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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.

What happens if you want to do continuous improvement but don’t know where to start? What if your organization wastes too much time firefighting or operates in silos? Here are five steps any organization can embrace to get started on the right path.

Someone asked: “Why do 5S [sort, simplify, shine, standardize, sustain]? It’s just going to get dirty again.”

Improvement is like a mighty fire. You must continue to add firewood to keep the fire burning. If you stop, the fire will surely burn out. Lots of repetition builds the fire of improvement capability and culture.

We read or hear “facts” and accept them without critical thought. This article reviews a sample of the kind of facts we accept in the workplace that sometimes we should not.

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

Most Lean initiatives fail. What can you do about that? Ensure your organization’s leaders are champions for the deployment who encourage failure as part of your Lean journey.

The best of iSixSigma 2019 features the highlights of this year’s content – those best loved by our readers.

There is a right way to do standard work. Ensure that your organization knows what it is, how to implement it and how to measure its success. Your company’s future may depend on it!

You’ve used Lean principles at work, but can it also work at home? One family implemented Lean in their daily lives over the course of a year with sustainable and measurable results. You can do it, too.

If you work in construction, Lean will work for you. Answer 10 questions to find out if you need Lean, learn five ways to begin Lean, and be sure you know the ONE thing that MUST happen before beginning a Lean deployment.

ReAgent Chemical Services has successfully achieved ISO 13485 accreditation. On 8th August 2019, they were awarded this international ISO standard which demonstrates that they meet the rigorous requirements of a quality management system specific to the medical devices industry.

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.

It’s easy to fall into business-as-usual routines, but it’s only a matter of time before that will lead to loss of business. Use ideation to avoid stagnancy and keep your business fresh.

Who knows more about what it takes to improve digging ditches – the person holding the shovel or the executive vice president of ditch digging? Learn from a self-described Gemba nerd as he takes us behind the scenes in a Lean powerhouse.

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.

Lean can be of great value in office environments. However, the use of complex jargon and statistics, plus a focus on manufacturing, have hindered the adoption of these tools in other settings where they can be useful.

Not an expert in Lean? No problem! Learn a few simple tools you can use in any setting, and help your organization save time and money.

What do Goldilocks and statistical analysis sample size have in common? A razor-sharp focus on “just right.” A sample size that is too big or too small leads to inaccurate data and wasted resources (although hopefully not three bears).

If your goal is control at all cost, or faster and deeper analysis, automation might be just the strategy for you. But if you need to retain and motivate your people to boost business performance, such a strategy of people avoidance is likely to come to a sticky end.

PowerPoints, spreadsheets and lectures don’t grab an audience for long. After 30 minutes, you’ve lost the attention of 25 percent of your attendees. A Lego competition teaches Lean and engages your audience.

Drinking beer can be fun, but you can also use beer as a training tool. Use this beer distribution game simulation for groups as small as four and as large as 60.

A box plot may seem like a simple tool, but as this example shows it can help reveal common and special cause variation that may not have otherwise been noticed. Be sure you’re looking below the surface to optimize your performance!

Depending upon the particular organization, quality may or may not be influential in management decision-making. Ultimately, it depends upon what is understood as quality. There may be more urgent tactical actions than those related to quality if the organization’s product or service quality is acceptable – it may not be perfect, but if it’s acceptable then that’s good enough.

Construction projects are always a challenge. Inspections are needed (often several), but if you’re trying to schedule one in Brevard County, Florida, you’re competing for the attention of 14 inspectors in a 500 square mile environment. Lean Six Sigma to the rescue!

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.

Your organization may have any number of possible areas for improvement. How do you pick which project to start with? The value index can help you prioritize by measuring optimization between performance, quality and cost.

In the midst of a financial crisis, a California County had to contend with its aging fleet of vehicles. The County’s application of Lean Six Sigma has allowed for an initial $3 million in cost savings with more on the horizon.

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.

How a company organizes and runs project teams can have as much effect on speed of delivery as the teams themselves. These four ingredients will keep your program focused and efficient.

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, […]

By understanding some of the components of Agile, you can learn to incorporate them into DMADV projects and drive positive results.

Looking for good books to read on the topics of quality, Six Sigma, Lean and OpEx? This reading list shares the best quality-topic books of all-time and book recommendations by topic.

It is a time of change. The world is developing faster with each passing day. Continuous process improvement technologies, which could make these changes more significant and effective, trail far behind this trend. Who suffers? Companies that lose competition, people who cannot find a new place in the changed labor market and countries that are […]

iSixSigma.com is pleased to introduce its new Editorial Advisory Board.

Lean Six Sigma Green Belts are part-time improvement professionals who complete Lean Six sigma projects in their area of work experience.

Healthcare is a heavily regulated industry and requires substantial amounts of paperwork. Paperwork may not be as pressing as patient care, but it must be done in a timely fashion. A Lean Six Sigma project reduced the task delinquency rate in its residency program.

A Green Belt project aimed at reducing the cycle time for purchase orders finds the bottleneck and dramatically improves the process, exceeding the project’s original goals, and even realizes bonus benefits.

Using the DMAIC methodology, a Green Belt project aims to reduce the cycle time for purchase orders and straighten up a direction-less process.

SigmaXL Inc., a leading provider of user-friendly Excel Add-ins for Statistical and Graphical analysis, announces the release of SigmaXL Version 8.1.

In order to achieve White Belt certification, 21 students works on eight projects ranging from improving the taste of chocolate chip cookies to increasing tourism in Nauru and having more successful birthday parties.

Why wait until college or later to learn Lean Six Sigma? Twenty-one middle and high school students in Cary, North Carolina, achieved their White Belt certifications in the summer of 2018.

Here’s the story about how the hypothesis testing flow chart was developed in Barcelona in 1995, as told by Mike Carnell.

The City of Fayetteville, North Carolina, faced a staffing crisis in its Finance department. Thanks to a DMAIC project, in just 14 weeks the City was able to turn the department’s chaos around.

There are seven success factors for why Six Sigma is a proven effective business change initiative.

Although many LSS organizations focus their improvement efforts solely on reducing costs, cost savings are chump change when compared to the revenue implications of delivering an enhanced customer experience. Learn how to quantify – and achieve – five categories of financial benefit beyond cost savings.

The best of iSixSigma 2018 features the highlights of this year’s content – those best loved by our readers.

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.

Part 2 of this series presents a case study of the redesign of a bracket’s fatigue model. The case study shows how UQ techniques can be used to perform robust risk estimation, identify key drivers of manufacturing variability and gather more information for critical decisions.