Category: Concepts

If you suspected there was a relationship between your customer’s experience with your product and their future buying tendency, how would you go about confirming whether a relationship existed or not? 

Don’t you feel really good when someone recognizes your achievements? The Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award is intended to recognize those US organizations that have achieved excellence in quality management. 

Having employees that want to go above and beyond, endorse your organization, and trust in its leadership is not an impossible feat. It just requires developing a passion for action.

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.

There are several statistical tests which assume that independent data sets have equal, similar or equivalent variances. Violating this assumption could render any statistical conclusions invalid. 

There are times when you may encounter the need to analyze non-normal distribution. Having another option other than the ANOVA test in these types of situations is critical.

Businesses that buffer often struggle to balance operational stability with lean management. Lean level of buffering is a combination of the two philosophies.

No, that is not a spelling error. A digraph is a bit different than a standard diagram in that it is a diagram that puts an emphasis on direction.

Designing an effective and efficient plan to develop new products or services is a complex challenge that requires thorough planning. Applying the methodology of DFSS allows businesses to see improvement in products or services that normally would have been missed in other design strategies.

If you are embarking on a project for your organization, it is time to put together a charter.

Correction is a critical part of any lean six sigma program. It involves fixing problems once a firm identifies a good or process that does not meet minimum quality standards.

What would happen if a new competitor suddenly enters the market? Can your company survive if a key supplier fails you? Get answers to the “what ifs” of business with an impact analysis.

Sometimes there are too many ideas coming at you at once. When this is the case, instead of succumbing to the chaos, grab a stack of Post-it notes and create an affinity diagram.

Would it be useful to have a simple metric for measuring how well your manufacturing process is working? That is exactly what Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) is all about. Let’s learn a little more about OEE.

Despite the type of data your process generates, there are typically three descriptors or characteristics you would want to know to properly describe your process. Let’s learn what those descriptive statistics are.

It is not practical to calculate the statistical parameters of your population by measuring everything. The Central Limit Theorem will help you use samples to get to your answer.

How can you tell whether the average of your two sample data sets are statistically different and not just due to random chance? The T test is what you would want to use to answer the question. 

The concept of a prediction band is usually associated with regression analysis. We will also contrast a prediction band with a confidence band.

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.

What kind of relationship do your X and Y variables have? Is it linear? Is it non-linear? Let’s learn more about how it can be determined graphically and statistically.

You have two sets of data and want to test whether the means of the populations they came from are the same but the data is not normally distributed. What can you do? Let’s find out.

Does your data from yesterday represent the current state of your process better than that from a month ago? How can you place more emphasis on it yet still make use of older data? That’s what the Exponentially Weighted Moving Average does. 

A control chart is used to identify and alert you when your process has unexpectedly shifted. Traditional Shewhart charts are good for moderate to large shifts but not for small shifts. The CUSUM (Cumulative Sum) is better for identifying small shifts. Let’s see how.

Without having a defined way to measure the amount of something, the world would be chaotic. Thankfully, we have units and ways to quantify and measure them.