Category: Blogs

If you are providing your Customers with a W.O.W. experience, you will know it. If you are not, you will know it as well.

I have been thinking a lot lately about how the Toyota Production System was developed. Unlike those of us who have books, websites, and training programs in abundance, Toyota engineers took their process of assembly-line manufacture of automobiles and created, in incremental steps, the methodology that’s now known as Lean. It took shape over a […]

“Perhaps what you measure is what you get. More likely, what you measure is all you’ll get. What you don’t (or can’t) measure is lost” – H. Thomas Johnson Those of you who are Deming fans may liken this quote to Deming’s admonition that “the most important figures that one needs for management are unknown […]

This is just for fun and to win a real prize you need to have been very good all year and have a generous expense account. Good old Santa wants to give you a Christmas present. He’s checked if you have been naughty or nice and the news is not good, so you have to […]

Well, it’s time for my annual Christmas Blog! With apologies to Charles Dickens, here is my adapted version of his “Ghost Story of Christmas” (first published in 1843). ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Stave 1: Muda’s Ghost The workers at the Shusendo & Muda Company are very busy being highly productive. The boss, Ebenezer Shusendo, only gives performance bonuses […]

I got this from a friend and decided to share it with my friends at Six Sigma. I thought this might represent the process many use when they don’t plan. Just get the job done. Don’t worry about process or structure or planning. Just do it. Hm…. You think a value stream map would help? […]

Last year iSixSigma Magazine ran a cover story on PointRoll and the beginnings of their Six Sigma initiative. PointRoll, a leading online ad agency, is a small company by Fortune 500 revenue standards (less than 100 million in revenue) and even smaller Six Sigma company by Six Sigma standards (1 Black Belt and 7 Green […]

We’ve all seen the “resistance curve” where a few people are innovators, some are early adopters, early and late majorities, and a few are laggards, or skeptics, or what-have-you (from the work of Everett Rogersand other researchers). One way to get almost everyone to be an early adopter is to offer something of value – […]

Six Sigma, which is beginning to acquire some grey around the temples, has now advanced to the stage where the basic requirements for success of the program are fairly well known. That doesn’t stop it from being screwed up in about 95% of installations, but no one can say that’s due to a lack of […]

iSixSigma Live Summit ’09 Update – Reception & Keynote Trump International Beach Resort Miami, Florida 5:30-7:30 P.M., Tuesday, January 13, 2009 Six Sigma Wine Tasting and Welcome Reception Hosted by Six Sigma Winery Open to All Summit Attendees 11:30 A.M., Wednesday, January 14, 2009 Mr. Kaj Ahlmann Keynote: “Six Sigma and Wine: Art or Science?” […]

iSixSigma Live! has announced the finalists for the awards that will be given at the Miami Summit in January. The top three finalists for the award, Most Successful Lean Six Sigma Start-up Program, are: Betfair, NewPage Corp., and Unlimited Technology Inc. Finalists for the award, Most Successful Re-energized Lean Six Sigma Program, are: United Services […]

I used to work in the IT business and we were always on the look-out for the next “big thing” to cash in on. It was things like moving from mainframes to open systems and onto Microsoft Windows, relational databases, business intelligence systems, OLAP reporting and CRM systems. Sowhile I was travelling home from Sydney […]

I’ve spent a good part of this past summer travelling for business. In the past, I might have flown a few times a year for conferences, but this year I’ve earned quite a few “miles,” Now, I know that some of you are already experienced Road Warriors, and you are probably already laughing at me, […]

Webster’s defines delight as “extreme satisfaction.” It is what gets your customers to say WOW!

You invest 4 months of your life. You work in close co-operation with the operational teams. You gain buy-in and agreement on an innovative solution to enhance business performance. You build sustainability into the solution. You identify clear benefits in terms of financial, process, people and customer. It’s a text-book project. So return in 6 […]

  The Best Places to Work Competition has wrapped up and the top ten finalists have emerged. Now we’re not going to tell you where the No. 1 place for Six Sigma professionals to work is yet… or what the order of the top ten is…. We’re saving that for the awards ceremony in January. […]

Winning isn’t everything; in fact, many times a “win” is in finishing the race or improving the score, whether that means fewer defects, decreased cycle time and/or improved customer satisfaction. But there are times when a win is a win and calls for more attention than is usually given to the everyday job well done. […]

When I started in continuous improvement (CI) four years ago it was via the traditional Six Sigma DMAIC route. I was indoctrinated into the Six Sigma world and have earned my ASQ CSSBB and can do impressive stuff with statistics. Lean was not even on the radar for me, it was just another approach that […]

Lincoln Electric, a world leader in the design, development and manufacture of welding equipment, improves operational efficiency through Six Sigma AND fosters innovation at the same time. Looks like we’ve got some benchmarking to do. “In the last three years, Chairman, President and CEO John M. Stropki has led his team through eight acquisitions and […]

It’s time again for iSixSigma to gather salary data for the6th annual Global Six Sigma Salary Survey. This survey is a little different that our traditional kind. To gather data we go to the iSixSigma Job Shop database where thousands of Six Sigma professionals have uploaded their resumes. Along with uploading a resume, we ask […]

Good enough is just not good enough anymore and has not been for a long time.

Six Sigma is an amazingly persistent program. I was left off the list for the official birth announcement, but someone should probably be planning ahead for a thirtieth birthday party in the next few years. That’s remarkable longevity for trumped up flavor-of-the-month program. I think Six Sigma is utterly absurd in many respects. Even if […]

I recently bought some registry cleaning software on the internet using PayPal. My mistake, it was a scam. I made contact with the PayPal Dispute Resolution team to see if I could get my money back. Followed the highly efficient process (no human interaction) and made repeated attempts to contact the supplier before escalating to […]

I can’t help but wonder if banking and finance has an administrative concept equal or similar to lean process strategic planning. As accounting goes I suspect that efficiency, correct mathematical computation and balanced accounts all are considered important and of value to the banking customer. But what is the value added to high or irresponsible […]