Michael Marx

Six Sigma Academy has announced that Mikel J. Harry, author of Six Sigma: The Breakthrough Management Strategy Revolutionizing the World’s Top Corporations, and founder of Six Sigma Academy, will rejoin the firm as Vice Chairman & Chief Knowledge Officer. This is big news for the Six Sigma community and as well as a strategic move […]

Today, XGP Gaming released an interview with Stuart Scott, CIO of Microsoft. In the interview Stuart talks about his first year as CIO with Microsoft and he elaborates on wherehe sees Microsoft ITheaded in the next few years.When questioned about his goals for Microsoft IT, Stuart stated: “…we expect to cut business complexity in half […]

Just three of the IQPC team that worked tirelessly to make the conference a success. The George Group Larry Goldman and Mark Briscoe of Decisioneering Eric Nadler of iGrafx The Instantis Team jmp on a customer demo The Quality Group SigmaFlow showcasing Coach SixNet Intelligence System Clark Swain of NIMBUS Richard Teerlink book signing The […]

Richard Teerlink, Former Chairman of Harley-Davidson, taught us that we need to embrace change if we are to be successful. He opened with a quote from Eric Hoffer: “In the times of change the learners will inherit the earth while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world than no longer exists.” […]

Day two began with remarks by Steve Dubrow, today’s conference chair. Richard Goldberg, Vice President of Corporate Quality at Cisco gave a terrific overview of Cisco Lean. First he explained what Cisco Lean is: Cisco Lean is going: •From push to pull •From higher inventory levels to inventory reduced across supply chain •From redundant processes […]

We saw the King! A special sign just for us. Debby Sollenberger and Joe Ficalora of Sigma Breakthrough Technologies (SBTI) Tracee Beebe and Bryan Carey of DeLeeuw Associates. One cool Steve DuBrow of i-Solutions The one, the only, Chris Paret showcasing the Quality Companion 2. Additional Conference Photos IQPC Day Two: Photos

Today must be the day for metaphors; Raj Gohil, Process Fitness Master Consultant for BP, Lubricants Americas, taught us what it takes to make a Six Sigma project successful by telling intriguing stories that he learned from his father and grandfather. He even threw in a Confucius quote. Each story had its own business analogy […]

Next, I attended a panel discussion called “Brainstorming Innovative Techniques to Gain Shopfloor to Boardroom Buy-in.” Panel Members were: HT Vassar, Abbot – Ross Products Division Merle Schneider, Clinical Research Operations, Merck Matthew Booth, VP Operations Development, Boston Financial They each gave a quick overview of the beginnings of Six Sigma at their respective companies […]

Next, I listened to Liam Palmer, Global Head, HSBC Securities Services Best Practice. He was very entertaining as he talked about Six Sigma at HSBC, specifically teaching us what to do to sustain Six Sigma projects. He shared a yoga analogy to bring the concept of sustainability home. Here’s the short version. As a runner […]

I hit four sessions this afternoon. I couldn’t blog real-time because there was no wireless available…so I’ve found time between sessions to fill you in… First session, iSixSigma’s very own Michael Cyger, gave a fantastic presentation. He listed five Six Sigma imperatives and qualified each with company examples and research from iSixSigma Magazine. The Five […]

Next up is Brad Dalton, Senior Vice President of Bank of America. Brad is talking about a project at BofA to build a single Six Sigma based change management capability – One that will integrate all existing practices and take advantage of the best of them all. The guiding principles for the project approach: •VOC […]

Key bullets from Bill Steenburgh, Xerox Services First he gave us a rundown of the last six years at Xerox: 2000-2002: Xerox losing money on a sustained basis 2002-2005: Investing for growth 2005 +: Expanding customer relationships Then Bill talked about how Xerox has combined Lean and Six Sigma to drive improvement. He said “you […]

Today is the opening day of the IQPC Lean Six Sigma Summit West 2006. Roxanne O’Braskey, President of ISSSP is the conference chair today. Roxanne is a wonderful speaker. She show so much passion for Six Sigma when she speaks about it. She’s pumped us up to hear and learn from the presenters today. We’re […]

This week I’m in Las Vegasfor the IQPC Lean Six Sigma Summit West. The event last year was fantastic. This year I’m looking forward to the keynote from Richard Teerlink, former Chairman of Harley-Davidson. There’s also a nice line-up of speakers from The Home Depot, Cintas, and Cisco as well as case studies from Sun […]

At the Bank of America, Health Care Conference 2006 in May, Express Scripts gave a presentation that included a few slides about their Lean Six Sigma program. Their value proposition: “To reduce pharmacy costs, without compromising health outcomes, while maximizing patient satisfaction.” Lean and Six Sigma together are part of how they are giving “value” […]

As a division of Brunswick Corporation, Mercury Marine recently completed their 1,000th Lean Six Sigma project. BYM News reported this morning on this significant milestone and shared more insight into Mercury’s deployment: “Since (Patrick C. Mackey) launched the cultural transformation of Mercury three years ago, nearly 700 management and production employees have been formally trained […]

Peter Abilla is conducting an interview with Mary Poppendieck, a thought leader in the Agile/Lean for software development space, over at his blog. Pete has invited all interested to submit their own questions to Mary via the comments section of his post, Interview with Mary Poppendieck. This is your chance to ask a guruyour questions […]

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 […]

So why did Jack implement Six Sigma? Larry Bossidy. Why do thousands of other companies use the methodology? They’ve seen it work and they want to emulate successful companies. Such is the case with Lopez Foods. They are on a quest for growth, and how do they plan to achieve it? They benchmark the best […]

The latest podcast is ready to download. This podcast includes highlights from the “Compliance and Six Sigma”survey, published in the July/August issue of iSixSigma Magazine. This survey looked into how Six Sigma is helping companies “play by the rules” of regulatory compliance requirements including Sarbanes-Oxley, OSHA, EPA, and the SEC. Listen for the highlights, get a […]

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, […]

iSixSigma is proud to announce the upcoming release of the Cox-Box Calendar. The 2007 wall calendar will feature brand new, never before seen Cox-Box cartoons. This calendar will make a perfect holiday gift for your data-minded friends and co-workers. Visit https://www.isixsigma.com/calendar/ to learn more and place your advance order online. Tell a friend: Get the […]

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, […]