Category: Blogs

Benchmarking results consistently identify examples of Six Sigma success. Even so, getting “naysayers” on board is a continuous challenge. What do you tell them? Nayism 10: Why can’t we just have part-time Black Belts. I can’t afford to have a full time resource dedicated to Six Sigma project work. When someone asks this question they […]

Mayor Graham Richard, City of Fort Wayne Indiana, delivered a non-partisan view of why Six Sigma is important for the public sector. He began by sharing what he wanted each of us to get out of the presentation: “One hope is that you will think about what you can do in your community, even if […]

Notes from the deployment frontline 31 October 05 Sorry about the two month delay – babies and work have consumed my time. Alison Grace is sleeping most of the night and Mom is feeling almost normal. Work is going from tactical to strategic as we are beginning to understand the value of focusing change agents […]

I have to admit that I didn’t think that a satellite session with Jack would be all that great, but I was dead wrong. The question and answer format suits his leadership style and seeing him up on two giant screens made the grandeur of Jack all the better. My fellow colleagues Michael Cygerand Dian […]

This blog entry will highlight some of Jack Welch’s comments from Wednesday, October 26, 2005 on the topic of financial savings through Six Sigma.

Benchmarking results consistently identify examples of Six Sigma success. Even so, getting “naysayers” on board is a continuous challenge. What do you tell them? Nayism 9: Six Sigma won’t work for my department because we really don’t have standard ’processes’ and every client, customer or situation is different. Process thinking is a new way of […]

Roger Cockroft, Corporate VP, Business Performance Improvement, spoke brilliantly about the way Constellation Energy is using Six Sigma to manage change in their organization. Constellation Energy is the oldest utility company in the United States and also one of the largest. Cockroft said that post 911 there were a lot of changes in the organization […]

Roger Hoerl, of GE Global Research, kicked off the conference with a presentation titled, “A fresh approach to integrating Lean and Six Sigma”. His presentation was quite “Lean” at only 12 slides, but the message was clear… The way Lean and Six Sigma have been integrated in the past is based on faulty assumptions and […]

Today was my first full day at the IQPC Lean Six Sigma Summit West, in Las Vegas. I attended as many events as I could and have met some great people in and out of the Six Sigma world. I briefly spoke with Roger Hoerl (still hoping for a more in depth conversation later), joined […]

Benchmarking results consistently identify examples of Six Sigma success. Even so, getting “naysayers” on board is a continuous challenge. What do you tell them? Nayism 8: I know that leadership needs to understand Six Sigma but is learning all these statistics really necessary? We’re not all statisticians nor do we want to be. When leadership […]

I just received my ASQWire email today. The email includes a summary of what’s going on at the American Society for Quality (ASQ), and is sent to members. One of the stories caught my eye and I thought it had a fascinating title, “Have you calculated your ASQ membership worth?” It encouraged me to visit […]

Benchmarking results consistently identify examples of Six Sigma success. Even so, getting “naysayers” on board is a continuous challenge. What do you tell them? Nayism 7: Six Sigma looks like repackaged TQM.What makes you think its ‘staying power’ is going to be any different? When people first hear about Six Sigma, some may see it […]

Do You Know One? Do you know a special Black Belt deserving of recognition? Someone who gets outstanding results using their own skills, and at the same time fully involves the people who work with them… a Black Belt who brings talent, integrity and good humor to the workplace? Introduce iSixSigma to a great Black […]

The International Quality and Productivity Center (IQPC) is hosting the Lean Six Sigma Summit West,October 26 – 27, 2005 at the Venetianin Las Vegas, Nevada, USA. I’m looking forward to attending the conference, soaking up the Six Sigma sun, and blogging the events. Jack Welch will be there via satellite and will take questions… so […]

Eli Lilly may be new to using Six Sigma but they put so much research into the methodology before deployment you would have thought it was a new drug. And in fact Six Sigma is the drug to which 200 Black Belts are currently addicted. Once you start up the hellacious hills of hypotheses and […]

Kevin Meyer from the Evolving Excellence blog has put together a nice post called Carnival of Lean Leadership. In it he includes links to posts from otherblogs around the topic of “Lean leadership”, the iSixSigma Blogosphere included: “Losing and winning are topics in two of our favorites. The Common Sense Guy shows how leadership lessons […]

Benchmarking results consistently identify examples of Six Sigma success. Even so, getting “naysayers” on board is a continuous challenge. What do you tell them? Nayism 6: I already know how to fix the problem. I really don’t need a Six Sigma project to tell me what I already know. Sometimes people get confused between what’s […]

iSixSigma announced today the beta release of the iSixSigma Toolbar. With the toolbar installed on your Internet Explorer browser, you will be able to instantly search against the tens of thousands of pages of content that have been written and collected over the past 5+ years. You will also be able to search against specific […]

It seems to be a tradition for bloggers to make their 100th post about… the 100th post. Well, as a Six Sigma nut why should I introduce variation into the ritual? So here is my century post to SixSigmaCompanies.com ¦ For those new to this blog the following is a rundown of what has gone on […]

Benchmarking results consistently identify examples of Six Sigma success. Even so, getting “naysayers” on board is a continuous challenge. What do you tell them? Nayism 5: If Six Sigma helps businesses be successful then why have some businesses that have implemented Six Sigma not done well? This question is quite typical of questions you get […]

Newell Rubbermaid, famous for their storage containers and Sharpie pens, launched the Newell Operational Excellence program in 2002 to reduce costs, inventory and lead times, and to improve service and quality levels. The 2004 Annual Report sums up the Newell Operational Excellence program to date: “It is critical to have a process for achieving cost […]

Benchmarking results consistently identify examples of Six Sigma success. Even so, getting “naysayers” on board is a continuous challenge. What do you tell them? Nayism 4: Six Sigma projects take too long to complete. I need to get this fixed now. Actually, they should have probably had the problem fixed 3 years ago. And maybe […]

The Wall Street Journal article “Rethinking Quality Improvement”, published this morning, raises the question of whether Six Sigma and new product development, research, and innovation can work together: “The critics say process management helps improve existing products and routines, but can hinder a company’s ability to innovate. ‘For stuff you’re already good at, you get […]

Benchmarking results consistently identify critical factors that are needed to increase the probability of Six Sigma success. Even so, getting “naysayers” on board is a continuous challenge. What do you tell them? Nayism 3: When picking a Black Belt, I can’t afford to let one of my best people go. Open any book about Six […]