I’m going to go out on a limb and open up a discussion on the “Ultimate Organization” here. In my last two posts, I talked a little bit about integrating the 6S culture in an organization (vs keeping it at a specialist level only) and organizational fear. I figured a logical progression of the overall…
There’s no doubt that fear can prevent an organization to be what it could be, but what can be done about it…how many times have you been in a situation where there were problems to solve, but no one stepped up to the plate to solve them because of fear? Piggy-backing on my previous posting,…
I have been thinking about various topics regarding Six Sigma recently, and I keep coming back to a question that is hard to answer…if we “do Six Sigma” right, is there even a place for Six Sigma as we know it ten or twenty years down the road? Consider this…..ten years from now, do you…
It’s really interesting for me to look back and think about how many times quality planning has come up as an afterthought. It is staggering for me to think about what could have happened if quality planning was done the proper way. Here’s an example….one time I was involved with a new product introduction, and…
Now more than ever, the development and use of control plans play a critical role in succesfully implementing a new process. In my past, I have seen varying ways that control plans have been implemented, but I still struggle a little when I try to find a really good example of control plan development. To…
Recently James Considine and Stephen Crate have posted about management styles….and their posts have really made me think about management and leadership in general, especially during these challenging times… From my perspective, you have to lead people to achieve results. If you are a manager, indeed your job is to manage the business, but to…
Today I was reflecting on a potential topic that could come up in a traditional project involving any test or DOE utilizing a ’p-value’ criterion – it actually did for me a few times in the past. Hypothetically, say for example there is a process that has very low inherent process variation (process s is very low),…
Every once in a while, I’d like to share some reviews of key books that I’ve read so far in my career that have been particularly useful. For my first review, I’d like to reflect upon Crucial Conversations: Tools For Talking When Stakes Are High – by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan, Al Switzler…
Over the weekend, I happened to stumble upon this news link on Yahoo. The L.A. Times apparently published a front page advertisement that looked very much like a regular news ad. Of course upon inspection, the advertisement disclaimer was there. According to AFP: “Publisher Eddy Hartenstein told the Times he had decided to run the ad…
Throughout my career I’ve had the pleasure of meeting colleagues from a very large variety of manufacturing cultures. Sometimes I talk to people that work in a “mass” environment with poor performance, and I hear about how good it must be to work in an efficient workplace, with relatively good performance. I always get the…
During difficult times like we’re facing today, some of the first things that get cut are the “non-essential” items not related to core business. Of course, the paradox here is that some items that are deemed “non-essential” are actually huge enablers to a company. Take for instance Six Sigma….definitely an enabler, but if your program…
Over the years, I’ve come in contact with several different companies that say that they are “lean”. Yes, TPS (the Toyota Production System) is a great framework for production, with its teachings of one-piece flow, kanban, etc…but what about the actual implementation of the lean concepts at other companies besides Toyota? I’ve seen desks with…
One of the aspects of Six Sigma that makes the process so great is the focus on the customer, and the gathering of the VOC (voice of the customer). Using the VOC information a company can begin designing ways to improve customer value, by designing products and processes that are centered around customer requirements. Doing…
One of the things that I see as a challenge to companies that grapple with a Six Sigma implementation is effective use of tools in “live” situations. By “live”, I mean in a normal operations context, not in a project context. When looking at the use of Six Sigma tools, using them in a project…
Tonight I was thinking about some of my experiences since being involved with Six Sigma. One experience came to mind that when looking back, was so funny in the context of the situation, that I can’t resist sharing it. I was working on a project that was to improve quality of parts arriving to a particular…
Years ago (almost ten now!) when I was going through Black Belt training, I remember seeing the famous slide describing what a three-sigma world would look like. The presentation slide described how three-sigma aircraft landing performance would mean two long or short landings per day, and that 20,000 articles of mail would be lost per day at…
Well, let me start by saying – its GREAT to be back! After two years, a LOT can change from both a professional and personal standpoint, and I am really happy to contribute again! To kick the conversation off, I’d like to talk a little bit about a concept called Nimawashi, which in the Toyota…
(Continued from “Lean Journeys – Part 2“) Another year is upon us, and it’s time to look forward to new challenges and frontiers. It has been a while, and I will finally finish my thought on going lean from back in October! (Thanks for bearing with me – please refer back to “Lean Journeys –…
(Continued from “Lean Journeys – Part 1“) There were two departments in the plant, and the press area served both with most of their raw material. After about two weeks on the job, I found that my area was shutting down one assembly cell per day on average. As you could imagine, my stress level…
Deciding to go lean is very popular in today’s business climate. Eliminating overproduction and reducing excessive inventory (along with waste) is a must. If you’re a black-belt, you’re role may be central to the lean transformation (depending on the organization). Although there are many benefits to leaning-out operations, especially in a batch processing operation, there are…
One of the toughest challenges that a manufacturing black-belt faces is institutionalizing data collection systems that yield project-critical information. Whether the needed data is attribute or variable, it is still a tough challenge to implement the system.Once the GR&R issues are resolved, it doesn’t get any easier. At this point, the black-belt has to make…
To a black-belt, looking at problems from a SIPOC point of view comes naturally… creating process flow maps, identifying potential inputs, identifying internal and external customers, etc. These activities are (or should be) core to implementing a given black-belt project. To an engineer that has not been though six-sigma training, many times these processes are…