Category: Blogs

Is it related to design for Six Sigma? Is it TRIZ? Is it that guy in the corner cube who has 50 patents and tons of papers piled on his desk high enough to obscure anybody’s view as they walk by?

What a great way to return Six Sigma savings back into growing the business: Fund innovation projects. It’s also a nice synergy between Six Sigma and Innovation.

I recently took a long train journey to Wales to attend a user group for a software package that defines Enterprise Architecture (Zachman et al). More details in a future IT blog. But what caught my eye was an article in The Times newspaper: Tax staff told to clear their desk Being told to clear […]

The 30 Rock Six Sigma reference got me thinking about Six Sigma at NBC Universal… not much searching later I found a Six Sigma educational video produced by the quality team at NBCU and narrated by Linda Hildebrandt, a Master Black Belt on the quality team. The self-made video is professional quality (would you expect […]

Okay, time to pick up where I left off last month. You may or may not remember my post about assessing organizational maturity in order to discern the appropriate scope and/or starting point for continuous improvement efforts so I’ll refresh your memory with a quote from the post: “Our target end state for an organization […]

“Are quality and change one of the same thing, can you have one without the other or are they inextricably linked?” What is Quality ? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quality Quality can refer to a. a specific characteristic of an object (the qualities of ice – i.e. its properties). b. the achievement or excellence of an object (good quality […]

My mother-in-law (we call her TiVo) said she was watching 30 Rocklast week…(just one of the many, many showsshe records, hence the name TiVo) and told me about a scene where Jack Donaghy (Alec Baldwin) explains Six Sigma to his staff writers. Well, I went a looking for it and thanks to YouTube here’s the […]

In my previous two posts, I talked about the fugue and the symphony as metaphors for Six Sigma deployment. A fugue is a musical form in which a single theme is repeated or imitated successively by different instruments until eventually the entire orchestra is involved. This strategy isn’t a bad one for Six Sigma deployment, […]

I spent the afternoon with the North West Quality Forum (NWQF). Today’s meeting took place on the Microsoft campus in Redmond, Washington, just North East of Seattle. It was my first time to Redmond, besides my house-hunting trip to the Seattle area a couple of years ago. The NWQF is a group of Seattle-based deployment […]

Nayism 36: “Six Sigma won’t work because. . .” As we approach Thanksgiving it is only fitting that we reflect on the things that we are thankful for. Believe it or not, I am thankful for Six Sigma naysayers. Yes – those stodgy, old school, dig in their heels, change resistant individuals who lurk the […]

Some vendors have recently expressed concerns about the review of project tracking software programs that was published in the November/December 2006 issue of iSixSigma Magazine. I would like to share with you a statement regarding this article that will be published in the January/February 2007 issue. It was written by magazine editor Erin Ducceschi, and […]

On 31st October, Sir Nicholas Stern, working for the UK Government, released the Stern Review. This review looked at the potential economic costs for global warming with a headline that global warming could shrink the global economy by 20% and up to 200 million people could become refugees as their homes are hit by drought […]

The TRIZ Journal is now a division of CTQ Media LLC and a channel under Real Innovation (which will launch November 15th).

First, a special thanks to Dominic at the Fortune Business Innovation Insiderblog for directing me to this story. OK, this Halloween/Six Sigma connection is a small stretch… ConocoPhillips, the sponsor of this giant pumpkin, is a Six Sigma company. If you are in Southern California stop by the refinery for a visit: “ConocoPhillips extends an […]

I imagine that Halloween is to Hershey’s as St. Patty’s Day is to Green. You can’t have one without the other. I love Hershey’s Chocolate…. whether it’s a Kit Kat, Reese’s, Mounds, or Almond Joy (sometimes I do feel like a nut), a Kiss or a Hug, or my favorite, a Special Dark Miniature, when […]

In my last blog entry, I wrote about the fugue as a model for deployment. A fugue is a musical form in which one or two themes are repeated or imitated by successively entering voices, until eventually the entire orchestra is playing the same tune. I suggested that this might not be a bad way […]

DearFantastic Sports Network, I’d like to thank you for choosing me to be your first-ever Master Black Belt. To start things off on a positive note, let me share some suggestions I have for the World Series broadcasts this week. These are all easy to implement and will make the show even more exciting for […]

Recently a colleague suggested Ken Miller’s book , ” We Don’t Make Widgets”as a strategy base for dealing with resistence from employees in the public sector. Abrief overview is available at: http://www.governing.com/books/widgex.htm. It looks like a good read. Thanks to all the comments on my last blog. It is clear performance and philosophy can be […]

To help prepare you for theHalloween spirit, this week I’ll be posting Six Sigma stories with a Halloween twist… I’ll cover the frightening, the sweet and the orange…. Today, let me introduce you to the Dark Side of Six Sigma – Six Sigmathe fuzzrock trio based out of Long Branch, New Jersey. These guys seriously […]

There are 3 kinds of lies: lies, big lies and … statistics. Many news topics are based on so called statistical studies. In average … the conclusions are based on the average. In average … there is no mention of the data range or other variation metrics, like standard deviation. In average … there is […]

Nayism 35: Bubble, Bubble, Toil and Trouble, Send me a Black Belt on the Double. I have a problem and he needs to fix it! At first, this statement may not sound like a “nayism” but beware. Something is brewing in this organization and it is definitely trouble. Why? Here’s what I say . . . […]

When it comes to defects here is a great example I suspect other readers may have experienced. But as you will see it has made me question the Six Sigma approach. I would like to ask for guidance. It’s an example I find is happening with increasing regularity and seems to be linked to the […]

I recently attended my graduation ceremony for an Advanced Manufacturing Specialist certification in Kansas City.With Six Sigma methodology being a key component of the certification, I began to listen to the keynote speaker elaborate on the many projects and cost savings achieved by the seventy class graduates. As I reflected over the last year and […]

(Continued from “Lean Journeys – Part 1“) There were two departments in the plant, and the press area served both with most of their raw material. After about two weeks on the job, I found that my area was shutting down one assembly cell per day on average. As you could imagine, my stress level […]