Getting Started Archive

Are You Ready? How to Conduct a Maturity Assessment

Before starting a process improvement journey, organizations should take the time to review their performance and determine strengths and weaknesses.

Ask the Expert: The Topic – Starting a Six Sigma Initiative

Smarter Solutions Inc. CEO, President and Founder Forrest Breyfogle shares his advice on starting a Six Sigma deployment.

Crafting a Vision: Who We Are, What We Do, Where We’re Going

The second part in this series on culture change focuses on the importance of developing and maintaining a clear mission for your Lean enterprise.

Defining Primary Metric: Starting Off on the Right Path

After a rocky start developing the project's primary metric, the Six Sigma team was able to help increase the accuracy rate of dispenser maintenance calls, resulting in the potential savings for the company of more than a million dollars.

Design For Six Sigma (DFSS) Versus DMAIC

Troubled with the acronyms of Six Sigma? We'll help you figure out new product design (DFSS) from existing process improvement (DMAIC).

How a Company Can Involve Its Suppliers in Six Sigma

As companies concentrate on design and outsource more of the order fulfillment process, including manufacturing, their quality image is dependent on supplier performance. So, when is the time to involve suppliers in a quality improvement initiative?

How to Avoid Deep-sixing a New Six Sigma Program

Many companies hunt for the best continuous improvement approach. But practitioners should fix mistakes from the past method to get greater buy-in for the new one.

How to Become a Lean Six Sigma Organization

One of the best ways to roll out a Lean Six Sigma program is to treat the process as a Six Sigma process in and of itself. Some basic guidelines, arranged in the classic five-stage DMAIC process, can help organizations that are interested in adopting Lean Six Sigma.

Is Six Sigma for Real? Question Deserves Solid Answers

Many quality improvement methods talk about measuring and improving, but what specifically makes Six Sigma more valuable than the others and then, in this case, applicable to IT? Success with Six Sigma requires solid answers.

Is Six Sigma Just For Large Companies? What About Small Companies?

Is Six Sigma for small companies as well? Yes and no – read the requirements and decide for yourself.

Lean at Work…From Factory Floor to Operating Room

Until relatively recently, many quality professionals considered the term “Lean” to only be applicable to the manufacturing giants of industry. Lean, first created as a part of the Toyota Production System, is an operational approach and methodology embraced by world-class…

Lean Manufacturing: Adapting as Important as Adopting

Lean manufacturing is wonderful when deployed properly and a nightmare when it is not. Well-deployed, Lean can increase efficiency and have other desirable outcomes. Improperly applied, Lean can cause quality problems and troubles for top management.

Learning to Think Lean: Six Steps with Review Points

Organizations can profit from learning to think in terms of Lean, a philosophy that aims to eliminate waste mainly by shortening the time between the customer order and shipment. Lean thinking can be outlined in six steps, and confirmed with review.

Six Sigma Certification, Who Can Do It?

Six Sigma certification is a funny concept. Everyone wants to be certified, but nobody really understands what it means in the industry and how it might enhance your resume outside your current company. This article helps the reader understand who can certify, what certification means, what Six Sigma certification requirements exist, and much more.

Six Sigma Q&A

Get answers to all your Six Sigma questions with this list of frequently asked questions.

Six Sigma Trends: Management of Six Sigma Deployments

The arguments presented in this article lead to one conclusion: there is little or no chance to succeed with a Six Sigma deployment by doing it from the bottom-up, or by perceiving it as just another total quality management initiative. The quickest and most effective way to success is through business case management and project-based top-down training.

Six Sigma Versus TQM

In this excerpt from the iSixSigma Discussion Forum, posters compare and contrast Six Sigma and its predecessor, TQM.

The Evolution of a Government Lean Six Sigma Training Program

The first director of the Department of Defense Lean Six Sigma Program Office describes the humble beginnings and successes of the largest performance management program ever attempted.

Using the 5As to Help LEAP into Lean Implementation

A good acronym for the way an organization can implement Lean is LEAP – learn it, explain it, adapt it, provide it. The 5As – assessment, awareness, association, adherence and ascendancy – are the steps an organization takes toward implementing Lean.

What Is Six Sigma?

Six Sigma at many organizations simply means a measure of quality that strives for near perfection. Six Sigma is a disciplined, data-driven approach and methodology for eliminating defects (driving toward six standard deviations between the mean and the nearest specification limit) in any process -- from manufacturing to transactional and from product to service.

What Makes Six Sigma Work?

Consultants are earning seven figure salaries, CEOs are claiming billions of dollars saved, conferences are popping up everywhere, and yet one can argue that Six Sigma is not much different than TQM. Is Six Sigma just the latest management buzzword or is Six Sigma a Quality Management program that really works? What makes Six Sigma work?

Why Choose Six Sigma Over Kaizen?

In this excerpt from the iSixSigma Discussion Forum, posters discuss the benefits of Six Sigma and Kazien, and how to integrate the two.

‘We Are the Champions!’ – Exactly What That Means

Project Champions ensure that organizational systems are in place to support the Six Sigma initiative. As managers, they provide exposure of the program to their functional reports and endorsement of the program as a management initiative.

Posts Tagged ‘Getting Started’