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Understanding the Tollgate Review Process
Updated:The word gating is often used in the context of Six Sigma and DMAIC and is usually referred to as tollgate reviews. The purpose is to evaluate your progress, and make sure you’re still heading in the right direction.
Read more »ANOVA: A Simple Guide to Comparing Multiple Group Means
Updated:ANOVA is a powerful statistical method for comparing several samples (3 or more) to each other to see if the populations that the means came from are statistically different.
Read more »Maximizing Efficiency and Meeting Deadlines with Production Preparation Schedules
Updated:In production, some events are hard to predict, but most things can be prepared for with proper planning.
Read more »Best Practices for Building an Effective Current Reality Tree
Updated:If you ever find yourself, solving the same problems week after week with nary a long-term impact, it could be worth creating a current reality tree to identify the root causes.
Read more »Understanding Customer Needs: A Guide to Segmentation Strategies
Updated:In the context of marketing, segmentation is the process of dividing a target market into groups with similar needs and behaviors. This allows you to develop unique strategies to meet specific wants and needs.
Read more »How Quality Assurance Schedules Drive Improvement and Innovation in Business
Updated:With your company, you need to be able to have your customers believe in you, deliver products on-time, and understand your processes as well as how they can be improved. This can all be accomplished with a quality assurance schedule.
Read more »What is Total Quality Management and Why Does it Matter?
Updated:Now wait a minute, we already have a Quality Management System and a Quality Manual, I don’t have time for this Total Quality Management fad, right? Think again, this is no fad. With successful deployment and adoption of TQM you can elevate your business to new quality highs and both your customers and employees will reap the benefits.
Read more »Total Value Management: Achieving Business Success through Value Optimization
Updated:Delivering quality and value for your company and your customers is a basic building block of business success and growth. With Total Value Management (TVM) we will show you a system that is straightforward to deploy, delivers real and tangible results, locking in value for you and your customers alike.
Read more »Optimizing Quality Control: The Role of Short-Run SPC
Updated:If your manufacturing process produces multiple products or SKUs in short runs, how many control charts will you need to monitor those different products? With short-run SPC, you might only need one.
Read more »Navigating the Mechanics and Calculations of Pull Systems
Updated:Does your organization use a pull or push system to allow your manufacturing function to meet your customers’ demand for your products? Let’s learn why a pull system might be a better approach for optimizing your organization.
Read more »The Logic of Radians: A Better Measurement for Angles
Updated:In engineering and manufacturing, there are situations where measuring in degrees is not the best option. For these metrics, you will find that radian is a better fit.
Read more »Employee Empowerment: Exploring the Voice of the Employee (VOE)
Updated:When managing any organization, there are four voices you should be listening to; Voice of the Customer, Voice of the Process, Voice of the Business and Voice of the Employee. Let’s focus on learning more about the Voice of the Employee or VOE.
Read more »Mastering F-Charts: A Valuable Addition to Your Toolkit
Updated:If you need a control chart that is quick and easy to set up in order to track defects, an F-chart is worth knowing about.
Read more »From Constraint to Opportunity: Leveraging Capacity Constraint Resources
Updated:Addressing the challenges posed by capacity constraint resources determines how much and how quickly businesses can grow beyond their status quo.
Read more »Making Informed Conclusions: Using the 1-Sample Sign Test for Median Analysis
Updated:We know that many hypothesis tests have an underlying assumption of normality. But, what if your data is not normal? Let’s see how the 1-sample sign test can help.
Read more »Efficient Data Representation: Why Web Charts Matter
Updated:If you have ever seen a polygon web-shaped chart with points all over it connected by various colors, you may have wondered how it works. It is a web chart and it is not as complicated as it looks.
Read more »Understanding Reproducibility: Ensuring Reliable Measurement Systems
Updated:If you have your three laboratory technicians measure the same samples using the same equipment and measurement process will they give you the same answers? Let’s learn more about the concept of reproducibility.
Read more »Improving Experimental Precision with Replication: A Comprehensive Guide
Updated:When you talk about Design of Experiments, you can discuss the 3 Big R’s; Randomization, Repetition and Replication. Let’s learn more about Replication and contrast that with the other R’s.
Read more »Analyzing Correlation Coefficients: Discovering Patterns in Data
Updated:The correlation coefficient (r) answers the question of how strong and in what direction is the relationship between two continuous variables. Let’s explore this statistical descriptor and what it tells you about your data.
Read more »Probability of Defect: Unlocking the Key to Operational Excellence
Updated:Short description: With the increasing demand for Lean Six Sigma to address the rising costs of product and service quality, the “Probability of Defect” concept is still very relevant in today’s environment of process improvement.
Read more »Streamlining Project Management: The Role of a Project Process
Updated:Embarking on projects without any formalized, thought-out process involved can be fine when you are keeping it small or routine. This sort of fly-by-night approach is not recommended when there is anything major actually at stake.
Read more »Benefits and Best Practices of Using Supplier Request for Engineering Approvals
Updated:It is inevitable that change happens, whether it be temporary or permanent. Whether you are on the supply side or the manufacturing side of engineering, for permanent changes it is likely you are going to encounter an SREA.
Read more »Boosting Your Bottom Line: How Glenday Sieve Can Improve Your Processes
Updated:The Glenday Sieve approach can help companies improve business processes, boost profits and eliminate waste and underperformance.
Read more »Opportunities: A Gateway to Enhancing Process Efficiency and Quality
Updated:There are some common everyday terms that can mean one thing, but that can be a bit more nuanced when it comes to Six Sigma. One of these terms is “opportunity”. Read on to find out what it means when it comes to Six Sigma.
