Pete Abilla over at shmula has set up a question answer session with Craig Gygi, author of Six Sigma for Dummies and the Six Sigma Workbook for Dummies. Just ask Craig a question in the comments section of the blog and Pete will be post Craig’s answers in a few weeks. Pete says that Craig…
The United States military has recently ramped up process improvement initiatives in the Air Force, Army and Navy. Mark Graban over at the Lean Blog recently wrote a post about the Lean efforts of the Air Force. I thought I’d share even more information about the program here. The primary goal of Air Force Smart…
iSixSigma Blogosphere Newsletter Guest Blog – May 15, 2007 Dawn Mular, Sun Microsystems employee and blogger, recently wrote Top 10 Program Mistakes (Green Belt) Programs Make… First, I like that she plugs the Software channel of iSixSigma, linking to the recent article, Top 10 Program Mistakes Software Green Belts in Training Make, but more importantly…
My favorite part of the Leadership Conference is diving into the softer side of Six Sigma, the people side of the equation. I spent the afternoon on the first day in the Predictive Index session led by Heather Haas, the director of strategic initiatives for Bob Wilson & Associates. First off, Heather did a fabulous…
Mike is the Associate VP of Six Sigma for sanofi-aventis. He is also the author of Applying the Science of Six Sigma to the Art of Sales & Marketing. Mike is very energetic and enthusiastic. Watch out Don Linsenmann, you’ve got competition. Mikemade some great jokes, but not enough sugar had kicked in from our…
I’ve only got one more session to attend before I pick the family up at the pool and head for home. The snacks this afternoon are really good. They are setting up now. Popcorn, licorice, candy bars, soda, peanuts and soft pretzels with queso.. Just what we need for the next session. Good thing I’m…
Jim Pearson, VP Customer Advocasy at EMC Corporation, just finished his presentation about Lean Six Sigma at EMC. I interviewed Jim nearly two years ago about their Six Sigma deployment. Jimshared EMC’s Lean Six Sigma program building blocks: Centralized training program Single online repository Established financial guidelines Certification and recognition programs Mentor and facilitations offerings…
Chris Jones, I&CIM Global Deployment Champion for Delphi is speaking now. He’s laying out the case for change at Delphi. In a nutshell, because their customers demanded it. Delphi’s Enterprise-wide Strategy: Tools, process, and culture, encompassed by Kaizen: Tools are tools. You use themto help solve problems. Process is THE problem solving framework integrated in…
I’m here for day two of the ISSSP Leadership Conference. Rox is opening the general meeting, thanking everyone for the fun at the Grand Evening last night. From Michael Cyger’s pictures, we know that Minitab had a good time… Today we’re going to talk about change management. The emcee is Jeanenne LaMarsh, Founder and CEO…
After a much needed break, we’re back in the main hall and will hear from Rusty Patterson, VP Customer and Supply Chain Institute for Raytheon. His presentation is titled, “What’s Next for Six Sigma? Transforming Your Company to Remain Competitive.” Raytheon kicked off Six Sigma in the beginning of 1999. For cornerstones for Six Sigma…
Next up is Stephen Turnipseed, Lean Six Sigma Advisor for Chevron Global Upstream. I’ve heard Stephen speak before. He is a great speaker. Chevron does not have the luxury of a CEO driven deployment. They started Six Sigma as a grassroots deployment, and it has been expanding. Now it’s moving into supply chain. Steve is…
The ISSSP Leadership Conference general session has started. Roxanne O’Braskey is welcoming the attendees and giving a shout out to the 18 SKF employees from around the world that are here today. Marty Sherber is the Master of ceremonies, he is the senior VP of client development for AIT. He’s also a 5th degree Master…
The May/June issueof iSixSigma Magazine has hit the shelves (metaphorically speaking of course) as well as cyberspace via the digital edition. If you do not subscribe to the magazine you are really missing out on a wealth of information. I’m not just saying that because I work for the Magazine. I was hooked on iSixSigma…
Pete Abilla who runs the shmula blog has just started working as the process improvement leader at eBay. I have been reading shmula since Pete started blogging and can honestly say that he is one of the best process improvement bloggers out there. I often link to him in the Guest Blogger section of the…
Michael Cyger has been on an office cleaning frenzy lately, giving away books for trivia ¦ I thought I’d do a little spring cleaning myself. I’ve got five Cox-Box wall calendars sitting on my shelf when they should be hanging up in your office. I’ll send one calendar out to the first five people to email…
The IBM Institute for Business Value released a study earlier this year entitled “Driving operational innovation using Lean Six Sigma.” This study showcases how three companies – Caterpillar, POSCO, and Scottish Power have elevated Lean Six Sigma to do more than improve processes and reduce costs: Although CEOs might instinctively think of management approaches such…
Meridian Gold finds and produces gold with its mining operations in Chile as well as a pipeline of exploration projects throughout the Americas. While continuous improvement is nothing new to the El Peñón mine, they recently began using Six Sigma in their Operational Excellence initiative: Edgar Smith, Meridian’s Vice President of Operations, commented, “I am…
Here’s your chance to tell us what you think about the iSixSigma Blogosphere.
