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In a recent biannual survey about software development project delivery, most developers who were contacted said they preferred to use the Agile model. However, the results showed that projects using measurement-based models, such as Six Sigma, ITIL or waterfall, were least likely to be discontinued.

Market share depends upon an organization’s capacity not only to acquire new customers, but also to keep them. It makes no sense to invest resources to capture new customers only to lose them to competitors. This is where customer management comes in – a strategy focused on creating loyal customers by providing superior value. Unfortunately, […]

Plastics firm A. Schulman Inc. has hired Greg Agnew as its new director of continuous improvement for the Americas. Agnew, a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt, will start at Schulman on Jan. 1, 2011, focusing on Lean manufacturing operations, and stronger sales and operating planning processes.

Financial services firm XL Group has appointed Six Sigma Black Belt Fielding L. Norton III as senior vice president, deputy chief enterprise risk officer.

Lean Six Sigma is commonly viewed as a continuous improvement method to enhance quality and reduce costs. It’s better known for its tools than for its philosophy or underlying principles. With only superficial use of the tools, we risk missing the true power and opportunity of Lean Six Sigma as a management method to strategically […]

For the second year in a row, financial services firm Mashreq, based in the United Arab Emirates, took home at least one award at the Continual Improvement Symposium Competition 2010, organized by the Dubai Quality Group.

Winners in the Most Successful Lean Six Sigma Programs and Largest-Breakthrough Improvement and Innovation Projects to Be Revealed in Miami, Feb. 9, 2011.

The holiday season is a time when people count their blessings, celebrate the warmth of family and look forward to a fresh start to the new year. The same holds true at iSixSigma, on both a personal and professional level.

British electronics manufacturer the Seaward Group, based in Peterlee, U.K., has taken the top prize for the Northeast region at this year’s Innovative Working Practices Award, organized by the EEF Manufacturers’ Organization.

A grant from the Tennessee Department of Labor (TDL) will soon help 132 employees at Moeller Marine Inc., of Sparta, Tenn., USA, learn Lean skills to improve the plant’s efficiency.

Problem solving teams are often confronted with resistance to change. Even if the change is positive, employees are not always willing to embrace the improvements identified through DMAIC projects. However, by involving the employees to solve problems together, instead of providing solutions for them, practitioners can help assure that employees not only buy into process […]

I recently was reminded of the value of challenging long-held assumptions. I was working in a 700-seat call center, which was operated by an international mobile carrier that had been purchased and merged with a large regional carrier. Systems and processes at the call center were finally stabilizing, except for the billing process. The company […]

The Town Board of Amherst, N.Y., USA, recently approved the spending of $24,000 to begin training for a Lean Six Sigma program similar to what the Erie County, N.Y., government adopted in 2008. The Amherst Chamber of Commerce says it will pick up half the tab to jump-start the town program.

“What kind of care would I want for a loved one who is fighting cancer?” This is the question that Julia, an outpatient clinic nurse at Cancer Treatment Centers of America (CTCA), asked herself as she observed the following process: Mrs. Smith, a patient, arrives early to the clinic to meet with her oncologist, Dr. […]

Glass products maker Viracon Inc. recently announced that three of its employees – Bethany Stringer, Matt Jukkala and Mike Smith – have earned Six Sigma Black Belt certification and will support continuous improvement efforts for both manufacturing and transactional processes at the Owatonna, Minn., USA, company.

iSixSigma, the leading provider of content for the Lean Six Sigma community, is searching for engaging speakers for its third annual Energy Forum for Process Excellence, May 16-19 in Houston, USA.

Recently I learned that my companyâ??s Green Belt training no longer includes hypothesis testing; it will now be part of Black Belt training.  Is this a right decision?  I think it is, because the goal of Six Sigma training is to develop the concept of variation and use it to understand the problem, not to […]

Business software firm SuccessFactors announced the appointment of Black Belt Jeffrey Diana as chief people officer, effective Dec. 6, 2010.

To help celebrate the 10th anniversary of the TRIZ Future Conference, hosted by the European TRIZ Association (ETRIA), Nov. 3-5, 2010, we present the following excerpts from Domb’s extensive coverage. DAY 1 Function-oriented search is a problem-solving tool based on global knowledge search, using functions as the key search items. In his presentation, speaker Simon […]

Many Lean Six Sigma programs start out strong, but not all stay that way. Leaders must make special efforts to ensure their deployment ends up a success.

A recent survey of more than 5,300 quality professionals, mostly from the United States and Canada, found that average salaries in the quality industry grew in 2010, especially among those experienced respondents with official certifications.

Inclusion of Microsoft Excel-based Software Speeds Tool Proficiency

Recently, a well-established, rapidly expanding beer company invested heavily in a modern, state-of–the-art brewing facility. The new facility dramatically improved quality and productivity, and also reduced costs through the application of new technology. As a next step, the beer company began exploring methods of achieving a further quantum jump in performance. Recognizing that technology and […]

In its first year of operations, aluminum producer Emirates Aluminium Co. (EMAL) has won accolades in two categories at the Dubai Quality Group’s (DQG) World Quality Day celebrations in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

DEK has appointed Black Belt Smith Hou to the position of business unit manager, where he will be responsible for enhancing operations efficiency at the screen printing equipment manufacturer.

