Month: May 2010

The record label Music Co. was experiencing a high number of incident tickets regarding its digital release planning system, mostly as a result of delays in a release, reported by the sales team. To help deliver their record products in a more timely fashion, the organization used the DMAIC roadmap to uncover the causes of […]

I am fresh off of the American Society of Quality’s World Conference on Quality and Improvement. It was an outstanding idea forum that charged me up and allowed me to press some of the key thought leaders in Lean/Six Sigma/Quality on this idea of the need for innovation WITHIN the process improvement community. I was […]

By Jeffry J. Smith How can practitioners create a rigorous accounting method for measuring the financial benefits from their Six Sigma projects? The key here is being able to translate measured operational benefits into dollars, either in the form of cost reduction, inventory reduction or a revenue increase. The following five areas should be measured […]

Today the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) granted patent rights to MoreSteam.com for inventions developed by MoreSteam’s President, Bill Hathaway.

Awards season is officially open for the iSixSigma Live! Awards, which recognize Six Sigma projects and programs that have demonstrated breakthrough results and people who have made significant contributions to the Six Sigma community.

DMAIC is a very powerful method and provides a framework for leading business improvement projects. The consistent rigor has led to many great results. However, I have also seen less successful DMAIC projects that took too long and/or generated little improvement. As mentors, we all have seen inexperienced belts struggle with various tools. However, my […]

In a difficult economy, an increasing number of senior business leaders are seeking to boost the performance of their operations by adopting Lean Six Sigma. Before these organizations can begin to reap the benefits of continuous process improvement, they must first understand the fundamental elements of the process known as DMAIC (for Define, Measure, Analyze, […]

The gains that Lean Six Sigma has brought in the areas of manufacturing, operations and physical product design speak for themselves. It is natural to want to replicate that success in software design. To do that most effectively, however, practitioners must meld Lean Six Sigma with Agile, a software development technique that is gaining traction […]

Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard’s Lifting and Handling Department recently won a Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) Excellence Award for the first quarter of 2010 for its major improvements in crane safety and operational productivity.

On March 1, the 448th Supply Chain Management Wing stood up the Planning for Defense Logistics Agency Managed Consumables Flight with the goal of improving DLA support to the Air Force.

A new on-board missile health-monitoring device is providing troops in the Middle East an added measure of assurance that the Army’s Hellfire II missiles will perform without failure. According to a news release from Pacific Northwest National Laboratories, this marks the Army’s first-ever deployment of missiles that features a device to constantly monitor the weapon’s […]

There is a battle being waged on the fringe of the Six Sigma community. The battle is over how to apply Six Sigma to one of the last frontiers of business – marketing. There are two sides to the argument: those who favor a direct application, and those who feel the method should be modified. […]

OK, we’ve got our kaizen team going full speed ahead, and one of the improvements will be to replace the central printer with individual desk printers to avoid interruptions and transportation waste. Workers won’t have to get up and walk to get their forms. Hooray! “But,” one of the workers says, “we like getting up […]

Here is the good news: To help their call centers improve, managers need to solve just one problem – between-agent variation. That’s right. Fixing that problem can take a call center to a new standard of excellence. Of course there are other operational challenges that need to be solved, but between-agent variation is such a […]

First published in 2004 by process improvement and business transformation consultants, QSB Consulting, the Six Sigma and Minitab pocket guide is now used by over 50,000 business excellence professionals worldwide.

A dilemma many organizations face while implementing Six Sigma is the selection of a deployment model. Many practitioners feel that they must choose between a central team running projects to attack pain areas or a dedicated team of Black Belts who are attached to each function and support the leadership in improving performance. While there […]

Four times a year, I donate blood at a local blood bank and receive readings on my cholesterol, blood pressure and pulse. Although donating blood does not improve a person’s health, the regular readings of the vital signs, along with analysis and actions stemming from this data, can be significant in the fight against heart […]

We home educate our children and one approach we take is to think up and solve problems. When solving one of these, “how can you measure how tall a tree is?”, the Tan-o-meter was born! The maths is straightforward. You measure yourdistance from the treeand the angle to the top of the tree. Multiply the […]

PolyOne Corp. — an Avon Lake, Ohio-based firm that ranks as North America’s largest compounder — on Feb. 4 reported a full-year 2009 profit of almost $68 million. The firm had reported a loss of almost $273 million in 2008. The improvement occurred even as the firm’s 2009 sales fell 25 percent to about $2.1 […]

Robert Weiner, a recognized Lean Six Sigma expert and CEO of North Kansas City-based PAS Technologies, died on Tuesday.

The Energy Forum for Process Excellence (May 24-27, St. Regis, Houston, TX), produced by iSixSigma Live! and presented by SSA & Company, will feature hands-on opportunities for attendees to strengthen their process excellence knowledge.

Royal Philips Electronics subsidiary Assembléon is cutting New Product Introduction (NPI) time on its A-Series pick & place equipment by 30 percent.

GE Appliances & Lighting will be getting the most out of the recently announced multi-year (2010-2014), $600 million investment in its manufacturing and other facilities at Louisville’s Appliance Park.