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Directives are an important tool for organizations that seek to align employees with their goals, increase efficiency, and promote a culture of continuous improvement. Understanding Directives: Benefits, Best Practices, and Common Questions Directives are a critical tool for organizations seeking to improve their performance and achieve their goals. By providing clear guidance and expectations, directives […]

When there is a need for changes that will improve end products or components, it is necessary to have proper documentation so that there is a paper trail and to ensure the correct modifications occur. An engineer change order is an important part of making sure that necessary changes to products are handled in a […]

During the design or prototype stage of product development, there is a system of checks in place that can help make sure the product is successful in moving into the next stages. The products that are released into the mass market have gone through many stages of development so that they can be trusted by […]

Degrees of Freedom (DF) can be thought of as the amount of information you have to compute certain statistics. The more you want to compute, the more data and information you need. Let’s learn more about how to compute and use DF. You can think of DF as statistical money that you can spend to […]

In today’s fast-paced and competitive business landscape, organizations strive to enhance their operations, deliver superior quality, and meet customer expectations. To achieve these objectives, many organizations turn to DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, Control), a structured problem-solving methodology widely employed in Six Sigma. DMAIC provides organizations with a systematic approach to identifying process inefficiencies, reducing […]

Design risk assessment is a risk assessment framework that identifies, analyzes, and documents risks during a design project. When performing a design risk assessment, the team will assess all risks associated with the project including the design process. 

Unfortunately, sometimes your process produces unacceptable output. These are usually referred to as defects or defectives. Let’s examine what a defective item is and contrast it with a defect. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines a defective as: having a defect or flaw or imperfect in form, structure, or function. Simply put, a defect is a flaw […]

An in-depth look at the Lean Six Sigma customer — who they are, why they’re important, and how to win lifelong loyalty.

What does your process look like from 30,000 feet? Your extended process view can be described using COPIS, or customer, output, process, input, and supplier. Let’s get in our balloon and go up. 

When doing hypothesis testing, there is a risk of making two types of errors. One of them is the consumer’s risk, which is when the null hypothesis is rejected when it shouldn’t have been. 

Would you expect the average of a sample to be the same as the average of the population from which it came? No. Why not? Because of randomness and sampling error. How should we handle that? Let’s find out.

Listening to and engaging with your customer gives a powerful and unique insight into what your products and services should deliver to be successful. By developing a number of Critical to Customer requirements, you can build a strong foundation for customer satisfaction and commercial success.

This article will introduce you to control limits. You will learn about the role of control limits, how they were designed, and the role they play in process improvement.

The famed statistician, Dr. W. Edwards Deming, frequently talked about data and said, “Without data, you’re just another person with an opinion.” Let’s learn some more about data. Data refers to any information, facts, or statistics that can be collected, stored, and analyzed. It can be in the form of numbers, text, images, audio, or […]

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.

The customer just called again, wondering if the item they ordered will be on time. Will it? Do your company’s processes make it possible to be on time per the customer’s needs? Tto know that requires understanding how long it takes to produce the product, and that requires knowing your cycle times.  An overview: What […]

Cp is one of the metrics calculated for determining whether your process is capable of meeting customer specifications or requirements. It is useful in comparing different functions and their ability to meet their unique specifications.

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 they are calculated and related. The three are DPMO, Sigma Level and Cpk. Convert DPMO/Sigma to Cpk  Before discussing how you can convert DPMO (defects per million opportunities) to sigma level […]

Conformance is a term that refers to the degree to which a product, service, or system meets its specified requirements. It is the total of all expenses incurred by a company to meet a target quality level for a product or service.

Is quality free, as claimed by quality expert and author Philip Crosby? Or, is there a cost of quality (COQ) that your organization needs to understand and manage? 

The general concept of developing relationships with customers is certainly not strange to the business world. However, leveraging tailored digital solutions to take this concept to the next level in practice is relatively new. Modern CRM leverages digital infrastructure and tools to improve how businesses interact with people. Overview: What is customer relationship management? CRM […]

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.

Having a continuous approach in your organization can be both positive and negative, depending on what it is in regard to. When it comes to improvement, being continuous is ideal. Striving for continuous improvement in your organization furthers the success of your company. Striving for continuity in other aspects, however, can be detrimental. Overview: What […]

What is performance in the workplace judged upon? What makes an exceptional worker? Being able to boil down the most important features is key to pinpointing the expectations of a worker’s performance. These key features are the critical elements. Overview: What is a critical element? A critical element can be defined as an aspect of […]

Competition for products and services is cutthroat, and survival should not be taken for granted. Implementing continuous improvement into your organisation and embedding it into your business culture keeps you one step ahead of the pack, locking in both customer and employee loyalty.

