Six Sigma Professor

Review by Habibatou Niang for Six Sigma Statistics with EXCEL and MINITAB
Rating:
Masterful!!!!

Teaching is a gift that not any scientist has. I can safely say that I have bought and studied 37 Amazon bestseller statistics books. Not a single one of them comes anywhere close to Issa Bass’ “Six Sigma statistics with Minitab and Excel”.

This book goes from the most basic and elementary descriptive statistics such how to determine the mean and median of a distribution to the most complex experimental design including Taguchi’s method.

It does it in a very comprehensive method combining a step-by-step mathematical approach with Microsoft Excel and Minitab.

The introduction clearly defines what Six Sigma is and statistically defines Six Sigma and explains why the methodology is called 6 and sigma. It explains the methodology and shows how to use statistics to create balanced scorecards and how the six sigma project selection is conducted.

The rest of the book is essentially statistical. Chapter 2 introduces you to how to start Minitab and its functionalities and Excel’s statistics add-ins.

Each chapter is filled with examples with more than 200 graphics applicable in real six sigma projects and each one of them walks you step by step on how to use mathematical formula to solve before using Excel and Minitab to come to the same conclusions obtained from the mathematical demonstration. All the examples on the CD are explained in plain English. Even if you have never done statistics in your life, you should understand all the examples.

The chapters on Regression Analysis, Process Capability Analysis, Measurement System Analysis and Taguchi Method are the most complete I have ever come across.

They are filled with examples that make the complex look easy.

Mr. Bass knows how to remove complexity from a complex science.

I give him a five stars.

Review by Kazuhide Kuwahara for Six Sigma Statistics with EXCEL and MINITAB
Rating:
The author successfully achieved his purpose of explaining Six Sigma statistics using Minitab and Excel; however, I found numerous errors in his explanations of statistical methods and in his conclusions in some examples. I noticed 184 major and minor errors in this book, of which simple typo errors counted only 11. Mr. Bass failed to use Minitab’s “Design of Experiment” feature in the chapter titled “Design of Experiment” and explained ANOVA instead, which could have been included in the chapter “Analysis of Variance.” He also misapplied Taguchi’s Loss Function in Chapter 12. Taguchi’s Method usually means his Robust Design Method in DOE rather than his Loss Function.

It seems that Mr. Bass does not have formal training in statistics or mathematics. His understanding of factors, levels, and observations in ANOVA is questionable (p.207, p.211, p.218, p.276) and subscripting in his mathematics was a mess (pp.179-181, p.208, p.222, p.223, p.227). The direction of skewness in the normal distribution was wrong. These errors could have been avoided if Mr. Bass had asked his fellow statistician or mathematician to review his draft copy of this book. The responsibility also goes to the editor of McGraw Hill.

In conclusion, please read this book critically and learn how to use Minitab or Excel for Six Sigma analyses, keeping other statistics textbooks at hand.

Review by Jaewoo Kim for Six Sigma Statistics with EXCEL and MINITAB
Rating:
Although much of Six Sigma are about processes and best practices, its central methodology is collecting useful data and utilizing statistical tools for analysis of the data, decision making, and continuous improvement. I am a Six Sigma Black Belt and I have found this book useful for Six Sigma statistical analysis.

If you are clueless about statistics, then you can’t fully understand or utilize the benefits of Six Sigma. Luckily, the math required for Six Sigma statistical analysis is not hard. Most of the time, all you need to know is basic arithmetic. You don’t even need MiniTab (Excel is perfectly fine for all Six Sigma statistics). Although the book provides pictures of both MiniTab and Excel, the book gears more towards MiniTab.

This book does an unusually excellent job of explaining the fundamentals of statistics (standard deviation, coefficients, probability distributions, correlations etc). Its explanations of more advance topics, however, such as ANOVA and Regression was little too simplified and left a lot wanting.

This book is not written as a statistics practice book. You won’t find tons of practice questions but just enough to allow you to understand the material. If you want to perfect your statistical knowledge and application, I recommend purchasing a separate statistical workbook.

Instead, this book shines as a reference for fundamental Six Sigma statistics. Reading and understanding the materials contained in this book certainly will not make you an expert in Six Sigma statistics. But it will give you a good fundamental base.

I highly recommend this book for those who want the necessary basic familiarity of Six Sigma statistics, which should be enough for most Six Sigma belt holders (including Six Sigma Black Belts).

Review by Romani Federico for Six Sigma Statistics with EXCEL and MINITAB
Rating:
As a BB I find this book really useful. Each chapter has a clear structure, that helps the reader to fully understand the topics.

Lot of examples and exercises make the reader capable to fully understand the theory and to apply it to real problems.

I suggest all the BBs to have this book.

Review by Boris A. Mutafelija for Six Sigma Statistics with EXCEL and MINITAB
Rating:
This is a great book filled with the statistical technques, examples and associated solutions. It provides nice balance between the statistical theory and solutions using Excel and Minitab. The Minitab examples are easy to follow and implement in the Minitab tool (I did not use Excel.). The CD provided with the book is quite useful enabling one to use existing files rather than spending time typing data into the tool. In some instances it is not clear how to implement examples in Minitab; it would be helpful if the author described why certain Minitab options were selected instead of just pointing to the appropriate menu or dialog box.

In summary – this book provides a very helpful assistance in using Minitab for solving variety of statistical problems at a very reasonable price.