Michael Marx

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 […]