Michael Marx

What do Bob Nardelli, Larry Johnston, James McNerney, and Matthew Espe all have in common? Aside from all being former GE executives trained and tutored under the hand of Jack Welch, they each speak the Six Sigma dialect of business language and have introduced the corporations they lead to the methodology. In 2001 The Home […]

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 U.S. Army Materiel Command has a website dedicated to information about the Lean Six Sigma efforts currently underway. There is even an entire page devoted to Lean Six Sigma project case studies and results. Over 20 success stories are shared including a video that highlights the ways Lean Six Sigma is directly impacting U.S. […]

It’’s holiday time and Amazon is just about as busy as Santa. This year at Amazon.com you’ll see the Holiday Delight-O-Meter, which shows real-time data for the number of items ordered worldwide since November 21st. My calculations estimate about 2,000 items ordered per minute. Not much room for error. It’s good to know that instead […]

A Press Release issued today by Eli Lilly and Company credits Six Sigma as a significant contributor to the 15% productivity increase they experienced in 2005: “Lilly is utilizing several tools to increase productivity and lower its cost structure, including applying Six Sigma across its global operations, which is expected to free up resources, accelerate […]

Target Corporation began a unique Six Sigma initiative and rightly named it “6SIGMA@Target” to identify it as their own. Six Sigma is helping Target achieve their mantra “design, innovation, and continuous improvement”a philosophy aimed at delighting guests. In addition to Six Sigma, Target trains employees in a wide array of skills under the continuous improvement […]

This week Ibring you two delicious DOE’s (Design of Experiments) as a Thanksgiving treat. The First, Applying DOE to Microwave Popcorn, is a real favorite of mine. Mark Anderson and Hank Anderson share a Design of Experiments that identifies what really matters when making microwave popcorn. In the second, Recipe for Pound Cake Experiment, Mark […]

Although Volkswagen AG shows no external signsof a Six Sigma program (annual reports, press releases), they did recently start the ForMotion initiative aimed at cutting costs and improving processes. “In March 2004 we launched the ForMotion performance enhancement program across the Group. The program includes seven focus areas in which all Group activities and projects […]

Mayor Graham Richard, City of Fort Wayne Indiana, delivered a non-partisan view of why Six Sigma is important for the public sector. He began by sharing what he wanted each of us to get out of the presentation: “One hope is that you will think about what you can do in your community, even if […]

Gillian Mann, Master Black Belt at Air Canada, gave a very enthusiastic presentation at the IQPC Lean Six Sigma Summit West. Air Canada began their corporate-wide Six Sigma flight in 2002 with GE captains at the helm of their training. Since then they have been very successful internalizing the program and making it their own. […]

I have to admit that I didn’t think that a satellite session with Jack would be all that great, but I was dead wrong. The question and answer format suits his leadership style and seeing him up on two giant screens made the grandeur of Jack all the better. My fellow colleagues Michael Cygerand Dian […]

Roger Cockroft, Corporate VP, Business Performance Improvement, spoke brilliantly about the way Constellation Energy is using Six Sigma to manage change in their organization. Constellation Energy is the oldest utility company in the United States and also one of the largest. Cockroft said that post 911 there were a lot of changes in the organization […]

Roger Hoerl, of GE Global Research, kicked off the conference with a presentation titled, “A fresh approach to integrating Lean and Six Sigma”. His presentation was quite “Lean” at only 12 slides, but the message was clear… The way Lean and Six Sigma have been integrated in the past is based on faulty assumptions and […]

Today was my first full day at the IQPC Lean Six Sigma Summit West, in Las Vegas. I attended as many events as I could and have met some great people in and out of the Six Sigma world. I briefly spoke with Roger Hoerl (still hoping for a more in depth conversation later), joined […]

Quest Diagnostics are early pioneers of Six Sigma in the healthcare industry, implementing the methodology in May 2000. Since then they have supplemented the program with a healthy dose of Lean and DFSS. Their progress to date is well documented on their website and in annual reports: “Since May 2000, with the launch of the […]

The International Quality and Productivity Center (IQPC) is hosting the Lean Six Sigma Summit West,October 26 – 27, 2005 at the Venetianin Las Vegas, Nevada, USA. I’m looking forward to attending the conference, soaking up the Six Sigma sun, and blogging the events. Jack Welch will be there via satellite and will take questions… so […]

Eli Lilly may be new to using Six Sigma but they put so much research into the methodology before deployment you would have thought it was a new drug. And in fact Six Sigma is the drug to which 200 Black Belts are currently addicted. Once you start up the hellacious hills of hypotheses and […]

Kevin Meyer from the Evolving Excellence blog has put together a nice post called Carnival of Lean Leadership. In it he includes links to posts from otherblogs around the topic of “Lean leadership”, the iSixSigma Blogosphere included: “Losing and winning are topics in two of our favorites. The Common Sense Guy shows how leadership lessons […]

It seems to be a tradition for bloggers to make their 100th post about… the 100th post. Well, as a Six Sigma nut why should I introduce variation into the ritual? So here is my century post to SixSigmaCompanies.com ¦ For those new to this blog the following is a rundown of what has gone on […]

Newell Rubbermaid, famous for their storage containers and Sharpie pens, launched the Newell Operational Excellence program in 2002 to reduce costs, inventory and lead times, and to improve service and quality levels. The 2004 Annual Report sums up the Newell Operational Excellence program to date: “It is critical to have a process for achieving cost […]

Six Sigma stories have graced the pages of this specialty chemical company’s annual reports since 1999. Six Sigma at Grace has been a corporate-wide initiative from the start and has spread outside of the manufacturing processes to other functions including administration, sales, service, and R&D. Lean manufacturing and Design for Six Sigma (DFSS) methodologies are […]

Six Sigma at Air Products and Chemicals is doing more than just blowing hot air. The 7.4 billion dollar chemical company is a worldwide supplier of industrial gases and equipment, specialty and intermediate chemicals, and environmental and energy systems. They piloted Six Sigma in the Polyurethane Chemicals division in 2000, and the initiative grew into […]

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 […]

ArvinMeritor is a global supplier of integrated systems, modules and components to the automotive industry. They began their lean journey in 2000 with a pilot initiative at the Asheville, North Carolina (USA) plant. Then only a year later the senior leadership team deployed the “ArvinMeritor Performance System” (AMPS) and “S3” (S-cubed) throughout the company: “AMPS […]