Category: Concepts

When someone says your data has kurtosis, do you think this is referring to some disease? Kurtosis can be a natural state of your data. Let’s find out more about kurtosis and what it means.

Dr. W. Edwards Deming is often quoted as saying, “It is not necessary to change. Survival is not mandatory.” But should the change be radical or incremental? Kaikaku is the Japanese word for “radical change”

When a product or service fails to meet quality standards, there are costs associated called Costs of Non-Conformance, or CONC. Find out more about this SixSigma concept.

Don’t let the costs of poor quality eat your profits for breakfast. Learn how to stay competitive by understanding the components of TCOQ and how to optimize them – and ultimately the quality of your product or service.

In many cases, you want to compare the means of samples. But, comparing variances can be just as important. The F test is the statistical tool you would use for that.  

6S is the formal activity of organizing the workplace and serves as the foundation of any continuous improvement effort. Explore the 6S and learn how to implement them in your organization.

Tangible benefits are the common currency of defining project success, tying the value of the project to the organization’s bottom line.

Non-value-added is the work your customer is not paying you to perform.

Secondary metrics consider the overall health of the business. They help ensure that other areas do not slip when pursuing improvement of the primary metric.

Process time is the time it takes for one or more inputs to be transformed into a finished product or service by a business process.

A process map is a hierarchical method for displaying processes that illustrates how a product or transaction is processed. It is a visual representation of the workflow either within a process — or an image of the whole operation. Process mapping comprises a stream of activities that transforms a well-defined input or set of inputs into a pre-defined set of outputs.

“So much to do, and so little time to do it” might be a good way to describe multi-generational product planning, or MGPP. Sometimes it makes sense to stage your improvements over a longer period of time.

TRIZ (pronounced “TREEZ”, the Russian acronym for the Theory of Inventive Problem Solving) is an established science, methodology, tools and knowledge- and model-based technology for stimulating and generating innovative ideas and solutions for problem-solving. It is short for Teoriya Resheniya Izobreatatelskikh Zadatch.

DMAIC is a data-driven process-improvement methodology. Let’s look at how DMAIC compares to other problem-solving processes as well as the benefits of using DMAIC when solving a complex problem.

The word scrum (short for scrummage) is usually used in the context of rugby. But how would it be used when talking about process improvement? Let’s find out. In rugby, a scrum is a method of restarting play after the ball goes out of bounds or there is a penalty. It involves players packing closely […]

You will commonly hear the word scrum used when you are watching a rugby match. But it is also used in the context of an agile project management framework that helps teams structure and manage their work through a set of values, principles, and practices. A Scrum Master is a role in the Scrum framework, […]

A form is a document that has a set template for the presentation of data or information. Format is the layout with which the data is presented.

The letter Z is not just the sign of Zorro or a segment on “Sesame Street.” It also has a number of statistical connotations. Let’s explore those and more.

Z bench is not where Zorro rested after saving another town. There are a number of Six Sigma terms associated with the letter Z, such as Z score, Z bench long term, Z bench short term, and Z shift. Let’s explore the A to Zs about Z.

A Z value is a data point’s position between the mean and another location as measured by the number of standard deviations. Z is a universal measurement because it can be applied to any unit of measure. Z is a measure of process capability and corresponds to the process sigma value that is reported by […]

Are you hearing voices? If it’s in a business context, then there is nothing to worry about — and it might even be a good thing. Let’s listen in to the voice of the process and hear what it has to say.

If it relies or revolves around the internet, chances are it counts as web-based technology. This concept encompasses a significant vertical and horizontal scope, which means it includes many different kinds of technology, products and services. Overview: What is web-based technology (WBT)? Web-based technology (WBT) is a broad umbrella term that encompasses many different types […]

Have you seen the Lean Six Sigma rainbow of Belt colors? There is White, Yellow, Green, and Black. Let’s explore Yellow.

Waste is all around us. Reducing waste in your process will free up resources and make your process more efficient, save money, increase capacity, and a whole host of other benefits.