Month: December 2007

As another year comes to a close, reflecting on what was accomplished in 2007 is a typical year-end activity. After a quick review, a few smiles and a big sigh about things left undone, it’s time to start on your 2008 list. While you are putting together your ‘list’ of things to do for 2008, […]

It’s that time of year again.The year-end stress of closing Six Sigma projects is enough to make any Black Belt sing the blues. But don’t worry, here’s a little song (sung to the tune of Jingle Bells) that will help you get through the holiday rush. Year-end Six Sigma Jingle

I’m driving home from work yesterday and I noticed something different at the intersection by my house. A traffic camera has been installed just in time to give some people a not so merry Christmas present. Traffic cameras, such as the one I saw, have been introduced as a visual control with the intent to […]

5S is one of the foundation concepts of lean. The Japanese originals were: Seiri, Seiton, Seiso, Seiketsu, Shetsuke. (Additional S’s such asSafety or Security are sometimes added.) I did a quick survey on-line to see what variations are out there. Sort – Straighten – Scrub – Standardize – Sustain Separate – Sort – Shine – […]

Here is a take on the Christmas challenge for you, Retrograde Chess. Your aim is to identify the missing piece. This position was reached only through legal chess moves. A word of caution, its tough, it took me a few days to crack and I found coming back to it a regular intervals helped. If […]

Gail Farnsley is the CIO at Cummins. She is also a Green Belt using her Six Sigma skills tackle a leadership development project she dreamed up. She is hoping to use Six Sigma to identify and develop employees with potential to move into IT management. Specifically, management that reports directly to her. Farnsley has realized […]

While reading about type I & II errors and specifically beta-risk I realised that although I was happy with alpha-risk I didn’t recall seeing beta-risk in any of our sampling or hypothesis equations. Being curious, I wondered why I was only accounting for type I errors in my work? Just to review, we need to […]

Innovative solutions are frequently the answer to new or age old problems. But what kind of tools can help you and your team get out-of-the-box? Seems like way back when, we didn’t spend enough time in training talking about innovation in the “Improve” stage. Armed with the 5 S’s, a DOE and some poka-yoke, we’d […]

Black Friday came and went and I avoided shopping for a number of reasons, mainly because I couldn’t be stuffed getting up early enough to get a great deal. Besides, knowing my luck, anything on my list would’ve sold out long before I arrived. Unfortunately Christmas has not been the only time I’ve shopped only […]

Most Six Sigma speak I’ve heard tries to categorize projects into “hard” vs. “soft” savings. Hard savings projects focus on cutting costs, increasing capacity, etc., while soft savings projects generally deal more with topics where dollar value may not be easily to quantify (e.g. environmental performance, employee morale, etc.). However, there is another type of […]

The U.S. Army Garrison Fort Leavenworth Army post in Kansas is striving to make Lean Six Sigma part of their culture. Part of their project selection process is taking employee suggestions. Suggestions for improvement have been hard to come by since Lean Six Sigma joined the Army. Employees feared improvement would mean downsizing. But thanks […]

The triple constraints triangle (below) is used to show the tensions a project needs to balance when meeting its objectives. Normally set at the beginning of the project, a scope change in any one dimension will have an effect on at least one other dimension e.g. a reduction in time can increase costs or reduce […]

DMAIC, DMAVD, DFSS or any other Six Sigma framework is a disciplined data-driven structured methodology that if implemented as required will yield breakthrough levels of improvement in organizations. Having applied Six Sigma and other process methodologies across multiple SBUs at our organization one aspect that is not given much attention in many formal Six Sigma […]

What started out 20 years ago as a way to reduce variation is now the hottest game in town – Six Sigma. Although it has been reshaped through the years to meet constantly changing business needs, the definition is still the same: “Near perfect performance”. . . and customers still demand it. When first introduced, […]