Category: Blogs

We have a fantastic issue of iSixSigma Magazine coming up in May. The cover story is about Lonmin, a primary producer of platinum group metals. They focus on discovery, acquisition, development and marketing of minerals and metals. The short story goes like this: Prior to Brad Mills becoming CEO, the quality of life for Lonmin […]

I was facilitating a process-mapping session recently, and one of the team members came up to me during a break. She said, “I think it’s really interesting that you are leading us in the process mapping in a way that’s much different than I’ve seen before.” I said, “What do you mean?” She explained that […]

A few comments on organizational design and Six Sigma…. Organizational structure is one consideration. The decision to centralize or functionally embed black belts has to consider an organization’s business model, culture and past experience with process improvement. Likewise, compensation, career track, professional development and human capital management practices are important. In some organizations, Six Sigma […]

Hitachi is running a series of advertisements in the Wall Street Journal focusing on their plasma TV technology capabilities. In today’s issue (March 13, 2007, p. A16), their ad talks about kaizen: No matter where in the world they’re made, Hitachi plasma TVs have one trait in common: They’re the product of kaizen, the Japanese […]

Nayism 43: Ever since we started deploying Six Sigma, everyone has been jumping around like they found the golden nugget. Don’t they know that golden nuggets don’t really exist? Hmmm. Sounds like this naysayer may have kissed the ’ole blarney stone one too many times. Believe it or not, the Six Sigma Pot O’Gold is […]

Nayism 42: Why does every department have to have their own Black Belt? Let’s just pick some people to be Black Belts, give them a job title, put them in a separate department and be done with it. Sound like a good idea? Here’s what I say. . . One of the most important aspects in […]

“Resistance is futile.” That is the warning statement from the Borg Collective, an arch enemy of the Federation of Planets in the Star Trek television series. Any trekkies out there? The first time I heard that phrase I thought; boy are they over-confident, they have not dealt with Captain Jean Luc Picard yet. And of […]

Recently the Under Secretary for Business Transformation (DUSA-BT), the Honorable Mike Kirby spoke with our Command and BB/GB trainees on the need for change. He presented an hour long slide show on why we must change the way we do business. Most compelling was his analysis of the evolution of the capability of the war […]

Praveen Gupta, President of Accelper Consulting, sent me a few copies of his new book entitled Virtually Stat Free Six Sigma. (Thanks for the reference to iSixSigma.com in the first chapter, Praveen!) Subtitled “Focusing on Intent for Quick Results,” this book dives into the biggest problems facing most companies and what tools are most likely […]

As research manager for iSixSigma Magazine, I spend my Decembersanalyzing the data from the iSixSigma Job Shop to figure out who makes what and where they make it. I really enjoy crunching the numbers because I get to spend so much time in Minitab. (My love for Minitab waskindled by my Black Belt instructor, Paul […]

I was speaking with Joe Ficalora, EVP of Technology for Sigma Breakthrough Technologies, Inc., at the IQPC Miami Summit in January and we got to talking about all the bad press Six Sigma had been getting lately.  Joe told me that he and his colleague Joe Costello had co-written a letter to the author of the […]

A review of the information covering Lean Six Sigma deployments shows a clear focus on such items as. Roles & responsibilities: – e.g. champion, process owner, MBB, and BB Critical success factors: – e.g. Leadership commitment, alignment to strategy and suitable training/accreditation system Project selection & sponsorship But what I have been interested in is […]

We have recently become aware of fraudulent emails and telephone calls from a person claiming to be from iSixSigma which was sent to multiple people, including some of our readers. The fraudulent email, which was sent by Aditi Raisurana and may be personally addressed, tells recipients that iSixSigma is “in the process of promoting our […]

It seems that no sooner does Hyperion start the transition from the acquisition of Decisioneering to the process of integrating Crystal Ball with their products, when Hyperion announces that *they’ve* now been acquired by Oracle! The deal is in cash for $52.00 per share, or approximately $3.3 billion. In an email I received today from Jim […]

For my first blog at iSixSigma, I would like to contemplate disciplines that are slow to embrace Six Sigma but need it most: internal control and enterprise risk management. Passage of the Sarbanes Oxley Act of 2002 thrust these domains into the limelight. The Committee of Sponsoring Organizations (COSO) defines enterprise risk management as follows: […]

I was raised to believe thatin Six Sigma,the “Voice of the Customer” is the source of process specifications. While training, we spent quite a bit of time learning Customer Needs Mapping, developing the Critical to Quality characteristics, and filling out the CTQ tree. We defined a customer as the end-user, or beneficiary, of the process […]

My understanding of Lean Six Sigma is mainly based on the projects and the people I work with here at Aviva. Being one of the biggest businesses in the UK, Aviva gives me great opportunity to work on complex problems & processes. But it has its limitations. I work exclusively in the financial services market […]

Recently, I was part of agroup Black Belts who were discussingthe pressure on leaders to improve, not just in one direction, but in as many ways as possible, seemingly all at once. Here’s a possible scenario, from a hypothetical healthcare organization in the beginning stages of deploying Lean Six Sigma. A Vice President is speaking […]

(Or “On Arithmetic Means”, if you prefer.) I hardly need mention in this forum that as a standalone descriptive statistic, the average can be a dangerous piece of information. Averages quoted in the absence of other descriptive statistics are generally insufficient at best, and downright misleading at worst. I’ll skip the lecture on the importance […]

A little off message today, but (eventually) topical. Britain’s ancient roads have carried people and livestock for centuries. But it was the engineering skills of the Romans who transformed our road transportation system. In the first 100 years after their invasion in 43AD they built at least 8000 miles of road so even the most […]

Nayism 41: “Six Sigma” is not for us. We’re past all the buzz words and latest fads. For various and sometimes unknown reasons, people shy away from Six Sigma because of the name. In fact, Six Sigma has become so popular that it could be the hype surrounding the name that turns them off. So […]

Mayor Graham Richard of Fort Wayne Indiana recently published a new book called Performance is the Best Politics: How to create high-performance government using Lean Six Sigma. In conjuncton with the book the Mayor launched a new website, http://www.performanceisthebestpolitics.com,that offers previews of case studies included in the book. In the Mayor’s own words: “This book […]

We must be data driven!We must manage by fact!What happens when we don’t have any data? What happens when we can’t tweak a bit of machinery to improve our primary metric? What happens when one of our critical Xs is a behavioural problem?Or, one of our action items in the Improve stage is something a […]

Nayism 40: The year-end financials are out and Company XYZ who is using Six Sigma didn’t do well. Looks like Six Sigma is looking more like Sick Sigma. It’s that time of year when Six Sigma naysayers turn to company year-end financial performance and try to lay blame on Six Sigma for companies that may […]