Month: September 2006

Nayism 33: Our department has had several Black Belts who completed projects that drove positive change but since they have been repatriated, it’s been business as usual. If this Six Sigma stuff was that good, why don’t the Black Belts keep doing projects once they return to the organization? Here’s a perfect example of how […]

Day two began with remarks by Steve Dubrow, today’s conference chair. Richard Goldberg, Vice President of Corporate Quality at Cisco gave a terrific overview of Cisco Lean. First he explained what Cisco Lean is: Cisco Lean is going: •From push to pull •From higher inventory levels to inventory reduced across supply chain •From redundant processes […]

We saw the King! A special sign just for us. Debby Sollenberger and Joe Ficalora of Sigma Breakthrough Technologies (SBTI) Tracee Beebe and Bryan Carey of DeLeeuw Associates. One cool Steve DuBrow of i-Solutions The one, the only, Chris Paret showcasing the Quality Companion 2. Additional Conference Photos IQPC Day Two: Photos

Today must be the day for metaphors; Raj Gohil, Process Fitness Master Consultant for BP, Lubricants Americas, taught us what it takes to make a Six Sigma project successful by telling intriguing stories that he learned from his father and grandfather. He even threw in a Confucius quote. Each story had its own business analogy […]

Next, I attended a panel discussion called “Brainstorming Innovative Techniques to Gain Shopfloor to Boardroom Buy-in.” Panel Members were: HT Vassar, Abbot – Ross Products Division Merle Schneider, Clinical Research Operations, Merck Matthew Booth, VP Operations Development, Boston Financial They each gave a quick overview of the beginnings of Six Sigma at their respective companies […]

Next, I listened to Liam Palmer, Global Head, HSBC Securities Services Best Practice. He was very entertaining as he talked about Six Sigma at HSBC, specifically teaching us what to do to sustain Six Sigma projects. He shared a yoga analogy to bring the concept of sustainability home. Here’s the short version. As a runner […]

I hit four sessions this afternoon. I couldn’t blog real-time because there was no wireless available…so I’ve found time between sessions to fill you in… First session, iSixSigma’s very own Michael Cyger, gave a fantastic presentation. He listed five Six Sigma imperatives and qualified each with company examples and research from iSixSigma Magazine. The Five […]

Next up is Brad Dalton, Senior Vice President of Bank of America. Brad is talking about a project at BofA to build a single Six Sigma based change management capability – One that will integrate all existing practices and take advantage of the best of them all. The guiding principles for the project approach: •VOC […]

Key bullets from Bill Steenburgh, Xerox Services First he gave us a rundown of the last six years at Xerox: 2000-2002: Xerox losing money on a sustained basis 2002-2005: Investing for growth 2005 +: Expanding customer relationships Then Bill talked about how Xerox has combined Lean and Six Sigma to drive improvement. He said “you […]

Today is the opening day of the IQPC Lean Six Sigma Summit West 2006. Roxanne O’Braskey, President of ISSSP is the conference chair today. Roxanne is a wonderful speaker. She show so much passion for Six Sigma when she speaks about it. She’s pumped us up to hear and learn from the presenters today. We’re […]

During my recent travels, I was passing through London on the way to Bristol and bought a copy of the London Evening Standard to pass the time on the tube (subway) from Liverpool Street to Paddington. On leaving Liverpool Street I read the front-page headline, ‘£40m tube refit sends out the wrong signals’. A five-month […]

This week I’m in Las Vegasfor the IQPC Lean Six Sigma Summit West. The event last year was fantastic. This year I’m looking forward to the keynote from Richard Teerlink, former Chairman of Harley-Davidson. There’s also a nice line-up of speakers from The Home Depot, Cintas, and Cisco as well as case studies from Sun […]

I was very interested to read Stephen Crate’s recent post with Jim Womack’s “Historical Perspective of Lean,” which mentioned the idea of gemba consciousness, or awareness of what’s actually happening on the shop floor. “Management by walking around” is related to this concept; at one organization that I know of, meetings were forbidden before 10 […]

Nayism 32: We’ve learned the tools, trained folks and made good progress with our projects but somehow Six Sigma hasn’t become the “way we work.” Exactly when, if ever, will the cultural transformation thing happen? Sounds like this organization is having a tough time changing old habits. Much like the latest weight loss fad, short-term […]

Here is further article on the use of IT in six sigma projects.  We are all familiar with using analytical tools such as DOE, regression, and control charts for inferential statistics to model and predict behaviour. One IT tool I have recently had the benefit of using being decision trees. Let me explain. Take for […]

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This note from Jim Womack at the Lean Institute provides an excellent historical perspective of lean manufacturing. It is reprinted here with permission.   Stephen,   I’ve been reflecting on today’s remarkable headlines about the latest retreat by the Ford Motor Company as part of its “Way Forward”? campaign. While reflecting, I have found it […]

I was in New York City on a busy summer weekend not too long ago. Me and a whole lot of other tourists. In fact, it was the busiest I have ever seen the city in terms of tourists. Saturday night found me and my companions at one end of Times Square, fighting the crowds […]

Balance is one of those tricky concepts which appears on the surface quite simple yet is often deceptively difficult to grasp. In its more common forms, like standing up and walking about, we never give it a second thought. There are scant few of us however who would conclude that because we can walk we’re […]

Much is said about how Six Sigma will radically change your company, how it will save millions of pounds / dollars, and how it will change your company’s culture. Little is said about on of the major problems most Six Sigma deployments even the mature ones face; the “non-believers.”

As our organization implements lean, we are running into fears that our employeeswon’t be as productive after a lean project. There’s a theory that we’ll be “paying people to wait around” for patients / customers to show up. I’m pretty fascinated by this fear, since lean concepts of value are supposed to be be employed […]

I recently began to research Six Sigma Belt Certification Programs on the Internet. I have been thinking that I might like to obtain some credential in additionto my Masters Degree. I became concerned because there appeared to be multiple opportunities with no clear standard. Each one I discovered had a different number of hours of […]

The Cox-Box is Copyright © 2000-2007 iSixSigma LLC and Gary P. Cox – All Rights ReservedReproduction Without Permission Is Prohibited – Request Permission

Our organizationhasjust comethrough a phase that I’ve heard called “The Wave III Bump” by other institutions – the projects are all successful, but they just take so darn long, isn’t there any way we can speed things up? Our organization responded by moving to Lean in a big way; we’ve done Rapid Improvement Events (kaizen […]