CanLean Six Sigma help companies get through this economic downturn? Dale Barnhart, President and Chief Executive Officer at Lydall thinks so. In the Lydall 4th Quarter Earnings report he said: “I can’t emphasize enough the importance of Lean Six Sigma to Lydall in light of the current economic conditions. In 2008, the Company realized significant…
I imagine that Halloween is to Hershey’s as St. Patty’s Day is to Green. You can’t have one without the other. I love Hershey’s Chocolate…. whether it’s a Kit Kat, Reese’s, Mounds, or Almond Joy (sometimes I do feel like a nut), a Kiss or a Hug, or my favorite, a Special Dark Miniature, when…
Noteworthy Six Sigma news this week… Even Six Sigma couldn’t save Sony or Dell from the recent battery recall. A handful of exploding batteries out of more than 4 million manufactured is better than Six Sigma…but some products just require perfection. Flights, medical procedures, and now laptop batteries… The Six Sigma methodology is credited with…
IT Business Edge interviewedme last month regarding the results of the survey “Information Technology and Six Sigma” published in the 2006 May/June issue of iSixSigma Magazine. The interview was only three questions but that was enough to elaborate on a fewkey findings in the research. For those of you who do not receive iSixSigma Magazine,…
This week there was quite a bit of Six Sigma chatter in the headlines… The U.S. Army regularly makes the news these days touting their success with Lean Six Sigma. This latest article, Lean Six Sigma Eases Fiscal Constraint Challenges, from Military.com mentions that the Army saved $30 million last year from applying Lean Six…
This week Sam Decker gives a beginners course on Six Sigma and marketing over at his blog Decker Marketing. I’ve been reading Sam Decker for about a year and a half now. He never fails to share the insights he’s learned from his work experiences from start-ups to managing Dell’s eBusiness. As for marketing blogs,…
Six Sigma news this week… Fortune Magazine has decided to pick on Jack on the cover of their latest issue. The article, Tearing Up the Jack Welch Playbook, is an attempts to throw out the old and bring in the new… way of thinking that is. Fortune senior writer Betsy Morris, lists seven of the…
Lean and Six Sigma make their rounds through the media this week surfacing in publications around the world including Time Magazine… The article in Time entitled “Lean and Mean” is the story of the Army’s implementation of Lean Six Sigma. It is a fantastic article full of Six Sigma war stories from streamlining procurement to…
This week in Six Sigma related news around the globe… Read about the new weighing and traceability system, Trac-IT MES, which Maple Leaf Bakeriesin the UK is using to reduce waste in their bagel making process. Now let’s head down under to Linde Australia to read about how Six Sigma in the service division is…
Innovate Forum has posted an interviewwith David Silverstein, President and CEO of Breakthrough Management Group and co-author of INsourcing Innovation. In the interview, Silverstein talks about the TRIZ methodology for innovative problem solving. “Innovate Forum: TRIZ is a methodology that has traditionally been employed in product design. What prompted you to consider applying TRIZ to…
Xerox is working with the Houston Public Library to improve services with Lean Six Sigma. As part of the Xerox Global Services consulting offering, they have deployed a team of Lean Six Sigma experts to search through library operations and find areas for improvement. “Lean Six Sigma is typically used by large enterprises to eliminate…
As a tribute to St. Patrick’s Day here are a few examples of green Six Sigma projects. Now, I’m not talking about projects that have saved a lot of “green” but projects that are good for the environment. Dominion: Water Conservation “Dominion is also using the Six Sigma process to address water use reduction projects…
This month, Surface Mount Technology (SMT) published an article written by Evelyn Baldwin, a sales manager for 3M Electronics. 3M has been taking Six Sigma to their customers for years and Evelyn’s knowledge of the subject shines through in this article, which reads like a perfect blog entry. She offers some solid advice for helping…
Here is a very unique application of Six Sigma from Bank of America. Ray Bednar, BofA’s new sports sponsorship executive, will use the methodology to improve the banks sports sponsorship process: “Now Bednar says his job is to make sure the bank is getting the most out of its sports deals using ’Six Sigma’ techniques…
An iSixSigma reader submitted the following article for publication on iSixSigma.com. From time to time we receive excellent submissions such as this one, but they are just a bit too short for publishing to the website. The iSixSigma Blogosphere, however, is the perfect place for these “mini” articles. What is a Six Sigma Mindset? Interview…
