This article introduces the concept of earned value management (EVM) indexes, a project assessment technique, and control charts, a statistical tool for monitoring variation in a process, and describes how both may be used in tangent to capture more insight from project performance. What to Know About EVM Indexes EVM is a project management technique…
The process capability indices Pp and Cp describe how closely a process can operate within its specification limits. Many articles describe the difference between Pp and Cp simply: one is short term, one is long term. Moving beyond such a description, this article focuses on the untapped power of capability analysis and shows you how…
Diesel engine manufacturer Cummins Inc. is discussing a possible collaboration with the municipality of Franklin Township, Ind., USA, about improving the town’s financial performance via Lean Six Sigma methods, according to a report by WRTV-6.
State education officials in Indiana are considering the implementation of Six Sigma standards in performance reviews for public school teachers in order to comply with a new law requiring an evaluation of how school districts allocate their state funds.
In the May/June issue of iSixSigma Magazine, the article, “Taking the Next Step: How to Eliminate Errors for Good,” offers an approach for managing human performance factors in an effort improve processes in service organizations. An excerpt of a checklist used to measure human performance factors and gauge risk is featured in the magazine article….
The 3M Co., based in Maplewood, Minn., USA, has offered to pay up to $12 million to roughly 7,000 current and former employees to settle a long-running lawsuit alleging that older workers faced age discrimination under the the company’s Six Sigma program.
Eric Doden, a Republican candidate for mayor of Fort Wayne, Ind., USA, said that, if elected, he would continue the city’s process improvement programs initiated by former Mayor Graham Richard, including customer service training for city employees.
In response to what has been called a difficult 18 months for the estate agency sector in the United Kingdom, senior management at Frank Marshall & Co. have announced that the company is the first to adopt the Lean Six Sigma methodology in the estate indsutry.
The city of Springfield, Mass., USA, has hired Marta Nichols, a Six Sigma Black Belt, to run its governement performance management program, known as CitiStat.
Despite the common allegation that Lean improvement methods must lead to layoffs at healthcare systems, the reality is quite different at several leading hospitals, where Lean methods are actually saving or creating jobs.
Earlier this month, a member of the iSixSigma Discussion Forum asked about the best methods to measure financial performance among business units within the same company, but in different regions. The answers that came back ranged from simple bottom-line comparison using accounting department data to more complex metrics, such as profit per item sold and…
A challenge facing many new CIOs, CTOs and other technology leaders is the need to change their organization’s culture and reputation. Fairly or not, technology leaders are often saddled with the perceptions (or misperceptions) that their team can’t deliver projects on time or on budget.
During the past four years the Internet channel has seen the migration from an exploratory revolution of new functionality to creating a viable profitable business. It is no longer feasible to place additional technological enhancements on the web without considering the payback model in which returns and/or cost savings can be generated. This young Internet…
Imagine you run a manufacturing business and a surprise government labor inspector hands more than 21 citations for serious worker safety (OHSA) violations. Add to this an order that gives you only six months to show 100 percent compliance or face shutdown. This true story explains the elements that took this company from near collapse to…
How will we remember the past eighteen months? Many will remember it as a time of economic slump, with lay-offs, low spending and a war in Iraq. The economic situation is not likely to improve during the remainder of 2003, leading organizations to focus on delivering value to their customers while demonstrating hard return-on-investment. Any…
The Black Belt’s ability to maximize team members’ contributions is critical to the success of the Six Sigma project. Many factors must be addressed. Assuring Basic Team Member Needs During World War II Abraham Maslow (1908-1970) developed his famous hierarchy of needs study. He showed an individual needs hierarchy ranging from the most basic, to…
“You can’t manage what you can’t measure.” This axiom, while intuitive for most managers and business professionals, is often not applied to the Six Sigma management process itself. For Six Sigma or any other management initiative to yield the advertised results, many factors must be considered, aligned, measured and acted upon. Having been involved with…
A high performance culture is the result of high performance actions. An organization should strive to implement actions which deliver the desired performance and assess the results of these actions on the culture. If these actions are successful, performance targets are achieved and a high-performance culture ensues. The pursuit of performance gains starts with defining…
Most organizations have a strong bias toward planning, managing and executing a multitude of supposedly value-added activities hoping that these (often isolated) activities will yield significant results. In rare cases, activities are spawned by careful strategic planning, tracked regularly by performance data, reviewed for adjustments and improvements and integrated across functions, divisions and geographies. However,…
Many information technology (IT) organizations are utilizing the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) as a guiding framework for operational excellence. One of the many “best practices” within ITIL is utilization of service level agreements, (SLAs) and operational level agreements (OLAs). When implemented well, these agreements and associated management processes go far in establishing fruitful working…
Many organizations spend a lot of resources to collect and report a number of metrics without focusing on the proper utilization of them or tracking the return on investment in the effort. In some cases it may be difficult even to find meaningful metrics. Missing the right metrics poses a great risk to business decision-making…
In a service organization, the most efficient method for cutting waste is to attack anything and everything that is not done right the first time. This concept, known as first time right, involves making sure that all activities are carried out in the right manner the first time and every time. Examples include a customer…
Many organizations that deploy Lean and Six Sigma eventually hit what is referred to as the “performance measurement wall.” These organizations begin with the right intentions, however, the bottom-line results from their Lean and Six Sigma initiatives are often illusionary because they are focused on the wrong targets. One of the major reasons for this…
Although information technology (IT) organizations can share commonalities at a general level, each has its own, unique set of characteristics interacting in ways that result in their own performance signatures. Even performance measurements are not identical. Each is its own system, its own environment supporting a specific company’s needs. Just as companies are diverse in…
Those in the information technology (IT) field often encounter service level agreements (SLAs) that define the performance a customer can expect from a particular process or service, such as a help desk. Often, these agreements are established by negotiation rather than by a more scientific approach that would be used in a Six Sigma process…
A distinguished panel of healthcare executives recently shared their thoughts on the importance of leaders taking an active and visible role in their organization’s quality initiatives. They also agreed on the need for organizations to develop the right management systems and structures to adequately support their quality efforts, measure outcomes and encourage accountability. Speaking on…
This article, a second in a series exploring how to organize activities, determines their value add, and leverages them for performance, examines the characteristics, impacts and organizational traits related to procedures and audits. Part 1, Activities vs. Performance Improvement, Common Sense, discussed the nature and attributes of organizational culture and behaviors when evolving from a…
A key measurement of Six Sigma effectiveness is the application of appropriate metrics. Mikel Harry and Richard Schroeder, two pioneers of Six Sigma, state in their book Six Sigma that, “An organization’s profitability is determined by what it chooses to measure and how it measures it.” They point out that most companies need to change…
Abhishek Soni
Robert Ballard
Randy Woods
iSixSigma-Editorial
Richard Bellanca
Claudio DAmbrosio
Subrata Kar
Kim Niles
Bruce J. Hayes
Frank Deno
Scott D. Adams
Abhash Chandra
Sharad Sharma
Terence T. Burton
Gary A. Gack
Carolyn Pexton
R. Eric Reidenbach