions, 2005).  This time, they have teamed up with a third author, Edward A. Popovich, to extend and reinforce content for Six Sigma service applications.  His expertise in the health care industry suggests that health care facility administrators and professionals would be the likely target audience and greatest beneficiaries of this latest work on the topic.  Health care facilities continue to represent a major market for experts and consultants in the application of activity-based costing (ABC), and if this is any indicator of the future for Six Sigma health care and service industry or department applications, this future is a bright one.  I would, therefore, expect this book to have a long shelf life for this target audience.

            As a frequent user of university texts with supplemental CD-ROM student versions of available-for-sale software packages, I did not find the Sigma Flow® limited use version CD-ROM useful and would make my decision to purchase the book without adding or associating any value to this supplemental component.  I reached this decision in less than thirty minutes.  This is not to say that firms committed to Six Sigma will not find this CD-ROM supplement useful or helpful, however, these user firms may wish to make relevant inquires and/or the explore the flexibility already enjoyed by choosing to extend their existing relational data base software packages or vendors (e.g., SAP or PeopleSoft), in those cases where these vendors have already decided to “make a market” in Six Sigma and/or made the commitment to extended their offerings to include Six Sigma modules.  I have not investigated the availability of such modules from these or other relational data base software vendors.

At less than $80, the cost of this book is certainly less than prohibitive, and I would recommend that potential readers of this book, first, read its manufacturing-focused predecessor (see above) or make the commitment to read both, as the overlapping content does not suggest a significant reduction in incremental value and this latest installment, focusing on Six Sigma design, represents the more advanced selection with respect to the desired sequence.

            As the title suggests, I would recommend this book only for the Six Sigma power user, as it may represent one of the most conceptually and mechanically advanced books on this topic.

Click Here To Purchase From Amazon Design for Six Sigma for Green Belts and Champions: Applications for Service Operations – Foundations, Tools, DMADV, Cases, and Certification

The above review was contributed by: A.J. Cataldo, Ph.D., CPA, CMA

Northeastern University, Boston, MA

Dr. Cataldo holds a PhD from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University , MAc ( University of Arizona)  unofficial minor in Marketing , BSBA  (University of Arizona). He is a Certified Management Accountant and a Certified Public Accountant:  Click Here to view Anthony's Reviews

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