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer ran an article last week called “Putting ’lean’ processes into all of Boeing“.The article summarizesthe four initiatives that James McNerney recently announced atan executive retreat in Orlando, Florida, and contains excerpts from a summary of the events posted on Boeing’s internal website. Of the four initiatives that will will help drive organic…
The January 2006 issue of CMO Magazine has two excellent articles highlighting the use of Lean Six Sigma at Xerox and their ad agency Young & Rubicam. The article Lean Machine specifically goes into detail on how Xerox’s corporate marketing group came on board with Six Sigma and is seeing some outstanding results. For those…
This has got to be my all-time favorite example of the use of Six Sigma in the restaurant business. Red Robin restaurants teamed with GE Commercial Finance inan “At the Customer, For the Customer” (ACFC) project to tackle a major customer service issue: the timely delivery of milkshakes. “In 2005, we will produce more than…
Standard Register received the Top Medical Surgical Vendor for 2005 award from Shared Services Healthcare, Inc. What I like about the press release (beyond the recognition of a remarkable Six Sigma company) is the “About Standard Register” paragraph at the end. The description of how Lean Six Sigma fits in the organization is perfect. “Relying…
The Wall Street Journal article “Rethinking Quality Improvement”, published this morning, raises the question of whether Six Sigma and new product development, research, and innovation can work together: “The critics say process management helps improve existing products and routines, but can hinder a company’s ability to innovate. ‘For stuff you’re already good at, you get…
James McNerney hints at what’s to come at Boeing duringyesterday’s Second Quarter 2005 Earningsconference call with analysts and journalists: “Boeing has very strong pockets of process improvement, quality, technology sharing and leverage, sourcing, management development and more. We plan to take those that have the most company-wide impact on growth and company productivity and drive…
Hesh Reinfeld, a Pittsburgh-based business columnist and humorist wrote a column yesterday about improving the quality of his columns: “When my readers question the quality of my columns, I don’t look to the subjective evaluations of an editor. No, I call my six sigma black belt, Harry, for help. “Harry has worked on process improvement…
Hal Macomber and Joe Ely have decided to blog about Everyday Lean Examples.They have each made their first post in a series that will last through July. In his post titled Everyday Lean — “Jugban”, Joe describes how he leaned out his contact lens cleaning process: “I wear gas-permeable contact lenses. Though the parents who…
Six Sigma for Dummies has been getting a lot of press lately in the news. I had the chance last week to meet with Craig Gygi, co-author of Six Sigma for Dummies, at his office in Scottsdale, Arizona, USA.The only thing difficult about Craig is trying to say his last name, Gygi (pronounced “gee-gee” as…
On Wednesday, I listened to an Industry Week webcast on Six Sigma deployment strategies for small and mid-sized companies. Terence T. Burton, President of The Center for Excellence in Operations, Inc., delivered a well thought-out presentation covering an intro to Six Sigma, the Scaleable Six Sigma approach for small companies and lessons from the trenches….
I read a great blog post today in Agus Rachman’s Blog. He attended Microsoft’s Enterprise Project Management Solutions Seminar at the Shangri-La Hotel in Singapore. He comments on the Office Solution Accelerator for Six Sigma presentation by Microsoft: “But the third, by Sudimin Mina of Microsoft Indonesia was quite enlightening. He opened his session by…
Richard Weissman “shamelessly promotes” his article “The Pitfalls of Six Sigma” on the SCM Wire blog.The article appears in the May 2005 edition of The Manufacturer. The title of the article is deceptive and lead me to believe it was written from a negative bias, but the opposite is true.The article discusses some of the…
Supply Chain Management Review – The Next Stage of Supply Chain Excellence. This article does a fine job speaking to how Lean and Six Sigma are helping shape the future of Supply Chain.Six Sigma Companies included in the article: IBM, Dow, 3M, Textron, Lockheed Martin, GlaxoSmithKline and Delphi. The authors, Gregory L. Schlegel and Richard…
Over the years I have enjoyed the many articles that have speculated on the future of Six Sigma.This past month I have read three articles in particular that offered differing opinions on where Six Sigma is headed. According to Thomas Pyzdek, in Cargo Cult Six Sigma. Is the fad fading?: “As someone who follows Six…
Michael Marx