Category: Metrics
Converting DPMO to Sigma Level and Cpk: A Step-by-Step Guide
Published:How do you convert DPMO to Sigma Level? There are several metrics you can use to measure how well your process is performing. Let’s look at three of them and discuss how to calculate them and how they relate. The three are DPMO, Sigma Level, and Cpk. Convert DPMO/Sigma to Cpk Before discussing […]
Read more »The Road to Success: How KPIs Support Goal Achievement
Updated:Key performance indicators (KPIs) are critical to ensuring a project team has the performance data it needs to sustain improvements. With KPIs, a team can evaluate the success of a project against its established goals. Types of Metrics There are two types of metrics to consider when selecting KPIs for a project: outcome metrics and […]
Read more »Five Ways Throughput Improves Your Business
Updated:In business, it is important to know if your company is reaching its potential as far as how much of your product or service is successfully getting to your customers. One way is to look at your throughput and see if there is room for improvement.
Read more »Metrics: A Powerful Tool for Measuring Business Performance
Updated:Short description: Do you want to succeed? The best way to do so is by using metrics. Using Lean Six Sigma metrics ensures that you get the most important tasks done first and makes you a stronger company in the long run.
Read more »The Benefits of Using Overall Equipment Effectiveness in Your Manufacturing Process
Updated:Would it be useful to have a simple metric for measuring how well your manufacturing process is working? That is exactly what Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) is all about. Let’s learn a little more about OEE.
Read more »Managing Work in Process: Best Practices for Optimal Workflow
Updated:Proper WIP management creates both quick wins and long term improvements. Here’s what you need to know.
Read more »Understanding Six Sigma: Definition, Benefits, and Best Practices
Updated:Six Sigma has been defined in three ways: as a metric, a methodology, and a philosophy. Sigma can be defined as the standard deviation of a set of continuous data, so Six Sigma would then be six standard deviations.
Read more »Project ROI: A Key Metric for Project Selection and Resource Allocation
Updated:Financial project metrics can be cumbersome to use and jargon-heavy. We demystify and simplify project return on investment, making the concept accessible to all and giving you the confidence to use it in your project management operations.
Read more »Assessing Process Performance: The Value of Establishing Baselines
Updated:How do you know if your diet is working? You need to start with a baseline and then measure change from that. You should do the same for all your processes. From that process baseline, you can know whether your process is getting better, worse, or not changing. The term “process baseline” typically refers to […]
Read more »The Crucial Role of Primary Metrics in Validating Six Sigma Improvements
Updated:The primary metric is a numeric output used to understand your process. It makes the process objective, setting the stage for successful improvements that align with the organization’s strategic goals.
Read more »The Impact of Key Business Issues: Understanding and Addressing Critical Challenges
Updated:Are all your organization’s problems and issues of equal importance? Probably not. How should you handle those that are the most critical and important? Let’s find out. A Key Business Issue (KBI) refers to a critical problem or challenge that your organization faces, which can significantly impact your performance, growth, or competitiveness. KBIs are specific […]
Read more »The Role of Dashboards in Monitoring Organizational Performance
Updated:If you look at the dashboard of your car, you will see a display of the current real-time status of important metrics. You can do the same thing with your business metrics.
Read more »Quality Metrics in Focus: Analyzing Defects Per Unit
Updated:Learn how defects per unit is used to understand the quality levels regarding defects, how DPU compares to other yield metrics, and the benefits of regularly measuring the metric.
Read more »Boosting Customer Satisfaction: The Advantages of a Centralized Performance Center
Updated:Does your organization have a centralized department or function that monitors and tracks the performance of your operations relative to your customers? If you do, let’s see what it might be doing. The term “Customer Operations Performance Center” is not a widely recognized or standardized term, so its exact meaning may vary depending on the […]
Read more »Use Earned Value Management for Process Improvement
Published:Whenever there is an issue in a process, attempts are made to identify the process step that is causing the problem, identify the root cause and come up with a corrective or preventive action. The time taken to identify the “right” process step is directly proportional to the number of process steps involved and it […]
Read more »Build a Visual Dashboard in 10 Steps
Published:Three years into the Lean Six Sigma deployment at Ball Corporation (the company known for its glass canning jars), the process improvement team began a visual factory initiative. This initiative was intended to develop visual signs on plant floors that not only instruct employees about where to focus their energies, but also depict the health […]
Read more »Successful LSS Projects Start with Proper Metric Selection
Published:A successful Lean Six Sigma (LSS) project will produce either breakthrough performance – a shift in the mean or median – or variation reduction – a shift in the standard deviation or variation. How do you know your project has undergone a shift in the process that benefits the business? If there has been a […]
Read more »Case Study: Using Logical Thinking Process Tools
Published:In 2010, the finance department of a Fortune 500 company established a quality audit (QA) system for the company’s operations. Toward the end of 2011, the general feeling on the floor was that the QA system was effective and the quality of work in the department was improving. The metrics, however, were not improving. A […]
Read more »Reap a Return on Investment
Published:Return on investment (ROI) measures/evaluates an investment. It can be thought of in general terms as: (gain from investment) (cost of investment) / cost of investment The specifics of a calculation will vary depending upon the type of investment being assessed. The best ROI references on iSixSigma can be found at the following links: Ask […]
Read more »Seeing Opportunity Through 3-DMAIC Glasses
Published:Everything seems to be available in 3-D these days – movies, magazines and even television – so why not DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, Control)? The idea may sound silly, but many opportunities go unnoticed because practitioners do not have the right tools in place to see them from different perspectives. The traditional DMAIC process […]
Read more »How to Improve Project Cycle Time
Published:A common metric many organizations use to assess the performance of their Lean Six Sigma program is project cycle time – the total time from the beginning to the end of a process improvement project, including total process time and all delays. If your organization’s project cycle time is running higher than your targeted rate, […]
Read more »Better Project Management Through Beta Distribution
Published:As a Six Sigma professional responsible for managing projects, have you ever been asked the following questions? When do you reasonably expect to complete your project? What’s the probability of completing the project on time or on a given date? Which activities on the critical path should you focus your attention on to meet the […]
Read more »The Importance of Implementing Effective Metrics
Updated:When a company promises and delivers on quality, there is a good chance that customer satisfaction and retention will be high. But paving the road to success depends on companies being well-informed about their own business. They achieve that knowledge by developing and utilizing effective metrics. Why Do We Need Metrics? Metrics are used to […]
Read more »Six Sigma Software Metrics, Part 3
Published:Parts one and two of this series surveyed the work connected with several goals shared by software organizations and Six Sigma (Goals 1-3 in Table 1). We saw that reaching those goals involved establishing systems to identify defects, classify them according to type and point of origin, predict their occurrence, and assess actual defect find […]
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