Category: Concepts

Is your company leveraging design thinking? There are several different approaches to accomplishing a project or delivering a new product. For some organizations, implementing Lean principles and frequent Kaizen events is the way to go. For others, it might require a comprehensive overhaul of their organization to embrace TQM. Design thinking is similar […]

A productivity target is an established, quantifiable result from a given process. It represents the minimum acceptable value yield from a given quantity of time and resources invested into it.

It is important to regularly check if your processes are operating as optimally as they could be. If not, actions should be taken for improvement. For this to be appropriately determined, you can create a QPR.

You claim your process yield is 98%. Are you sure? Have you considered your hidden factory? Let’s find out why you should.

Random sampling is a statistical method of selecting a sample of data from a larger set in such a way that each data point has an equal chance of being selected so that the sample represents the population from which it was drawn. What Is Random Sampling? Random sampling is a method of […]

Span is a descriptor of the spread or variation of your data. It is a simple calculation that eliminates the impact of any outliers or unusually high or low values in your data set.

You can learn a lot about your process by monitoring its change over time. There are different trend charts which will allow you to do that. Let’s look at a few. 

What if you were asked to rate this article on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being you didn’t like it and 5 being you loved it. That’s an example of a Likert Scale.

Data is just data, right? Hardly! We hear about discrete data, attribute data, continuous data, and variable data. Let’s unravel some of the confusion.

Incremental and continuous improvements are great. When appropriate, breakthrough improvement is even better. IDOV (identify, design, optimize, validate) is one tool for accomplishing this. Let’s see how. 

The role of a process owner in Lean Six Sigma goes beyond being a mere title or designation. By assigning dedicated process owners, organizations can unlock the true potential of their processes, driving efficiency, quality, and customer satisfaction In today’s dynamic business landscape, organizations constantly strive for efficiency, quality, and continuous improvement, all […]

The phrase “it depends” sums up the concept of interaction in the context of Design of Experiments. Interaction is when the effect of one factor on a response variable depends on the level or setting of another factor. 

Your Six Sigma project will usually focus on a process with customers who directly receive the output of your process. But there are also others who will be impacted and have a stake in the outcome of your project. They are called stakeholders, and you need to understand them.

5C is the formal activity of organizing the workplace, and it serves as the foundation of any continuous improvement effort. Explore the 5C framework, and learn how to implement it in your organization.

Some say that Z is the sign of Zorro (Spanish for fox), the fictional sword-wielding masked vigilante who defended and helped the poor. In statistics, it is something different. In statistics, z usually refers to the standardized score or z-score of a data point in a normal distribution. The z-score measures the number […]

Complex math is often the best way to make sense of a confusing maze of quantifiable variables and conditional relationships.

An in-depth look at how IGI can help businesses become more efficient, profitable, and less wasteful by helping managers keep track of incoming good compliance issues while ensuring incoming goods meet quality standards set by the company.

To optimize the benefit of your forecasting, you would like your time series values to be independent. Unfortunately, sometimes your values are correlated. This autocorrelation will have an impact on your ability to interpret what the data is telling you. Autocorrelation refers to the correlation between a time series variable and its lagged […]

When someone says your data is skewed, do you get upset? Skewness can be a natural state of your data. Let’s find out more about skewness and what it means.

This article will introduce you to common cause variation, one of the foundational concepts in quality improvement. We’ll explore guidance for the successful use of common cause variation in process improvement.

Entitlement is defined as the best performance you can reasonably achieve with the existing process.

Central tendency and mean are two of the more significant statistics that are used in Lean Six Sigma. These two concepts have a large place in the developed world of LSS and are important when it comes to implementing new technologies or measuring processes for improvement.

A competitive and successful business needs to critically evaluate all the opportunities for improvement and deploy valuable resources strategically. By identifying low-hanging fruit, high-impact, low-effort activities can be addressed creating a solid foundation for continuous improvement.

What does your process look like from 30,000 feet? Your extended process view can be described using COPIS, or customer, output, process, input, and supplier. Let’s get in our balloon and go up.