Month: January 2007

Keynote address at the 8th Annual Six Sigma Summit in Miami, Florida, USA The Six Sigma crowd was on their feet before General Powell even said a word. The General launched his address by telling us he got an A in statistics at The George Washington University. That made all of us Six Sigma data […]

Below are a fewpictures from theIQPC Six Sigma Summit in Maimi. Jami Smith from Expedia.com singing with the entertainment. Next year Jamie should”be” the entertainment. She can sing! Fellow blogger Gianna Clark, Managing Director of Six Sigma at Dominion, meeting General Colin Powell. Your very own iSixSigma: Michael Cyger, Michael Marx and Managing Editor of […]

Ellen has personality. She tells it like it is. She is a recent addition to the “turnaround team” at Nortel Networks. As the VP of Lean Six Sigma and Global Quality, she laid out Nortel’s plans to execute on their new Lean Six Sigma initiative launched in April last year. “Lean Six Sigma will be […]

Don Linsenmann, VP Business Process Excellence & Corporate Six Sigma Champion at DuPont delivered a superb presentation on Tuesday. If the only two people I heard this week were Don Linsenmann and General Colin Powell, I would have been satisfied. Once again, Don reviewed the faces of Six Sigma with his Rubik’s Cube analogy. Each […]

Some of the biggest news to be announced yesterday and circulated around the IQPC Six Sigma Summit in Miami is that Hyperion is acquiring Decisioneering. For those of you not aware of Hyperion, they are one of the leading enterprise-wide BPM (business performance management) software applications in the world. As the press release on Decisioneering’s […]

Because I’m currently reviewing the materials on cause and effect I seem to be noticing it everywhere, I wonder why? Either way finding root-causes is an essential part of my job and I have a wealth of tools available such as Ishikawa diagrams, correlation, regression models, DOE and multivariate charts. In reviewing the on-line materials […]

I just came from the award gala dinner… and the 2007 Six Sigma Excellence Award Winners are: Award for Best Defect Elimination in Manufacturing Project- Sponsored by Minitab Winner: Delphi Thermal Systems – 2007 930 HVAC Module Snap Case Machine Honorary mention: Delphi Corporation – Process Optimization to Significantly Increase Product Strength Award for Best […]

This week I’ll be blogging from the IQPC 8th Annual Six Sigma Summit in Miami, Florida. Today’s sessions are over and I must say that I was impressed with the presentations. My favorite speaker today was, hands down, Don Linsenmann, VP and Corporate Champion at DuPont. Don is one dynamic speaker. He’s part comedian, part […]

Yesterday, our organization graduated its first class of Lean Green Belts that was taught on our own, without our consultant. We’re using the term “Lean Green Belt” because we’re teaching them primarily Lean so they can facilitate Rapid Improvement Events, although we’re using the DMAIC structure as an organizing principle. (Our BBs are called Six […]

After an extended holiday from the blog and from work in general, I have to say I’m glad to be back. I hope everyone out there in isixsigma land enjoyed the season as much as I did. I started a project in the U.K. this week. I’m fascinated by the differences in culture one finds […]

Each of our hundred of processes required a common format/look for consistency in the creation of our cookbook. We sit down with our Knowledge Management team to discuss what our users should know about a process and we came up with this list: Procedure Name–The identifying name of the procedure that makes a distinction between […]

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

He’s at it again. But this time I laughed out loud, I’m sorry to report. What are your thoughts?

As part of becoming an MBB I need to really understand statistics. I spend a lot of my own time studying and use Minitab to support this. But I was surprised to find there was no Minitab User Group where I could meet like-minded people to share my experiences and accelerate my learning. So I […]

Paula Parmeter, a Six Sigma advocate and pioneer, recently passed away. Everyone that knew Paula is tremendously saddened. Below is a tribute, written by Ilona Kirzhner.     iSixSigma has been nice enough to allow us to pay a Six Sigma Tribute to Paula (Feldman) Parmeter. In my knowledge of Six Sigma consultancies, practitioners, trainers, […]

Greetings from Detroit, where the North American International Auto Show is in its first full week. I had the opportunity to visit over the weekend, and was mightily impressed with what I saw. This time, I have to say I looked with different eyes. The last time I attended, a few years ago,my perspective was […]

Many organizational leaders are inspired by management books, and quite a few have gone to the extremes of ordering the books for their leadership teams. Some even start book clubs or go through each book chapter by chapter in their meetings. I’m an avid reader and have gone through a lot of management books in […]

Let me introduce you to the iSixSigma published report, Six Sigma Saves a Fortune.

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m starting to feel a little “winterized” already (or is that “non-winterized”?). The Seattle rainy season has hit multiple records this season and I’m looking forward to a break later this month by visiting warm — and hopefully dry — Miami for the IQPC Six Sigma […]

Okay, okay. I know this has already been covered to death in other blogs and various discussion forums. But I am nonetheless compelled to offer my own take on the Wall Street Journal’s article concerning the departure of Home Depot CEO Robert Nardelli. And more specifically on the comments within that article suggesting that this […]

People only jump when they are pushed. Kotter in his book Leading Change (1994) talks about creating the “Burning Platform”. My mental image of this burning platform is a team of guys and / or gals on a burning oil rig knowing the oil rig is going to sink but only jumping into the murky […]

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

I don’t usually make too many New Year’s resolutions, but here are a few that I’ll be attempting this year. 1. To be less judgmental of people, and more judgmental aboutprocesses. 2. To look more closely at the “story behind the headlines” when confronted with a problem. 3. To clarify when I’m giving advice as […]

Nayism 38: Six Sigma doesn’t work. Just look at the Fortune 500 . . . yada . . . yada . . . yada. . . blah . . . blah . . blah After reading yet another Six Sigma bashing news article, I find it interesting that intelligent people are publishing the kind of […]