Tony Burns

Dear Stan,
” [email protected] ” as displayed in my recent messages, is my e-mail address, not a web site address. It would be polite for you to display yours.
You are entitled to your opinion about e-learning. Hundreds of thousands of people would disagree with you.
Dr Tony Burns
[email protected]

The author is Dr Donald Wheeler. SPC Press.
It’s very thorough and great reading.
Dr Tony Burns
[email protected]

Your dilemma is a common one in large corporations. It is compounded by issues of ensuring training consistency; costs, including travel and accommodation; employee off-the-job time; and training management. Have you considered e-learning ? If you are interested, I can arrange for you to speak to people in a similar situation to yourself, who have…[Read more]

Normality cannot be assumed for any distribution. There are a variety of ways to estimate dispersion, described in detail in Chapter 3 “Advanced Topics in SPC”. Looking at the extreme tail of a distribution is not one of the methods listed. The tail is a very poor indicator of the shape of the dog.
Dr Tony Burns
[email protected]

MMB,
I would assume your comments apply to a particular e-learning product with which you have had experience. Making general statements is like saying “green belts can’t learn from books”. Certainly, green belts might find “Advanced Topics in SPC” rather intimidating but there is much material designed to suit every level.
I have seen e…[Read more]

Dear Susan,
I’ve been involved in this area for the past 14 years. If you’d like to email me I can help you with some articles and other information.
Dr Tony Burns
[email protected]
 

Reigle,
It’s great to see that you follow the Wheeler “bible”. It is a wonderful book that everyone on the forum should read and study. The chapters I referred to discuss control charts in great detail and the difference between “short term” variation within groups and “long term” variation. For Wheeler’s view on six sigma, you have to go to…[Read more]

Ricardo,
Exactly what are you measuring or counting? What is the process?
Dr Tony Burns
http://www.q-skills.com/sixsigmatraining.htm
[email protected]
 

Reigle,Your note focusses on the differences between “short term” and “long term” variances:”…After an extended period of sampling we can use one-way anova to compute the “within set” variation and the total variation. This gives us the sums of squares within sets (short-term) and the total sums of squares (long-term). …”This is precisely w…[Read more]

Rare events may be plotted on an XmR chart using the event rate (inverse time between events). The events on the chart, should relate to a similar cause. If possible, it is always preferable to take measurements and plot the variable on a control chart, rather than counting rejects.Dr Tony Burns

Joyce,What is your process? What are you measuring?Dr Tony Burns

Dr Scott,
You said: “There is not such animal as long or short term or a 1.5 sigma shift.”
There is indeed such an animal. He was a horse called “Clever Hans” and he was part of what is known as the Pygmalion Effect or the self-fulfilling prophesy. If you expect the mean to shift, it eventually will if nothing is done to manage the process … a…[Read more]

Dear Weipeng,
I can’t agree more that if you win the hearts, the minds will follow … and using games is the perfect way to do that.
This forum doesn’t allow advertisements but if you email me at [email protected]  I will direct you to something that should suit your needs.
Dr Tony Burns

John,
Would you mind posting your document as an RTF please. My virus checker detected a malicious script. DOC’s can have attached viruses. RTF’s can’t.
Thanks,
Dr Tony Burns
http://www.q-skills.com/sixsigmatraining.htm

“3” is used when there is a single spec limit.
Dr Tony Burns
http://www.q-skills.com/sixsigmatraining.htm
[email protected]

Trends are one of the 4 detection rules in the Western Electric Handbook. They are indicators that a process may be about to produce out of spec product (even if spec limits have been set at 6 sigma ! ).
Shewhart only used Rule 1 : Lack of control is indicated when a point falls outside outside a control limit.
Wheeler recommends Rule 1. He…[Read more]

Why not go to the core? Read Wheeler, then collect the papers by Taylor, Evans, Bender etc and write a critique.
Dr Tony Burns
[email protected]

Katherine,
There was an earlier thread on call centres. I pointed out that the distribution of call times is a good example of a strongly non-normal distribution. (Six sigma focuses on normal distributions).
Dr Tony Burns
[email protected]

We are not in a world of zero defects. Low defect rates are only possible when a process is behaving predictably. A process that is in statistical control is operating as consistently as it can. A process that is not in control, is in a state of chaos and there is nothing that can be done to prevent defects.
Our focus should be on bringing…[Read more]

Yes, I agree “PS Zero defects is very easy to measure”. You may recall it’s a process called “Quality Assurance”. I understand that Quality Assurance was initially introduced in World War II when munitions were inspected and tested for defects after they were made. This was superceded by methodologies focussing on reducing variation in p…[Read more]