Over the past couple of decades, growth in the number of new service and not-for-profit organizations has out-paced manufacturing in the global economy. Six Sigma and Lean, two of the most successful initiatives for improving quality and productivity rooted in the manufacturing sector, are now needed by organizations in the non-manufacturing sectors of the economy. With the ever-growing demands of customers, ensuring quality and productivity in service organizations as a distinctive core competence is becoming essential to achieving a competitive advantage and maintaining customer loyalty for long-term survival. Current books on Lean Six Sigma for service or transactional organizations either require a significant technical background, or are rather conceptual in nature and lack the detail of the tools, how to use them, and the practical skill-building exercises needed to give readers the ability to actually implement Lean Six Sigma in their organizations. This book fills the void. Written for the typical business professional, Lean Six Sigma Service Excellence effectively translates the concepts of Lean Six Sigma from a manufacturing environment to a service delivery environment. It is a user friendly guide to successfully implementing Lean Six Sigma practices in non-manufacturing organizations. It is also an inexpensive path to Green Belt certification. Mr. Taylor provides an overview of the Lean Six Sigma concepts and step-by-step examples of how to apply each of the relevant tools in practical situations. Next, readers will work through several problems to exercise their new found understanding. This learning approach of application and exercise should be of particular interest to those interested in, but unable to afford the large expense of most Lean Six Sigma training courses. Dedicated to executives and managers of service and transactional organizations, Lean Six Sigma Service Excellence emphasizes how productivity can be used as a distinctive competence for achieving and maintaining competitive advantage in non-manufacturing environments About the Author: Gerald Taylor Gerald Taylor is Founder and President of The Performance Management Group LLC, a firm that specializes in performance improvement and leadership development. He has over 15 years experience designing and implementing quality and Six Sigma solutions as an internal corporate consultant and as an external engagement manager for service organizations such as Sprint Long Distance, Automatic Data Processing, Logix Communications, Dynegy Global Communications Corporation and Oneok Corporation. Mr. Taylor and his associates are certified Six Sigma Black Belts who train and certify Six Sigma Black Belt professionals and quality practitioners to serve as technical experts in their working environments. He is also a certified Malcolm Baldrige examiner and two-time quality examiner for the Arizona Governor’s Spirit of Excellence in Government Award. He was previously an associate professor of business administration at Western International University and a faculty member for Mesa College. Gerald currently serves as a board member for the Arizona Chapter of the Association for Strategic Planning and he is a published author of various works in the field of Six Sigma, quality improvement and service management. He earned his undergraduate degree in management and his MBA from the WP Carey School of Business at Arizona State University.