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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Rachel Glassford (888) 744-6295 December 14, 2015 (Kitchener, Ontario) – SigmaXL Inc., a leading provider of user friendly Excel Add-ins, announces the release of DiscoverSim Version 2 for Monte Carlo Simulation and Global Optimization. DiscoverSim is now bundled with MIDACO, one of the world’s strongest evolutionary solvers for global optimization.  MIDACO […]

In this case study, a team wants to be sure their customer-focused business is satisfying its clients. Part 1 focuses on reducing the wait times associated with transferring cargo and documents. Part 2 looks at making more improvements using just-in-time (JIT) principles. A 15-year-old shipping company with a network of offices throughout India considered being “value-driven, customer-focused” […]

New SQCpack is quality control for anyone, anytime—now with Six-Way Analysis™ FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Caryn Schockling [email protected] (800) 777-3020 December 10, 2015 (Dayton, Ohio) – PQ Systems announces the release of SQCpack 7, a comprehensive update to their best-selling statistical process control (SPC) solution that helps organizations utilize the power of data analysis to improve […]

Lean Six Sigma (LSS) can have a major positive impact on organizations that apply it; however, not every company has achieved the desired results. One of the reasons for that lack of success is the inability to sustain improvements yielded from LSS projects. Through LSS projects the aim is to make improvements to address a […]

It is an old dilemma. Should we select our Black Belt candidates based on prior performance in unrelated jobs or should we allow people to self-select for Black Belt roles based upon motivation and aptitude? Unfortunately, the answer is clearly, “It depends.” There are advantages to each approach and each approach has specific perils. When […]

One would think that with the levels of standardization and process efficiency we drive in Lean Six Sigma that there would be consensus on how much training a certified Black Belt should receive. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, despite the herculean efforts by the American Society of Quality (ASQ) and the […]

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 […]

Within Six Sigma’s change acceleration process, GRPI (goals, roles and responsibilities, process, and interpersonal skills) is a tool for team development. The GRPI model should be used in the following scenarios: When initiating a new team and planning its first steps When a team is not working well and it is not clear why GRPI […]

From safety to quality to productivity, there’s a trend in the way organizations have approached process-oriented movements. Starting as the responsibility of an individual or a group of people, to be successful, the movement inevitably shifts to shared accountability – it becomes the responsibility of everybody, every day. Professional problem solvers that have taken this […]

Every process falls into one of four states: Ideal: produces 100 percent conformance and is predictable Threshold: predictable but produces the occasional defect Brink of chaos: not predictable and does not produce defects Chaos: not predictable and produces defects at an unacceptable rate Processes tend to migrate toward chaos if not effectively managed. Pre-control Charts […]

Every organization aspires to grow with time. The most common hurdle faced by an organization in the path of scalability is the absence of proper processes and systems. To overcome this, an organization needs to adopt a standard approach to business process creation and documentation. All business processes should be documented in a systematic way […]

Every organization is under pressure to drive success for shareholders, stakeholders and owners. Organizations retreat to their comfort zones when challenged with achieving higher levels of success. Frequently, this results in controlling the bottom line. Continuous improvement can be used to enable top-line growth. Figure 1 shows a compelling reason to focus on improving your […]

Have you been paying attention to your iSixSigma User Profile rankings? We’ve had a couple of community members jump levels in the past few months. We offer our thanks and congratulations to them for being a part of the iSixSigma community! Gary P. Cox: Silver Shelby Jarvis: Silver Forgotten what the rankings are? Want to […]

A high-tech company was exploring the use of haptics to provide gentle haptic vibration with wearable devices (Figure 1) for future customers, including tweens (children around 11 or 12 years old). Haptics involve how users perceive tactile feedback from a device. Mobile devices typically provide haptic sensations and responses using vibrations of various frequencies, amplitude, […]

