Peter S. Pande

Peter S. Pande (born ca. 1960) is an American consultant and organizational theorist in the field of process improvement, organizational change and quality management. He is known for his work on Six Sigma.

The six sigma way, 2000
Peter S. Pande, Robert P. Neuman, and Roland R. Cavanagh. The six sigma way. McGraw-Hill,, 2000 ; 2nd ed. 2014


 * Six Sigma is a system for improving the quality of organizational processes. It was originally developed at in the 1980's and has become one of the most widely discussed and reported trends in business over the past two years, thanks largely to the phenomenal successes of the Six Sigma program at one of the world's most successful companies, . General Electric CEO Jack Welch, has been preaching about and implementing the Six Sigma philosophy throughout General Electric, and credits the program with millions of dollars in annual cost savings and product quality improvements.
 * Book abstract


 * So much has happened since the first publication of The Six Sigma Way, and it has been rewarding to find that much of what was in the book then still holds true. At the same time, the opportunity to reflect on how organizations have used, or misused, Six Sigma had offered a lot of new insights. We're pleased that this updated book will offer some real benefit to individuals and organizations still focused on driving continuous improvement today.”
 * Preface 2nd edition, 2014


 * Six Sigma is a comprehensive and flexible system for achieving, sustaining and maximizing business success. Six Sigma is uniquely driven by close understanding and customer needs, disciplined use of facts, data, and statistical analysis, and diligent attention to managing, improving, and reinventing business process.
 * p. xi


 * The most challenging question confronting business leaders and managers in the new millennium is not "How do we succeed?" It’s: "How do we stay successful?"
 * p. 3


 * The term "Six Sigma" is a reference to a particular goal of reducing defects to near zero. Sigma is the Greek letter statisticians use to represent the "standard deviation of a population." The sigma, or standard deviation, tells you how much variability there is within a group of items. In statistical terms,, therefore, the purposes of Six Sigma is to reduce variation to reduce variation to achieve very small standard variations so that almost all of your products or services meet or exceed customer expectations
 * p. 4


 * One virtue of Six Sigma is that it translates the messiness of variation of variation into a clear black or white measure of success: either a product or service meets customer requirements or it doesn’t. Anything that does not meet customer requirements is called a defect. [One] approach to determining a sigma level is to calculate how many defects occur per opportunities for things to go wrong. The outcome of this calculation is called Defects per Million.
 * p. 6


 * Six Sigma has three basic parts, which are process improvement, process design/redesign, process management. These parts are important because these three parts affect your organization and the process that were established and are in use on a daily basis. Six Sigma teams when the project is focused on process improvement finds the critical Xs (causes) that create the unwanted Ys (defects) produced by the process.
 * p. 13-14


 * Proactive Management : In real world though proactive management means making habits out of what we are, too often, neglected business practices; defining ambitious goals and reviewing them frequently, setting clear priorities, focus on problem prevention rather than firefighting and questioning why we do things instead of blindly defending them.
 * p. 16

What is six sigma?, 2002
Peter S. Pande and Lawrence Holpp. What is six sigma? Vol. 1. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 2002.


 * Six Sigma is today's most talked-about system for improving the quality of organizational processes. Written by bestselling author Peter Pande, What Is Six Sigma? is a concise summary of the core themes and processes of Six Sigma. Unlike almost all other books on Six Sigma, it is written for the employees of organizations rolling out Six Sigma­­ not just managers. This helpful overview describes what Six Sigma is, why companies are implementing it, and how employees can make it a success in their own organizations.
 * Book abstract


 * Understanding Six Sigma doesn't require any skill or background in statistics.
 * p. 6


 * Processes are where the Action is: Whether focused on designing products and services, measuring performance, improving efficiency and customer satisfaction or even running the business, Six Sigma positions the process as the key vehicle of success.
 * p. 15