Streamlined Process Improvement

by H. James Harrington

“The Business Process Improvement methodology established by Dr. H. James Harrington and his group brings revolutionary improvement not only in quality of products and services, but also in the business processes.”
—Professor Yoshio Kondo

Genres: Business

458 pages, Kindle Edition

First published July 19, 2011

Reviews

[Aaron Bolin · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am embarrassed for James Harrington; he should be ashamed of himself for reissuing an old book under a new title. I think the man is brilliant, but check out his 1991 title: "Business Process Improvement: The Breakthrough Strategy for Total Quality, Productivity, and Competitiveness." It is exactly the same content -- or it is very close. Harrington does go through the trouble of re-naming the DMAIC cycle and coins some other neo-logisms in an effort to sound original. If you can't tell, I am actually a little angry. I feel cheated. So sad, because I was a big fan of H. James Harrington. Fool me once, shame on me.

On the bright side, the book is actually a pretty good introduction to continuous process improvement for novices. Experienced practitioners won't find anything new here, but newbies will find an approachable introduction to some powerful techniques.

I would have preferred an honest re-issue of the old volume, but he does provide a pretty clear outline of the process improvement methodology.

[Warren]

What is Streamlined Process Improvement?
Phases
I: planning for improvement
II: analyzing the process
III: streamlining the process
IV: implementing the new process and phase
V: continuous improvement.