Michael Marx

Dear iSixSigma Blogosphere Readers, Back in January 2005, I started up a little blog about Six Sigma companies. It caught the eye of iSixSigma’s very own Mike Cyger and he invited me to join his growing team of forward thinking Six Sigma zealots dedicated to providing the best information about Six Sigma to the masses. […]

The scoring is complete and the 2009 Top 10 Best Places to Work for Six Sigma professionals is out. Here is the Top 10 List in alphabetical order: I repeat, alphabetical order. Cardinal Health Inc. Computacenter AG & Co. oHG Ecolab Inc. McKesson Corp. Merck & Co., Inc. Pfizer Inc. Piramal Healthcare Ltd. Starwood Hotels, […]

Next month (yes, I’m giving you early notice so you can put this in your calendar)TRIZ expert, Ellen Domb, will once again be on air with Steve Wilson of Quality Conversations, discussing practical applications of TRIZ. Tuesday, Nov. 3rd, 11 AM Pacific. Be there. Ellen is also speaking at the iSixSigma Live Summit & Awards […]

The latest iSixSigma Magazine research is about to be released in the upcoming November/December issue. For this research we surveyed over 800 Six Sigma practitioners and asked them all about the tools they use, the tools they don’t use, and what tools they think are misused… The chart at the leftis the top 10 tools […]

Now accepting salaries! Each year iSixSigma analyzes the data from its own iSixSigma Job Shop to create a comprehensive Six Sigma Salary report available in the March/April issue of iSixSigma Magazine. Last year data showed that the average Black Belt in the United States made an average salary of $88,438. Master Black Belts brought home […]

Tomorrow (Wednesday,Sept 30), Ellen Domb, founder of the TRIZ Journal,will be on Steve Wilson’sshow Quality Conversations, hosted by blogtalkradio. Steve has interviewed a plethoraof quality professionals in the past. Guest appearances include Tom Kubiak, Forrest Breyfogle,Mark Graban,Jessica Harper, as well as yours truly. Ellen and Steve will be talking about Six Sigma Trees. Not the […]

  The archive of my Quality Conversation with Steve Wilson this morning. Thanks Steve for having me on your show.

On Monday, Sept 14, I’ll be speaking with Steve Wilson on his show Quality Conversations, hosted by blogtalkradio. Steve has interviewed many quality professionals in the past, including Tom Kubiak, Forrest Breyfogle,Mark Graban and our very own iSixSigma editor-in-chief, Jessica Harper. I am happy to join the ranks of Steve’s guest list. We’re going to […]

iSixSigma is pleased to announce the opening of award nominations for the iSixSigma Live! Summit & Awards in Miami in February 2010. Here’s what we arelooking for: * iSixSigma’s Six Sigma Hall of Fame: iSixSigma will recognize individuals who have significantly impacted corporate growth and shareholder value through the use of Lean Six Sigma by […]

Nominations are open for iSixSigma’s second annual Best Places to Work List. If you are working for a top notch company using Lean Six Sigma, go ahead and nominateit to be included in ourlist of Best Places to Work. Last year 10 companies made the list. McKesson took home the #1 spot, followed by Vought […]

iSixSigma Live! wants to know what you want out of an in-person event.We invite you to participate in a short survey about business process improvement conferences. How many conferences do you attend a year? What do you expect out of a conference? Where would you like to see the next iSixSigma Live! event? These are […]

I first wrote about Paccar and Six Sigma back in 2005, then again in 2006 I wrote a blurb with some noteworthy news. Today Paccar released their Q1 earning report that highlights the most current status of their Six Sigma and Lean deployments. Six Sigma and Lean Manufacturing Generate Savings and Improve Efficiency “PACCAR’s application […]

iSixSigma Magazine’s latest research survey is live! This survey is all about how the economy is affecting companies and their business process improvement initiativessuch as Six Sigma and Lean. The survey is short, only 20 questions and about half of them are simpledemographic questions. Pleaseinvest about 7 minutesof your time and tell us what’s happening […]

There is a great story this morning about Halliburton’s efforts to lead suppliers to Lean and Six Sigma. Having just completed a research feature (to be published in May) on this very subject I can attest the article is a living example of what to do when encouraging suppliers to become more efficient: Len Cooper, […]

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 […]

Over the last couple of weeks I’ve been pouring over the latest iSixSigma survey results about the use of process improvement methodologies and models in the supply chain. So far I’ve found a couple of interesting things… 1. Success factors for implementing Six Sigma in supply chain are pretty consistent with implementing Six Sigma anywhere: […]

If you’d like to take a beginner’scourse on Lean, look to Ron Pereira’s Gemba Academy. He has releasedhis first video, Introduction to Lean Manufacturing. The clip below (and on the LSS Academy site) is the first 10 minutes of the 15 minute intro to Lean. Don’t waste another minute in Lean ignorance…

This morning as I was reading my Six Sigma news feeds, I came across a mention of the Columbus Metropolitan Library (CML) crediting Lean Six Sigmafor their high service ratings. The use of Lean and Six Sigma outside the traditional business setting intrigues me…so I investigated further…It turns out that back in 2005 CML identified […]

As a former forklift operator, I can understand the complexities of forklift operations. I know absolutely nothing about forklift manufacturing, but one could argue that it might be harder to operate a forklift than build one… The very first Six Sigma project I ever heard about involved a forklift. It perked my interest, because naturally, […]

Photos stream of the iSixSigma Live! Summit and Awards in Miami. To browse all photos and download your favorites visit: http://photos.isixsigma.com/gallery/7136980_gHfnR

Michael Cyger moderated a panel with Mikel Harry and Don Linsenmann. Together they put on a good show, fielding questions from Mike as well as the audience. Don, as usual, instill humor into just about every story he tells. On the economy and Six Sigma: Don: “We’re all impacted by this downfall. Take initiative. Let […]

As an iSixSigma Blogs reader I invite you to participate in iSixSigma’s latest survey on Six Sigma in the supply chain. This short survey will explore how Six Sigma and other process improvement methodologies, including supply chain models such as SCOR, are being used to optimize supply chain activities. It will also look at how […]

I spent the Wednesday afternoon in the Deployment Models breakout session with Bob Crescenzi, from NewPage, Pam Cagle from Wal-Mart, and Stephen Turnipseed from Chevron. Each company is deploying Six Sigma with a different approach. Bob Crescenzi made a great point kicking off the discussions. He said, “There is no vanilla deployment.” Top-down, middle-out, or […]

The iSixSigma Live! Miami Summit and Awards opened yesterday with a bang.Richard Willet, Jr., President and CEO of NewPage kicked off the morning session. Rick gave an enthusiastic overview of Lean Six Sigma at NewPage. There was so much he spoke about, but one of the points really stuck me as unique. He said that […]