Category: Blogs

We’re used to seeking the Voice of the Customer in the Define phase of our projects. Typically (at least at our organization) we haven’t asked, “How much of this process can we pass on to you?” This topic usually comes upwhen weteach a lean exercise in which the Voice of the Customeris supposed to rule. […]

A common way to learn principles or tools is to associate a word as an acronym. The seven/eight wastes of Lean is a great example of acronymic variation. I’ve come across five different words invented to illustrate the wastes of Lean: The iSixSigma dictionary uses the word DOTWIMP to list the seven wastes of Lean […]

I believe Deming may have said something in this area, but given I couldn’t find a famous quote I made one up. 80% of business issues come from the process and only 20% from the people who work at the business If someone told me that, I’d say, No!Look at the things people do that […]

Like many organizations, ours began their Six Sigma deployment with a consultant-based training and project mentorship. We were successful at internalizing the training, and we’ve used a value-stream approach to selecting improvement projects, but the process owners never seemed to be the ones to light the fire – most wait to be tapped on the […]

“We’re not in Kansas anymore.” Recognize this line? Made famous by the movie “The Wizard of Oz,” it fittingly describes the feeling you get when you suddenly realize that things have changed. How can change happen so fast that we get caught off guard? Even Dorothy saw the twister coming. I recently had a “Kansas […]

One thing I really like about the government Six Sigma initiatives is the public sharing of information. The DOD units are so proud to talk about how they are using Six Sigma and the benefits they are getting out of it. The Indian Head Division of NAVSEA has an entire website dedicated to Lean Six […]

If your company is like iSixSigma, you’ve probably read about Net Promoter Score (NPS) and thought it was a very cool topic. (For those of you who haven’t, you can read our iSixSigma Magazine cover story “Are Your Customers Promoting You…Or Do You Have to Do It Yourself?” in the Nov/Dec 2006 issue.) Net Promoter […]

A fellow Black Belt and I were talking about project management skills. She made a very perceptive comment, which I will paraphrase: “Some people are really good at setting up a project – the ability to identify needed tasks, sources of benchmarking information, delegating, putting everything into a timeframe. And others are really good about […]

All too often we hear the accolades of Six Sigma being utilized in a large (and often publicly traded) companies. In recent years the DMAIC methodology has been spread into smaller healthcare organizations, government, and even some school districts. However it seems there is a vast under-representation of Six Sigma in small companies and private […]

As big as the Army is, the opportunities for improvement abound. However, the tolerance for improvement projects (particularly long drawn out ones) is very low. Anything that takes more than 90 days to complete is considered a waste of time. Or worse you get called an “oxygen thief.” What I have found is that one […]

In every company, people in organizations make decisions and implement changes every day. Many of these changes are not typically the type of things that warrant a Six Sigma project. That being said, it should be recognized that the application of some Six Sigma tools in these everyday activities can provide a significant positive impact […]

If you subscribe to iSixSigma Magazine, please read the feature about how we used LSS to improve our Supply Requisition Process. The article is on page 22. Enjoy.  

Things that make you feel good in right away aren’t always beneficial in the long run. Some things, like candy, are actually harmful in the long term. While others, like getting the high score on Space Invaders, just don’t end up mattering very much. You feel good as they are happening, but beyond that they […]

For those of you who talk Six Sigma at dinner parties, here’s something for your next soiree – Six Sigma wine. I hear it goes well with a fishbone diagram and doesn’t leave that statistical aftertaste like those lower sigma level wines…. I’m not a wine drinker so I can’t comment on taste, but I can […]

A good project gets you the facts, the data. Talk objectively with those facts and you have a water tight case for any ‘rhetoric’! In my Blog Man v. Machine I talked about PBL; ’Performance Based Leadership’, basically Behavioral Science that at Bechtel they use hand in hand with DMAICT. They have an acronym called […]

Being in the business of customer satisfaction keeps us focused on making sure that our customers get the best value and service possible. When a customer tells us we did a great job, it is the ultimate measure of success. Try changing hats for a minute and think about how you rate as a customer? […]

Changed processes, changed skill sets, changed thinking and changed performance. Six Sigma is all about change. Passion, defined as “boundless enthusiasm,” is the seed of change. With it, Six Sigma flourishes. Without it, project implementation is a constant struggle. Does your organization have the passion for change that allows processes to bloom to their full […]

For those of you practising Lean Six Sigma in the Austral Oceania region of the world, IQPC will be hosting a Lean Six Sigma Forum from November 27-29 at the Prince Hotel in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Confirmed speakers include: Quality Director- Reuters Senior Manager Business Enterprise- Motorola Quality/Operational Excellence Leader-GE Plastics Director, Six Sigma- Ingram […]

It didn’t take long for Robert (Bob) Nardelli to land on his feet… You’ve all probably heard by now, Bob Nardelli has been picked to run Chrysler. For those of you that may have forgotten or were not aware of all the details: Bob Nardelli came from GE, where he started in 1971. In 1995 […]

  Benchmarking and Six Sigma go together like peanut butter and jelly. Both are really good on their own but put them together and it is three times better. Here’s why. Benchmarking helps you understand how your performance rates against others. If your performance is not in the top quartile, you may want to commission […]

In the martial arts, you may know that once a person obtains a black belt there are usually levels of progression upwards. Each of these levels is called a “dan” and there can be 3 or more progressive levels, sometimes designated with astripe ortape around the end of the black belt. We’ve taken that concept […]

Understanding the VOC: Six Sigma Belt Satisfaction Often Six Sigma focuses on the voice of the customer in terms of a public consumer or end business user/department. Yet how many times does leadership consider Six Sigma Black and Green Belts as a customer within the Six Sigma organization? In order to successfully train and retain […]

I have a secret weapon, let me explain. At the start of a 6-week project, I put together a detailed data collection plan to pull data from one of our legacy systems. Worked with IT and received the schedule next day, 2-weeks analysis, 2-weeks build & 2-weeks test. Not good news! The project was planned […]

If you do any sort of training, you’ve probably struggled to come up with good examples to drive a concept home. Nothing crystallizes difficult material like the perfect example to make it all real. Every train-the-trainer workshop you’ve ever been to has doubtless spent time worrying about this. And if you’ve ever been through the […]