Tag: change

While you hope everything goes smoothly and as planned, sometimes you have to make a change in your existing product or product design. The engineering change request is the form you use to initiate the changes.

This article will introduce you to special cause control chart patterns. You will learn why special cause variation is one of the foundational concepts in quality improvement and the use of special cause variation in process improvement.

Do you feel that implementing change in your organization is going too slowly? So did Jack Welch of GE, which is why GE developed the Change Acceleration Process (CAP). Let’s explore how the concepts of CAP might help your organization.

In these difficult economic times it is vital now more than ever that organizational leadership understand and implement the best defense against all types of waste. Value added analysis and percentage increases to the overall value added activity must be among the top measurements for all employees. Non-value activities need to be reduced and cultural […]

As improvement project leaders, Belts can sometimes lose track of an important factor in the success of a project: the impact that any changes stemming from the project will have on the stakeholders. As they rush quickly into data collection and employ tools such as failure mode and effects analysis, cause and effect matrix and […]

From time to time, Belts may meet people who strongly oppose the implementation of Lean Six Sigma. These people may have had bad experiences, such as failed projects or losses on investment, which planted seeds of doubt regarding the usability of the Lean Six Sigma framework. But when projects or deployments fail, is it really […]

In an era of complexity and contradiction, many healthcare organizations are seeking bold strategies for leading and managing change. While concepts behind the balanced scorecard and core Six Sigma methodologies are not new, a powerful management tool can be crafted through the unification of these two proven strategies. An approach that combines the targeted performance […]

If you think Six Sigma won’t work for your company, you are either ignorant or refuse to change. Every business process can be measured, improved and controlled using the Six Sigma methodology. Reading the iSixSigma Discussion Forum unearthed a thread about the application of Six Sigma to Facilities Management: When it comes to the implementation […]

Breakthrough. It sounds good. It even sounds like something everyone should support. The problem, however, comes when people are asked to define breakthrough. There is almost always a slight pause, or in some cases a long one, that says they are not certain what it means. To understand what breakthrough means and why it is […]

We are constantly hearing about change. Change in the political environment, change in the economic environment, change in our personal lives and change in the business environment. Change has become part of everyone’s life. For instance, no one uses a briefcase-sized cell phone anymore, and mimeograph machines have long been relegated to the storage room. […]

Some industry analysts and organizational executives have questioned the effectiveness of the balanced scorecard. The tool, introduced by Robert Kaplan and David Norton in 1992 in an article in the Harvard Business Review, is used to articulate to individual employees the organizational goals and objectives set by management. But some modern critics of the balanced […]

“We have met the enemy and he is us.” – Pogo (a comic strip character created by Walt Kelly) A principal enemy of business innovation is cultural norms, or – as Professor Josep Valor-Sabatier of the IESE Business School of Navarra, Spain, describes it – the “dominant logic” of a company. Dominant logic can stifle openness and […]

Research has shown that 95 percent of diets fail over the long term. Oddly enough, various studies show that 60 to 80 percent of major change initiatives also fail. In both cases, it is certainly not for lack of good intentions. For a person who has been on a successful diet, it is frustrating to […]

Major changes in the business environment are forcing organizations to revisit and revamp business strategy on a more frequent basis. To stay competitive 20 years ago, a six- or eight-year strategy cycle may have been sufficient. Today, thanks to globalization, increasing shareholder pressures, enhanced corporate governance, shorter product and service lifecycles, and the exponential growth […]