Category: Blogs

Successful innovation is not only about the creation of a new idea but also about its execution.

QFD speeds up the product development process by removing what doesn’t matter to the customer. Just like the Kano analysis, QFD is interested in what the customer says is important. The format of QFD removes the time-consuming activities that don’t add value.

We must understand the needs and values of the customers at a deeper level. To this end we employ Kano analysis.

The customer journey value stream (CJVS) is the best starting place for the Lean community to engage in the processes of product development.

Why hasn’t Lean revolutionized product development like it has operations? We don’t share product development knowledge.

By using smaller bites from a large problem, you can quantitatively assess performance and then apply improvement changes.

The Colorado Department of Transportation’s Lean Everyday Idea program has successfully implemented over 345 ideas as of fall 2020. But how does the word spread across an entire state?

The foremost purpose of the gemba walk is people-engagement. Here are some suggestions for conducting a gemba walk in the virtual space.

As we consider our business response to COVID-19, take a truly Lean approach. See JIT in the context of Lean and evolve it as necessary, using the change in environment to identify waste and see new problems as opportunities for new improvements.

Icebreakers can help teams to build community, promote interaction and foster empathy. Some of the go-to icebreakers I have used over the years have translated well into the virtual environment.

Why not do something novel and use the tool that is best for the job at hand independent of an acronym?

If there’s one thing that the coronavirus pandemic has made glaringly apparent, it’s that we need to do a better job with prioritization and, ultimately, delegation, execution and communication.

Someone asked: “Why do 5S [sort, simplify, shine, standardize, sustain]? It’s just going to get dirty again.”

Improvement is like a mighty fire. You must continue to add firewood to keep the fire burning. If you stop, the fire will surely burn out. Lots of repetition builds the fire of improvement capability and culture.

We read or hear “facts” and accept them without critical thought. This article reviews a sample of the kind of facts we accept in the workplace that sometimes we should not.

Lean can be of great value in office environments. However, the use of complex jargon and statistics, plus a focus on manufacturing, have hindered the adoption of these tools in other settings where they can be useful.

If your goal is control at all cost, or faster and deeper analysis, automation might be just the strategy for you. But if you need to retain and motivate your people to boost business performance, such a strategy of people avoidance is likely to come to a sticky end.

Depending upon the particular organization, quality may or may not be influential in management decision-making. Ultimately, it depends upon what is understood as quality. There may be more urgent tactical actions than those related to quality if the organization’s product or service quality is acceptable – it may not be perfect, but if it’s acceptable then that’s good enough.

Looking for good books to read on the topics of quality, Six Sigma, Lean and OpEx? This reading list shares the best quality-topic books of all-time and book recommendations by topic.

It is a time of change. The world is developing faster with each passing day. Continuous process improvement technologies, which could make these changes more significant and effective, trail far behind this trend. Who suffers? Companies that lose competition, people who cannot find a new place in the changed labor market and countries that are […]

Here’s the story about how the hypothesis testing flow chart was developed in Barcelona in 1995, as told by Mike Carnell.

There are seven success factors for why Six Sigma is a proven effective business change initiative.

After more than six months of hard work, iSixSigma is celebrating its relaunch today and I’m excited to announce the brand new, redesigned iSixSigma.com.

In the aerospace industry, zero defects has been the driver for customers and competition since Phil Crosby and his team at the Martin Company provided the Army with a zero defect missile in the 1960s. This is not a new concept but the first question that comes to mind is: how much do we need […]