Category: Concepts

Subjective ratings and rankings can be used in a variety of applications, such as assessing job performance, gauging customer satisfaction, and monitoring the morale of your workforce. Find out more about this Six Sigma term.

Increasing complexity of products and services in combination with the pressure of reduced time to market can increase the probability of non-conformance and the need to perform rework to meet functional requirements. We’ll explain why avoiding rework activities is an all-round winner with some top tips for you to implement it in your business.

When you are part of an organization that is working towards goals, you are part of a team. A team moving toward hitting milestones can sometimes need to generate excitement and motivation while inching toward the goal line. This is why we have acronyms like TEAM. An acronym like TEAM can be used […]

Have you ever wondered why your doctor may keep you waiting in the waiting room or why you have to fast before doing a blood test? Let’s see if Lean Six Sigma can give you an answer.

In Six Sigma, process stability is extremely important to efficiency and productivity. With a stable process, you have predictability, and quotas can be met.

One of the important statistical descriptors of your data is its central tendency. Central tendency can be described using the mean, median and mode of the data. The mean is described as the mathematical center of your data. The median is the physical center of your data, and the mode is the most frequently occurring value in your data.

ARMI stands for Approver, Resource, Member, and Interested Party (IP). Find out more about these Lean Six Sigma expertise classifications.

A flowchart is a diagram of a process, using standard symbols to represent a variety of process activities over a specified timeline.

Understanding process entitlement is essential to Lean Six Sigma practitioners and organization leaders because process entitlement quantifies the best case or optimum process performance without changes to the process.

As the Chinese proverb says, “a picture is worth a thousand words.” The multi-vari chart is such a picture. In a single graph, you will be able to understand the variation of your process. Let’s learn more. 

When faced with multiple decision criteria, how do you prioritize them? Do you flip a coin or use something more structured? You might want to consider using the Analytic Hierarchy Process as a structured format for prioritizing your decisions.

Does Going to Gemba sound like a nice trip to an exotic locale? While not a fancy foreign destination, Gemba is going to where the work is done to learn more about the process. Let’s take a deeper look into what Gemba is about. 

You need to be SMART when writing the goals for your project charter: specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. Here’s how the SMART framework can help you write better goal statements.

Fractional factorial DOE is a cost- and time-effective designed experimentation statistical tool for understanding the impact of your process inputs on your process outputs. 

What does your process look like from 25,000 feet up in the air? Your extended process view can be described using SIPOC, or supplier, input, process, output, and customer. Let’s get in our plane and go up. 

The use of center points in your designed experiments can be valuable in determining the actual relationship between your input factors and your response variable. Let’s explain this in a little more detail. 

The Bartlett Test is named after the English statistician, Maurice Stevenson Bartlett. The test is also known as the Bartlett’s test for homogeneity of variances. It is most used in doing a 1-way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA). ANOVA is used to determine whether there is any statistical difference between the means of three […]

Understanding what quality targets are and how to center product uniformity around them is a helpful step in overall process improvement, ultimately leading to increased profits and customer satisfaction rates.

If you have a non-conforming or defective product coming off your production line, what do you do with it? Utilizing a strategy of containment might be the way to go. Let’s learn more about this. Containment of non-conforming products refers to the actions you take to prevent the distribution or use of products […]

Understanding and determining the upper and lower statistical limits are the key to determining tolerance range (TR). Find out more about this LSS concept.

Corrective action is the process, known as a corrective action plan (CAP), of taking the appropriate steps to identify the root cause of a problem and implementing a solution that corrects the root cause to prevent its recurrence. The aim is to improve the processes in place within an organization so that problems […]

A radar chart, also known as a spider chart, is a great tool to graphically compare multiple outcomes for specific characteristics and criteria. 

Getting to grips with the many different causes of defects and quality issues is key to ensuring business success and avoiding customer dissatisfaction. The cause and effect diagram is a clear, visual representation of all possible causes and keeps the team focused upon quality improvement.

Is the variation in your process data to be expected, or has something special occurred? A control chart will give you the answer. The X-bar and R chart will give you the details.