Category: Metrics

A company with a Six Sigma deployment identifies a process improvement area within the business. It is easy to figure out what comes next – just define the problem, set the goal, select the project team, pick the team leader, and get out of the way, right? Well, sort of…but before deployment leaders get […]

Financial project metrics can be cumbersome to use and jargon-heavy. We demystify and simplify project return on investment, making the concept accessible to all and giving you the confidence to use it in your project management operations.

Learn how defects per unit is used to understand the quality levels regarding defects, how DPU compares to other yield metrics, and the benefits of regularly measuring the metric.

Six Sigma has been defined in three ways: as a metric, a methodology, and a philosophy. Sigma can be defined as the standard deviation of a set of continuous data, so Six Sigma would then be six standard deviations.

When a company promises and delivers on quality, there is a good chance that customer satisfaction and retention will be high. But paving the road to success depends on companies being well-informed about their own business. They achieve that knowledge by developing and utilizing effective metrics. Why Do We Need Them? Metrics are […]

How do you convert DPMO to Sigma Level? There are several metrics you can use to measure how well your process is performing. Let’s look at three of them and discuss how to calculate them and how they relate. The three are DPMO, Sigma Level, and Cpk. Convert DPMO/Sigma to Cpk  Before discussing […]

Key performance indicators (KPIs) are critical to ensuring a project team has the performance data it needs to sustain improvements. With KPIs, a team can evaluate the success of a project against its established goals. Types of Metrics There are two types of metrics to consider when selecting KPIs for a project: outcome metrics and […]

In business, it is important to know if your company is reaching its potential as far as how much of your product or service is successfully getting to your customers. One way is to look at your throughput and see if there is room for improvement. 

Short description: Do you want to succeed? The best way to do so is by using metrics. Using Lean Six Sigma metrics ensures that you get the most important tasks done first and makes you a stronger company in the long run.

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.

Proper WIP management creates both quick wins and long term improvements. Here’s what you need to know.

How do you know if your diet is working? You need to start with a baseline and then measure change from that. You should do the same for all your processes. From that process baseline, you can know whether your process is getting better, worse, or not changing. The term “process baseline” typically refers to […]

The primary metric is a numeric output used to understand your process. It makes the process objective, setting the stage for successful improvements that align with the organization’s strategic goals.

Are all your organization’s problems and issues of equal importance? Probably not. How should you handle those that are the most critical and important? Let’s find out. A Key Business Issue (KBI) refers to a critical problem or challenge that your organization faces, which can significantly impact your performance, growth, or competitiveness. KBIs are specific […]

If you look at the dashboard of your car, you will see a display of the current real-time status of important metrics. You can do the same thing with your business metrics.

Does your organization have a centralized department or function that monitors and tracks the performance of your operations relative to your customers? If you do, let’s see what it might be doing. The term “Customer Operations Performance Center” is not a widely recognized or standardized term, so its exact meaning may vary depending on the […]

Whenever there is an issue in a process, attempts are made to identify the process step that is causing the problem, identify the root cause and come up with a corrective or preventive action. The time taken to identify the “right” process step is directly proportional to the number of process steps involved and it […]

Three years into the Lean Six Sigma deployment at Ball Corporation (the company known for its glass canning jars), the process improvement team began a visual factory initiative. This initiative was intended to develop visual signs on plant floors that not only instruct employees about where to focus their energies, but also depict the health […]

A successful Lean Six Sigma (LSS) project will produce either breakthrough performance – a shift in the mean or median – or variation reduction – a shift in the standard deviation or variation. How do you know your project has undergone a shift in the process that benefits the business? If there has been a […]

In 2010, the finance department of a Fortune 500 company established a quality audit (QA) system for the company’s operations. Toward the end of 2011, the general feeling on the floor was that the QA system was effective and the quality of work in the department was improving. The metrics, however, were not improving. A […]

Return on investment (ROI) measures/evaluates an investment. It can be thought of in general terms as: (gain from investment) (cost of investment) / cost of investment The specifics of a calculation will vary depending upon the type of investment being assessed. The best ROI references on iSixSigma can be found at the following links: Ask […]

Everything seems to be available in 3-D these days – movies, magazines and even television – so why not DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, Control)? The idea may sound silly, but many opportunities go unnoticed because practitioners do not have the right tools in place to see them from different perspectives. The traditional DMAIC process […]

A common metric many organizations use to assess the performance of their Lean Six Sigma program is project cycle time – the total time from the beginning to the end of a process improvement project, including total process time and all delays. If your organization’s project cycle time is running higher than your targeted rate, […]

As a Six Sigma professional responsible for managing projects, have you ever been asked the following questions? When do you reasonably expect to complete your project? What’s the probability of completing the project on time or on a given date? Which activities on the critical path should you focus your attention on to meet the […]