The Lean Six Sigma Pocket Toolbook: A Quick Reference Guide to 100 Tools for Improving Quality and Speed

This text is simply the best of the various pocket Six Sigma tool guides currently available in the marketplace. Although this book is a quick reference guide as the subtitle suggests, there is enough substance here for it to walk on legs and provide learning material for those readers already familiar with basic quality concepts. Quite honestly, I am not sure how the authors arrived at the "Nearly 100 Tools" portion of the subtitle, because the tools presented here can be numbered in various ways. However, this aspect really does not matter. What matters is that all of the major Six Sigma tools are presented with a lot of nice diagrams, graphs, and other figures to give the reader a good sense of the fundamentals of any given tool. These well-encapsulated nuggets of information should serve as excellent memory joggers for some, and good starting points for those needing additional detail available in other texts or online resources. Especially helpful are the numerous brief "tips" sections throughout that point novices in the right direction. Note that the organization of the book might not be well suited for some, because it is not ordered according to the customary steps of the DMAIC process. To some degree, the first chapter points to various sections of the book during its cursory walkthrough of the DMAIC process, although the street signs are not very well planned. Despite some minor flaws, this book serves its purpose well.

This book is a ready reference for the practitioner and well deserves its description as a toolbook. It includes top level tips and tools for idea generation, process mapping and data collection. Also provided are more advanced and specialized tools for statistical process control and six sigma, lean tools for reducing lead time and non-value added costs, and the less well known tools for managing operational and portfolio complexity. Works best for those with a basic familiarity the the ideas discussed, for whom it can serve as a handy reminder in the heat of application

This book was a GREAT reference book for understanding Lean Six Sigma tools on Transactional / Service projects. I just completed my Lean Six Sigma Black Belt training through my company. I was one of three individuals (total of 35) within the class that was focused on transactional / service projects. This being the case, the training was geared more towards manufacturing floor Lean Six Sigma tools. Trying to convert these tools from manufacturing to office was VERY difficult. This is were the book came in handy. Not only was a able to make the transaction, but I was able to use these tools to successfully complete my first Black Belt project in the transaction world. I really liked how the book explained the use of Metrics of Time Effciency (Process Cycle Effciency - PCE).

This is a really good consolidation of the various methods available for approaching six sigma projects. It is an interesting book to browse and very useful if one is unsure about exactly which methodology or statistical test should be used in a given situation. Six sigma is mostly about applying a scientific methodology to improving processes and this book "cuts to the chase".

This pocket toolbook hits the "sweet spot" as a quick reference guide for lean six sigma practitioners. Don't expect this to be an in-depth treatment of the 70+ tools covered in this book. If you're new to the lean/six sigma disciplines, you need to start someplace else. However, if you are currently working in these disciplines and you need a reference with enough meat to remind you of how/why/when a particular tool should be used and also a little of the statistical foundations supporting the tool, then you will find this to be a very valuable book to own. I own just about all of the "pocket guides" and I often find them to be a little too cryptic and abbreviated to meet my needs. This book is a very nice middle ground between the often complex and verbose "learning textbooks" and the often times overly brief pocket guides. As with any first edition, there are some errors that slipped through the editing process, but I can still highly recommend this book as one to keep handy when your out there fighting those "quality and productivity" battles.