Demand for tech-savvy financial executives trained in the Six Sigma methodology is rising as investment management firms look for new ways to cut costs and streamline their processes, according to a new figures released by executive search firm Russell Reynolds Associates Inc.

Is human nature undermining your Six Sigma project? It is quite possible. For instance, research shows that people make decisions up to seven seconds before they are even aware they have made them. Once they make a decision, humans are prone to confirmation bias, which leads them to seek out information that backs up that […]

Posting public notices for seized property online, rather than in newspapers…Ending express delivery of empty U.S. Departmet of Agriculture food inspection containers…Requiring mine operators to use online forms for quarterly data, rather than mailing paper forms. These cost-saving ideas – and more than 18,000 others – were submitted by government employees as part of the […]

Six Sigma promises a path for a firm’s long-term success. However, a company cannot really have this Six Sigma journey without the road running through the marketing department. It is through the deployment into marketing that Six Sigma evolves into a strategic process. The synergy between “good marketing” and “good Six Sigma” creates a holistic […]

A government-sponsored Lean Six Sigma training grant for a Canadian forest products association is expected to have a major impact on the struggling forestry sector in the maritime province of New Brunswick, Canada.

Z score is a measure of the distance in standard deviations of a sample from the mean. It is calculated as (X – X bar) / sigma. The table of z distribution is shown below. Table of the Standard Normal (z) Distribution z 0.00 0.01 0.02 0.03 0.04 0.05 0.06 0.07 0.08 0.09 0.0 0.0000 […]

Join Paul Docherty, CEO of i-nexus, as he shares how leading organizations are systematically integrating Balanced Scorecards and Lean Six Sigma.

Lean Six Sigma projects involving software development are an increasingly popular option for IT departments that are seeking to improve their efficiency. However, a number of research studies demonstrate that the average percentage of software projects that achieve all project objectives is significantly less than might be expected. For instance, a Standish Group survey conducted […]

The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) and other large federal agencies say they have implemented Lean Six Sigma to significantly reduce the time it takes to hire new employees.

Director of Quality Outcomes Nidia Williams explains how the deployment in this three-hospital organization has evolved in the past two years.

Spanish software engineering firm Ibermática is leading a European project called COSMOS, which aims to apply Lean techniques to the aeronautics and wind-power industries, and boost manufacturing productivity by 20 percent.

Cavalier Tool & Manufacturing Ltd., based in Windsor, Ontario, Canada, had the most profitable year in its 35-year history in 2009, thanks largely to the incorporation of Lean Six Sigma into its industrial mold-making process, said company president Brian Bendig, in a recent interview with Manufacturing Digital magazine.

Phase II Medical Manufacturing Inc., a single-use medical device maker based in Rochester, N.H., USA, was recently recognized as the “2010 Up and Coming Business of the Year” at the annual meeting of the New Hampshire Bio/Medical Council. In the last two years, Lean processes have helped the company reduce waste and energy while expanding […]

The second part in this series on culture change focuses on the importance of developing and maintaining a clear mission for your Lean enterprise.

A quality leader at a financial institution is deploying an Operational Excellence program across his organization that already has a project management office (PMO) in place. Recently he asked iSixSigma’s Discussion Forum about the pros and cons of using a PMO to manage project selection. Readers responded with very pro-PMO advice about how these structures […]

Hovercraft manufacturer Griffon Hoverwork recently struck a deal to move from its main facility in Hythe, U.K., to a former Vestas wind turbine factory at Merlin Quay, near Southampton, which it plans to renovate using Lean techniques.

Successful practitioners must do more than simply master the Six Sigma methodology. They also need to keep an eye on people-related aspects throughout the lifespan of all of their projects. To do that, practitioners may want to consider some ancient (and not-so-ancient) lessons: King Solomon’s use of wisdom at the right time, The art of […]

iSixSigma, the leading provider of content for the Lean Six Sigma community, is searching for engaging speakers to help shape the inaugural Retail Forum for Process Excellence, March 28-31 in Minneapolis, Minn., USA.

NWP Services Corp., a provider of real-estate financial transaction processing services, has announced that Rick Castro has joined the company as managing director of its ISO and Lean Six Sigma programs, reporting to Vaughn Chase, vice president of operations.

Two Six Sigma professionals recently posed questions in the iSixSigma Discussion Forum relating to queuing theory in a call center. One reader wanted to know how to calculate average and standard deviation for service time and interarrival time – the amount of time between the arrival of one customer and the arrival of the next. […]

Aftermarket automobile windshield manufacturer Safelite Glass Corp. says it has retained sales of $2.6 million and saved $670,000 in costs since launching a Lean program. For this reason the company’s Enfield, N.C., USA, facility was recently recognized by the North Carolina government for contributing to the state’s economic benefit over the last five years.

Reports released in the last several months reveal important information for supply chain managers. The first study, conducted by NPI, a spend management services firm, found the top areas of supply chain overspending. The second report, carried out by CAPS Research, a nonprofit research firm, features benchmarking data from 16 industrial manufacturers. Overspending Identified The […]