Consider the following contact center scenario. Janet, a mobile consumer, calls her telecom provider and lands at the Contact Center. Janet: Your network connectivity is poor in the Dukes and 53rd area. I keep dropping business calls when I commute through it every day. Advisor: Thank you for the location details. Is there any specific […]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Press Contact: Caryn Schockling [email protected] (800) 777-3020 May 13, 2015 (Dayton, Ohio) – PQ Systems announces the release of SQCpack 7, a comprehensive update to their best-selling statistical process control (SPC) solution that helps organizations utilize the power of data analysis to improve quality. SQCpack 7 is an easy and scalable application that […]

Faced with stiffening competition, increasingly demanding customers, high labor costs, and, in some markets, slowing growth, service businesses around the world are trying to boost their productivity. Although manufacturing businesses can raise productivity levels by monitoring and reducing waste and variance in their relatively homogeneous production and distribution processes, service businesses find that improving performance […]

The full value of any improvement initiative is realized only when it is complemented by a robust change management strategy to effectively manage the people side of the change throughout the course of improvement cycle. What Is Change Management? Change management is a systematic approach to transitioning individuals, teams and organizations to a desired future […]

The Northern Regional Medical Command (NRMC) Office of the Chief Medical Information Officer (CMIO) is a team of high-caliber military and civilian leaders tasked with deploying and supporting the use of information technology across 33 hospitals and clinics up and down the Eastern seaboard and extending as far West as the Mississippi River. This monumental […]

Overall equipment efficiency (OEE) – the percentage of production time that is actually productive – has its roots in manufacturing where all production ceases when the equipment is offline. It is possible to gain a greater understanding of how effectively a system is operating, however, by expanding the concept to include all process steps in […]

I have to admit this is one of my favorite subjects – beer! Recently I toured the Ellis Island Casino and Brewery in Las Vegas. Our guide stated that their customers loved “cold” beer. Like most of you I immediately thought of Six Sigma critical-to-quality (CTQ) trees. (Yes, this stuff can be a curse.) As […]

If you’re a job candidate, and you search on Google or Bing for Lean Six Sigma certification, you’re likely to only see the training providers paying the most to have the highest listing on the page, or you may only be looking at the provider with the lowest advertised price. How do you figure out […]

The Lean Six Sigma (LSS) tool 6S has long been used by LSS practitioners as a tool for organizing work spaces from shop floors to operating rooms. This tool can also have tremendous value in organizing an area where many workers spend the majority of their work time – the electronic workspace. 6S Overview 6S […]

The Difference Between a Growth Mindset and a Fixed Mindset “I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it.” – Pablo Picasso As the engineering manager of a large manufacturing facility, Rick had a knack for identifying talent. Rick had a set of criteria that […]

The goals of standard work are simple and straightforward. They are to: Provide everyone who performs a task with a well-documented, visual system that guides them through the proper execution of that task. Ensure that everyone performing a task follows a consistent reproducible process that minimizes opportunities for variation and error. Ensure that work flows […]

The startling fact is that most continuous improvement programs – whether they use Six Sigma, Lean, total quality management or some other methodology – fail to survive in the long term (Edward Pound, 2014). This stands in stark contrast with programs like the Toyota Production System that has been successful for over 60 years and […]

Have you been paying attention to your iSixSigma User Profile rankings? We’ve had a couple of community members jump levels in the past month. We offer our thanks and congratulations to them for being a part of the iSixSigma community! Chris Seider: Gold Trish G: Silver Michael Carver: Copper Forgotten what the rankings are? Want […]

Every statistician knows that basing a decision on limited data is certain to generate problems. Non-statisticians, however, may find making a decision without any data a bad habit to break. “Point mentality” – responding immediately to data that seems to indicate a change but may just be a reflection of natural variation – is even […]

LinkedIn, the largest and most popular business-oriented social networking service, announced over the weekend their top 25 “hottest skills” of 2014. What is a “hot skill” you’re likely wondering, as I did. Basically, LinkedIn looked across all 330 million member profiles, determined who was hired, which jobs were posted that recruiters were searching for talented […]

The best of iSixSigma 2014 features the highlights of this year’s content – as determined by our readers. Most Popular Build a Visual Dashboard in 10 Steps The Lean Six Sigma team at Ball Corporation began an initiative to develop visual signs on plant floors that would depict the health of the company and point […]