Patrick Waddick

GE Financial Assurance has done a very good job of identifying process owners and baselining the entire organization in terms of processes and process owners. As you read in your first reply, the process owner is someone who is directly accountable for the quality performance (success or failure) of the process at hand.

DFSS is, in essence, the same as the DMADV methodology, and it does have the same wrinkles as the Deming wheel (Plan-Do-Check-Act). All the tools and concepts taught in a DMADV course are very familiar. The beauty of the methodology, though, is where the emphasis goes, and how all the tools, concepts, and phases fit together in a cohesive,…[Read more]

Statistics are an important piece of Six Sigma, because you have to possess good, sound metrics on the projects you are working on. If you are having difficulty with grasping some of the statistical concepts, seek someone out who can get you the help you need. What is indispensable and difficult to learn is the people skills and change agent…[Read more]

I agree that Gage R&R won’t solve the problems inherent in a vote counting process that is flawed. A Six Sigma vote counting process should be the standard for every state or locality to follow. Perhaps additional funding is not the concern here, but merely that more emphasis needs to be placed on defining a reliable, certifiable, (Six Sigma)…[Read more]

The press never reported why Florida requires a recount when the vote tally differential is within 0.5%. It must have been an arbitrary threshold, but it begs the question: Should vote counting be based on reliability studies (Gauge R & R) of the various methods of counting votes? I think it should. There should be a known threshold when the…[Read more]