Category: Blogs

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 […]

During my recent travels, I was passing through London on the way to Bristol and bought a copy of the London Evening Standard to pass the time on the tube (subway) from Liverpool Street to Paddington. On leaving Liverpool Street I read the front-page headline, ‘£40m tube refit sends out the wrong signals’. A five-month […]

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 […]

I was very interested to read Stephen Crate’s recent post with Jim Womack’s “Historical Perspective of Lean,” which mentioned the idea of gemba consciousness, or awareness of what’s actually happening on the shop floor. “Management by walking around” is related to this concept; at one organization that I know of, meetings were forbidden before 10 […]

Nayism 32: We’ve learned the tools, trained folks and made good progress with our projects but somehow Six Sigma hasn’t become the “way we work.” Exactly when, if ever, will the cultural transformation thing happen? Sounds like this organization is having a tough time changing old habits. Much like the latest weight loss fad, short-term […]

Here is further article on the use of IT in six sigma projects.  We are all familiar with using analytical tools such as DOE, regression, and control charts for inferential statistics to model and predict behaviour. One IT tool I have recently had the benefit of using being decision trees. Let me explain. Take for […]

I was in New York City on a busy summer weekend not too long ago. Me and a whole lot of other tourists. In fact, it was the busiest I have ever seen the city in terms of tourists. Saturday night found me and my companions at one end of Times Square, fighting the crowds […]

Balance is one of those tricky concepts which appears on the surface quite simple yet is often deceptively difficult to grasp. In its more common forms, like standing up and walking about, we never give it a second thought. There are scant few of us however who would conclude that because we can walk we’re […]

Much is said about how Six Sigma will radically change your company, how it will save millions of pounds / dollars, and how it will change your company’s culture. Little is said about on of the major problems most Six Sigma deployments even the mature ones face; the “non-believers.”

As our organization implements lean, we are running into fears that our employeeswon’t be as productive after a lean project. There’s a theory that we’ll be “paying people to wait around” for patients / customers to show up. I’m pretty fascinated by this fear, since lean concepts of value are supposed to be be employed […]

I recently began to research Six Sigma Belt Certification Programs on the Internet. I have been thinking that I might like to obtain some credential in additionto my Masters Degree. I became concerned because there appeared to be multiple opportunities with no clear standard. Each one I discovered had a different number of hours of […]

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” […]

Nayism 31: “Of course I’m on board with Six Sigma. What’s not to like about it?” Fact or Fiction? Is this leader a genuine believer or a shrouded figure from the “dark side”? How can you tell? Here’s what I say . . . As spoken by the true master Yoda, “Find the answer to the […]

I continue to be amazed at the creativity some people have. I’ve even heard some staff boast that they were “The Kings and Queens of Workarounds” because they knew how to get things done through back channels, crisis management, and personal connections that were never listed in any procedure manual. They are too busy to […]

A Black Belt friend of mine was telling me about deployment in his company. I listened to his problems patiently and then said to him, “It looks like you have employed a ‘bunch’ of Black Belts who are brilliant at the statistics, but when it comes to facilitating a project team, who might for example […]

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 […]

In my last blog I asked readers to comment on the core reasons for project failure. Well having waded through the flood of 10 responses (thank you all) here is what you said. Projects were split 50:50 between manufacturing and transactional with improving satisfaction levels and reducing costs the main objectives. But what I was […]

In my opinion, one of the key questions to answer when planning a deployment is whether the Black Belt role should be full-time. While this sounds like a reasonable question to some, many experienced Six Sigma folks find it strange to even ask, because in the majority of programs the Black Belt role is automatically […]

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 […]