Textron released an article last week entitled, Bob Zimering, a Textron Master Black Belt, Discusses Six Sigma at Textron and Responds to Some of the Critics. In the article Bob Zimering does exactly as the title suggests. He responds to the Fortune article where Qualpro said that Six Sigma companies trail in the S&P… Textron’s…
As research manager for iSixSigma Magazine, I spend my Decembersanalyzing the data from the iSixSigma Job Shop to figure out who makes what and where they make it. I really enjoy crunching the numbers because I get to spend so much time in Minitab. (My love for Minitab waskindled by my Black Belt instructor, Paul…
I was speaking with Joe Ficalora, EVP of Technology for Sigma Breakthrough Technologies, Inc., at the IQPC Miami Summit in January and we got to talking about all the bad press Six Sigma had been getting lately. Joe told me that he and his colleague Joe Costello had co-written a letter to the author of the…
Mayor Graham Richard of Fort Wayne Indiana recently published a new book called Performance is the Best Politics: How to create high-performance government using Lean Six Sigma. In conjuncton with the book the Mayor launched a new website, http://www.performanceisthebestpolitics.com,that offers previews of case studies included in the book. In the Mayor’s own words: “This book…
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…
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…
Let me introduce you to the iSixSigma published report, Six Sigma Saves a Fortune.
Last year for the holidays I wrote about Amazon and their Six Sigma efforts. This year let me introduceyou to a much smaller store, yet still striving for Six Sigma. The Christmas Decorations & Gifts Store endeavorsto spread Christmas cheer and customer delight to their patrons by practicing Six Sigma. From their website: “We are…
The ghost of Christmas past pointed me to this interview with no other than the man himself – Santa Claus. Rod Morgan of e-Zsigma was fortunate enough to meet Santa and ask him all the details surrounding Six Sigma at the North Pole. Below is an excerpt where Santa describes how Six Sigma was brought…
To better acquaint their employees with Six Sigma, the Y-12 National Security Complex published the following story in their January 2002 employee newsletter. Bechtel Shares a Six Sigma Parable You may have heard about the most recent process improvement initiative, Six Sigma, which is taking off like wild fire around America. Corporate giants like Motorola,…
We’’ve all been to the post office and waited in line for what seems like eternity…. At the post office, it’s first in, first out. One postal worker for each transaction. With the holidays upon us, I’’m sure we’ll all have the experience again soon. The following story didn’t happen in a post office. This…
I read a very cool article in BusinessWeek yesterday called The Making of…a LEGO. (Brought to my attention via Slashdot.) While the article doesn’t actually talk about Six Sigma it does tell us a little about the manufacturing process of the LEGO bricks: “The bricks are so meticulously made that the company claims that out…
Seth Godin points us to a positive customer service story regarding a flat tire. I’d like to tell you my story…the exact opposite experience at my local big chaintire shop. My tire went flat while I was out. Luckily I happened to be next to a gas station. I managed to fill it up enough…
Last year to celebrate Six Sigma and Thanksgiving, I directed you to a couple of Thanksgiving DOEs. This year let’s talk apple pie. The Bama Companies make a mean apple pie. In fact they make millions of them each year. Not quite the same as the apple pie that my wife bakes for Thanksgiving, but…
What a great way to return Six Sigma savings back into growing the business: Fund innovation projects. It’s also a nice synergy between Six Sigma and Innovation.
