Month: May 2011

How often are your DMAIC projects terminated before their completion? While it’s a benefit to make early decisions in the Define or Measure phase to stop unpromising and/or non-priority projects, it can be difficult in the later phases after the organization has invested in significant time and resources. The problem is not unique to continuous […]

Laboratory Supply Company (LABSCO), a medical laboratory products supplier, has named Black Belt Thomas Ording vice president of operations and logistics for the Louisville, Ky., USA-based firm.

Nearly 150 change management professionals representing more than 60 companies in the oil & gas and utilities sectors attended the 2011 iSixSigma Live! Energy Forum for Process Excellence on May 16-19 in Houston. Those attendees came from 19 states and eight countries (United States, plus Canada, Germany, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, South Korea, Thailand and the United […]

British medical device Kimal has announced that it will begin implementing Six Sigma process improvements to enhance the quality of its services.

Health insurance provider HealthAmerica has hired certified Black Belt Dawn Milstead as its new vice president of health services. She will work out of the company’s office in Harrisburg, Pa., USA.

A manufacturing plant that makes Merillat kitchen cabinets in Mt. Jackson, Va., USA, has received the 2011 Virginia Governor’s Environmental Excellence Silver Award in recognition for its years of environmental stewardship, including the savings achieved via a recent Six Sigma project.

Lehman Trikes, a manufacturer of three-wheeled motorcycles, has promoted its quality and safety manager, Terree Matson-McCoy, to the position of vice president of operations.

Polymer chip manufacturing is a multi-step, large-volume process that makes hundreds of millions of pounds of products annually at a typical plant. Unlike fiber extrusion, which requires the use of multiple units of specialized equipment, chip manufacturing involves fewer machines operated in either continuous or batch modes. Chip manufacturing is often driven by operator decisions, […]

Sixteen manufacturing firms located in the West Midlands region of the United Kingdom are poised to receive Six Sigma business management training as part of a European Union initiative to spur competitiveness in the region.

Finch Paper, based in Glen Falls, N.Y., USA, has named Black Belt Ken Chartier as its new director, quality and continuous improvement.

With orders soaring for its workhorse 737 passenger jet, Boeing Commercial Airplanes has announced that it is expanding its Lean production facility in Renton, Wash., and increase its workforce at the plant by 1,200 workers by 2013.

Three exceptional workshops opened up the third annual iSixSigma Energy Forum for Process Excellence, being held May 16-19 at the Westin Oaks Hotel in Houston. The workshops, attended May 16 by a host of leaders in the oil & gas and utilities sectors, were as follows: “Change Management: The Cornerstone of a Successful Lean Six […]

With increasing competition, expanding globalization and demanding customers, the playing field in the service Lean call center (SCC) industry has changed rapidly, as phone banks have evolved into multichannel contact centers. Many organizations have realized that the key for survival is efficiency and effectiveness, with a focus on productivity and customer experience. Lean techniques, which focus […]

Anthony Gingras, ammunition planner for the Ammunition Management Division at the Yuma Proving Ground (YPG), was recently named the U.S. Army Test and Evaluation Command’s (ATEC) Employee of the Year for 2010 for a Lean Six Sigma project involving ammunition delivery.

In my prior post, I introduced the concept of program leadership in the Lean Six Sigma context and articulated the value that I saw as part of the process of certifying Master Black Belts. Based on some of themes that emerged in correspondence, I thought it might be beneficial to articulate a few more thoughts […]

How long did it take to finish your last project? Do you feel like you never have enough time to do your current project because so much else is going on? When I meet with my mentees, I often hear them apologizing for not having made much progress since we met last time. Obviously they […]

After making a $3 million investment and securing funding from the Economic Development Coalition for Asheville-Buncombe County, N.C., roofing firm W.P. Hickman Co. is poised to open its newly expanded Lean facility near Asheville, N.C., USA, on May 26.

During both prosperous and difficult times, successful businesses naturally look for new ways to improve performance. However, in recent years, as the world economy suffered through one of the worst recessions in history, many companies turned in droves to Lean and other variations of continuous improvement programs to rescue their sagging businesses. But, did they […]

Lion Vallen Industries, a maker of protective equipment for military and emergency-services personnel, was named the Progressive Manufacturer of the Year for the small and mid-sized company category at the Manufacturing Leadership Summit in Palm Beach, Fla., USA.

Following the keel-laying ceremony of the 14th and final ship in the T-AKE dry cargo-ammunition shipbuilding program in San Diego, contractor General Dynamics NASSCO said that Six Sigma-based improvements deployed over the last decade have reduced the labor costs of the $6 billion program by 60 percent.

Many consider the “Design” in DfSS to be the product design, but that is not the only entity that a producer of products delivers to its customers. When I refer to the “design” in Design for Six Sigma, the context is more comprehensive than simply the product design. The “design” in DfSS can be anything […]

One of the “holy grails” of continuous process improvement is the reliable collection and analysis of real-time data. At Southern California Edison (SCE), one of the largest utilities in the United States, this fine level of data is being given not only to the process improvement teams, but to their customers, as well, in the […]

Provider of Lean Six Sigma Online Training Continues Steady Growth in 2011