Read more »Fostering Creativity in the Workplace: The Power of Opportunity Creation
Updated:The ability to find and create opportunities is of paramount importance in terms of innovation and growth for your business. Being able to find opportunities is one thing, but can opportunities be created?
Read more »Achieving Excellence: How to Attain the Coveted Rank of Master Black Belt
Updated:Will having a Master Black Belt help your organization beat up your competitors? Yes. By having a skilled and experienced Master Black Belt, your organization will have the capabilities to improve all that they do and gain competitive advantage. Let’s see how.
Read more »Process Capability Index: The Key to Customer Satisfaction and Business Success
Updated:Can your process meet the expectations and specifications of your customer? The Process Capability Index is a simple way of answering that question. Let’s see how.
Read more »Unlocking Improvement Opportunities with Modular Arrangements of Predetermined Time Standards (MODAPTS)
Updated:What is the most efficient way for an employee to complete a task? Could the way they are getting the job done improve? Could it be safer? Predetermined motion time systems help to answer these questions.
Read more »The Power of Collaboration: Exploring the Function Analysis System Technique
Updated:It is important to be able to see your processes, projects, and services from every conceivable viewpoint. Putting together FAST diagrams can achieve this while doing it in a collaborative and potentially even fun way.
Read more »Optimizing Process Efficiency with LSS Inspection Plans
Updated:The Lean Six Sigma inspection plan is a very useful tool for creating a quality control program that achieves high-quality results and customer satisfaction. If you are looking for a way to streamline your organization’s quality assurance goals, you will greatly benefit from this comprehensive guide.
Read more »Estimating Machine Lifespan: A Guide to Kaplan-Meier Analysis
Updated:In business, the durability and longevity of machines utilized in operations are integral for optimal production. This can be planned for using the Kaplan-Meier estimator.
Read more »Confidence Level for Business Applications: Determining the Right Threshold
Updated:When dealing with data and statistics, there is no certainty. As the researcher, you get to choose the level of confidence you need to make your decisions.
Read more »What is Muda? Understanding the Concept of Waste Reduction
Updated:Short description: Before you can improve anything, you’ve got to be able to identify the areas that you can improve. This is what the Lean Six Sigma principle of muda is all about: identifying where waste is happening and eliminating it.
Read more »Process Indicator
Published:The power of data can be harnessed by understanding the benefits, best practices, and proper use of process indicators. Quantifying process performance allows for clear analysis of operations.
Read more »Understanding the Mood’s Median Test: An Overview
Updated:Your data has failed the assumption of normality needed for a parametric test of hypotheses. If you have two or more groups you want to analyze, what do you do? Maybe the Mood’s Median Test will help.
Read more »Pearson’s Correlation
Published:To answer the question of how strong and in what direction is the relationship between two continuous variables you would use the Pearson correlation coefficient (r). Let’s learn more about this statistical descriptor and what it tells you about your data.
Read more »Nominal Data
Published:Sometimes you are interested in analyzing data that is not measurable. Nominal data consists of unordered categories which can be counted but not measured.
Read more »Mallows Statistic (C-p)
Published:When you hear the phrase Mallows’ Statistic (Cp) think of multiple regression analysis. The question you want to answer is which combination of predictor variables will give you the best prediction model. Let’s learn a little more.
Read more »Independent Variable
Published:What is an independent variable and why is it important to understand? And how is it different from a dependent variable? Let’s answer those questions for you.
Read more »Confounding
Published:The design, collection and analysis of experimental data takes significant time and resources. Careful consideration of the potential cause and effect relationships is key along with an understanding of variables that can influence both cause and effect. These confounding variables are ever present but their influence can be mitigated with good experimental design.
Read more »Data Transformations Helped One Company Better Analyze Their Process Data
Published:Normality of the data is an underlying assumption for the use of many statistical tools. When normality doesn’t exist, transforming the data may be necessary. Let’s see how one company did that.
Read more »Pharma Co. Saved Nearly $1M Using Attribute Agreement Analysis
Published:Can you always believe data which is based on people’s opinions and self-reporting? The obvious answer is no. Let’s see how one company used Attribute Agreement Analysis to determine the reasons for speaker program cancellations.
Read more »How Design of Experiments (DOE) Helped a Pharma Company Extend Product Shelf Life
Published:Through the use of Design of Experiments (DOE), a pharmaceutical company was able to extend the shelf life for one of its life saving liquid oncology medicines. Let’s see how this saved the company money, lowered the price of the drug and helped save lives.
Read more »R-Square Adjusted
Published:R-Square adjusted is a concept that is associated with regression analysis, which is a method used to identify which variables have an impact on a topic. Learn more about this Six Sigma concept.
Read more »Effective Team Building with the GRPI Model: Setting Goals, Roles, Processes, and Relationships
Updated:The GRPI model was developed in the 1970s by Richard Beckhard, an American organizational theorist. Its ease of use and effectiveness keeps it in use today. Find out more about this.
Read more »Definition of Quality
Published:In business, you need to be able to meet the needs of your customers. Your product or service has to be up to a certain standard. It needs to hold up to an agreed-upon definition of quality.
Read more »Mastering Scatter Plots: Tools for Business Decision-Making
Updated:If you need a quick tool for analyzing a mass of data in order to spot a likely relationship between two variables, a scatter plot is a good first step.
Read more »Nominal
Published:There are four distinct hierarchical levels of measuring data. These are nominal, ordinal, interval, and ratio. Nominal is the most simple and ratio is the most complex. What does nominal mean, though?
Read more »Profession
Published:The Lean Six Sigma profession is inherently complex because there are many ways to interpret this simple yet meaningful definition. Keep reading to learn more.
Read more »Ratchet Device
Published:With improvements made in processes, it is important to make sure that your business doesn’t fall back on old bad habits. Incorporating ratchet devices is a method of preventing this from happening.
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