Process Improvement Experts Release New Book "Innovating Lean Six Sigma"
Austin, TX (PRWEB) March 24, 2016 -- “Every company has business processes that can be improved.” This idea, in its simplicity, is fundamental to the work of coauthors Kimberly Watson-Hemphill and Kristine Nissen Bradley. Their newly published book, "Innovating Lean Six Sigma," (McGraw Hill, 2016) confidently answers the question “Why Lean Six Sigma?” It also offers strategic guidance for leveraging Lean Six Sigma to engage and empower employees, as well as driving significant financial benefits.
In a field well populated by technical manuals and statistical tomes, the authors focus instead on understanding the strategic, cultural, and business environment needed to nurture a successful Lean Six Sigma deployment.
“You have to start with your company’s strategy to help you identify why you want to embark on a Lean Six Sigma journey,” encourages Bradley. “Are you in a growth cycle and wanting to decouple your growth and cost curves? Is one of your strategic goals to improve customer satisfaction? Do you want to introduce more innovative products? By understanding why, you can begin to think about what projects you need to focus on and ultimately how you’re going to implement the process improvement methodology.”
Will McDade, Chief Financial Officer of Interstate Batteries and former Senior Vice President of Dr Pepper Snapple offers: “The Lean Six Sigma initiative at Dr Pepper Snapple has been a major contributor to the company’s success. In the last four years, free cash flow has increased to an all-time high and the stock price has more than doubled, outpacing its peers by nearly 100 percent. I was very blessed to establish and lead that initiative with the help of Kimberly Watson-Hemphill, who with this book has provided a terrific framework for any executive looking to achieve breakthrough results.”
Several experts from Watson-Hemphill’s team at Firefly Consulting weigh in on important foundational topics such as project identification and selection, metrics, and leadership. Also included are specialty subjects like business process management, Hoshin planning for strategy deployment, Design for Lean Six Sigma for innovation, and Enterprise Kaizen.
Healthcare gets particular attention in the book, with an entire chapter dedicated to it as an industry trending in improvement. Watson-Hemphill sees Lean Six Sigma as a natural fit. “The patient side of healthcare, believe it or not, has parallels with both manufacturing and transactional business processes, with the added benefit of improving patient outcomes, which is very satisfying.”
For more information, including a free chapter, author, and purchase information, please visit: http://www.innovatingleansixsigma.com.
Julaine Calhoun, Firefly Consulting, http://www.firefly-consulting.com, +1 (561) 809-5518, [email protected]
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