Some companies struggle to operate within budget because they do not understand the difference between what is possible in theory and what’s possible given the constraints of their business. Knowing the how, when, and why about setting cost related targets helps gain that understanding and is crucial to knowing what systems are realistically capable of.

Cost of poor quality, also known as COPQ, are the direct and indirect costs associated with the defects generated by a process. COPQ impacts the financial bottom line in both the short and long term, so it’s important to address quality errors in a timely manner.

Defects are products or services that fail to meet customer requirements. By understanding defects created, we can work to reduce or eliminate them and ensure customer satisfaction.

Understanding continuous data will give you an advantage that is critical to successful process analysis. This article will explain the crucial role of continuous data in process improvement.

Lean Six Sigma professionals, much like every other professional, love to talk in acronyms. The acronym of the day is DPMO. Let’s check out what it means.

When you make improvements to your processes, that is not enough. It is important to put measures in place that ensure that the work that has been done can be sustained.In the DMAIC process, your problem is defined, measurements are taken, analysis occurs, and improvements are made. After all of this, comes the final control […]

Critical of quality is the path to customer satisfaction. Learn how Critical to Quality impacts the ability to satisfy your customer, the benefits of addressing CTQ related issues, and see an example.

Corrective action is the process, known as a corrective action plan (CAP), of taking the appropriate steps to identify the root cause of a problem and implementing a solution that corrects the root cause as to prevent its recurrence. The aim is to improve the processes in place within an organization so that problems do […]

Cpk is one of the metrics calculated for determining whether a process is capable of meeting customer specifications or requirements. 

If you stretch a rubber band and let it go, it will snap back to its original position. The same is true of your any process improvements you make. The control plan is intended to help you maintain the gains you have achieved. 

The use of center points in your designed experiments can be valuable in determining the actual relationship between your input factors and your response variable. Let’s explain this in a little more detail. 

Finding the center point of your data set can be deceptively simple. There are a few different methods that you should be aware of when determining the central tendency, which come into play depending on the nature of your data. Determining the center point of your data set can be helpful in a variety of […]

“Business value added” refers to the actions the customer may not directly be requiring, but that are necessary for you to stay in business over time. There are safety, preventative, and legal requirements that necessitate these tasks.

Problems are going to arise in business, but the companies that succeed in the long term are those that find the true causes of those problems and find ways to keep them from happening again. When an issue occurs, the inclination is to stop it quickly. While this is fine, it is important to actually […]

Often organizations do a root cause analysis after a problem has occurred. Is there something you can do as a preventive action prior to something happening. Let’s learn more about CAPA. Corrective and Preventive Action (CAPA) is a systematic approach used in various industries, including manufacturing, healthcare, and quality management, to identify and address the […]

Lean Six Sigma is a process improvement methodology that uses data to identify and solve problems in business processes. One of the main tools used in Lean Six Sigma is the process flow diagram, which is used to map out the steps in a process and identify where waste occurs. The diagram can be used […]

Getting to grips with the many different causes of defects and quality issues is key to ensuring business success and avoiding customer dissatisfaction. The cause and effect diagram is a clear, visual representation of all possible causes and keeps the team focused upon quality improvement.

Businesses need structure in order to operate properly. This need for structure extends into nearly all aspects of an organization, including who holds the decision rights. In your organization, it is necessary for the procedures behind how processes and projects are implemented to be clear and definitive. Choosing the appropriate owner of the decision rights […]

Early on in our educational development, most of us received a simple worksheet that explained cause and effect. The importance of what causes are and the effects that come from them did not end in childhood but is important as an adult too, especially in the business world. Knowing what the causes are for the […]

This is what I want! This is what I need! This is how I want it to perform! You need to embark upon a process to take your customers’ qualitative wants and needs and translate them into specific customer requirements. 

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 […]

If you have a non-conforming or defective product coming off your production line, what do you do with it? Utilizing a strategy of containment might be the way to go. Let’s learn more about this. Containment of non-conforming products refers to the actions you take to prevent the distribution or use of products that do […]

Is there a relationship between wearing your seatbelt and whether or not you survive an auto accident? Is there a relationship between studying and whether you pass an exam? These are the types of questions a Chi-Square Test can answer.

Organizations love to talk in terms of averages. They talk about average sales, average units produced, or the average time to complete an invoice. But, is that adequate? Let’s explore other measures of central tendency and answer that question.

If you look at the dashboard of your car, you will see information related to the car’s performance and the progress of your journey. When you look at your business dashboard, you can see examples of similar information.