The 30 Rock Six Sigma reference got me thinking about Six Sigma at NBC Universal… not much searching later I found a Six Sigma educational video produced by the quality team at NBCU and narrated by Linda Hildebrandt, a Master Black Belt on the quality team. The self-made video is professional quality (would you expect…
My mother-in-law (we call her TiVo) said she was watching 30 Rocklast week…(just one of the many, many showsshe records, hence the name TiVo) and told me about a scene where Jack Donaghy (Alec Baldwin) explains Six Sigma to his staff writers. Well, I went a looking for it and thanks to YouTube here’s the…
Nortel Networks recently hired Ellen Bovarnick to run their newly deployed Six Sigma program. Ellen was previously the VP of Process Excellence at Coca-Cola. Mike Zafirovski,CEO of Nortel, is the former President and Chief Operating Officer of Motorola and before that spent 25 years at GE…No wonder he is pushing Six Sigma at Nortel! Six…
First, a special thanks to Dominic at the Fortune Business Innovation Insiderblog for directing me to this story. OK, this Halloween/Six Sigma connection is a small stretch… ConocoPhillips, the sponsor of this giant pumpkin, is a Six Sigma company. If you are in Southern California stop by the refinery for a visit: “ConocoPhillips extends an…
Blood Systems Laboratories, a division of Blood Systems, is the second largest blood testing company in the United States (second only to the Red Cross). They launched a Six Sigma program early in 2004. The Blood Systems 2005 Annual Report highlights Blood Systems Laboratories’ Six Sigma achievements: “Completed 18 Six Sigma/Rapid Action Planning (RAP) projects…
I imagine that Halloween is to Hershey’s as St. Patty’s Day is to Green. You can’t have one without the other. I love Hershey’s Chocolate…. whether it’s a Kit Kat, Reese’s, Mounds, or Almond Joy (sometimes I do feel like a nut), a Kiss or a Hug, or my favorite, a Special Dark Miniature, when…
To help prepare you for theHalloween spirit, this week I’ll be posting Six Sigma stories with a Halloween twist… I’ll cover the frightening, the sweet and the orange…. Today, let me introduce you to the Dark Side of Six Sigma – Six Sigmathe fuzzrock trio based out of Long Branch, New Jersey. These guys seriously…
Six Sigma Academy has announced that Mikel J. Harry, author of Six Sigma: The Breakthrough Management Strategy Revolutionizing the World’s Top Corporations, and founder of Six Sigma Academy, will rejoin the firm as Vice Chairman & Chief Knowledge Officer. This is big news for the Six Sigma community and as well as a strategic move…
Today, XGP Gaming released an interview with Stuart Scott, CIO of Microsoft. In the interview Stuart talks about his first year as CIO with Microsoft and he elaborates on wherehe sees Microsoft ITheaded in the next few years.When questioned about his goals for Microsoft IT, Stuart stated: “…we expect to cut business complexity in half…
Just three of the IQPC team that worked tirelessly to make the conference a success. The George Group Larry Goldman and Mark Briscoe of Decisioneering Eric Nadler of iGrafx The Instantis Team jmp on a customer demo The Quality Group SigmaFlow showcasing Coach SixNet Intelligence System Clark Swain of NIMBUS Richard Teerlink book signing The…
Richard Teerlink, Former Chairman of Harley-Davidson, taught us that we need to embrace change if we are to be successful. He opened with a quote from Eric Hoffer: “In the times of change the learners will inherit the earth while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world than no longer exists.”…
Day two began with remarks by Steve Dubrow, today’s conference chair. Richard Goldberg, Vice President of Corporate Quality at Cisco gave a terrific overview of Cisco Lean. First he explained what Cisco Lean is: Cisco Lean is going: •From push to pull •From higher inventory levels to inventory reduced across supply chain •From redundant processes…
We saw the King! A special sign just for us. Debby Sollenberger and Joe Ficalora of Sigma Breakthrough Technologies (SBTI) Tracee Beebe and Bryan Carey of DeLeeuw Associates. One cool Steve DuBrow of i-Solutions The one, the only, Chris Paret showcasing the Quality Companion 2. Additional Conference Photos IQPC Day Two: Photos