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Lean Six Sigma and Global Supply Chain Practitioner Is Certified by Maryland/DC Minority Supplier Development Council

A bad taste can prevent some people, particularly the young and the elderly, from taking a medication – which can endanger their health. Taste can also influence what over-the-counter drugs people purchase and the choice between generic and brand-name medications. Because taste is such a key factor in compliance and purchasing decisions, optimizing taste is […]

As the popularity of Lean Six Sigma techniques expands into software and technology environments, the notion that these methods and tools can provide a quick fix, unrealistic results or a panacea (for all that is wrong) has been proliferated. Some of these notions are further compounded by the reality that many of these environments are […]

MoreSteam.com and ASQ Work Together to Drive Service Improvements

“There are lies, damn lies and statistics,” we have all been warned since the 19th century. The warning is apt these days because of questions about the use of statistics that have been on exhibit in recent months. The principal and founder of a performance improvement consulting firm professes that businesses using Six Sigma are […]

Project management is a discipline comprised of planning, organizing, and managing available resources, which results in meeting or exceeding project goals and objectives. Included in project management methodology are specific start and completion dates, as well as emphasis on constraints such as quality, scope, budget and time. In Green Belt training, project management may be […]

PowerSteering Announces Strong Q2 Sales Results

The beauty of Six Sigma, over other decision-making strategies is that it is, by nature, data driven – it involves making decisions backed by evidence. In the absence of data, then, what good is Six Sigma? A Black Belt without data is like a navigator without a compass; finding north becomes complicated, but not impossible. […]

When no process area is clearly failing, but the drive for continuous improvement remains, practitioners should use an end-effect rating system to determine where to focus efforts.

The most perfectly designed and built process or system is only as good as the human being who uses it. That’s the idea behind Human Sigma, a new branch of Six Sigma that focuses on improving the quality of the employee-customer encounter, particularly within sales and service organizations. Human Sigma proponents, including John H. Fleming […]

Of all the activities and tools used in the Measure phase of DMAIC, the thing many Belts struggle with the most is the cost of poor quality (COPQ), or the cost associated with the quality of a work product. Belts need to understand what COPQ includes, and what it does not, so they can determine […]

Goldman Joins MoreSteam.com

In the battle of “survival of the fittest,” every business must constantly re-evaluate its processes to improve how it delivers products or services to customers, while at the same time reducing its cost of doing business. Businesses that establish an effective continuous improvement culture will be able to sustain their competitive edge. Beginning in 2003, […]

Rapid Action Teams Help NewPage Win Lean Six Sigma Award

Organizations are often challenged with managing seemingly unmanageable work volumes with available staff. At times, staff may feel overwhelmed with high work volumes, or underutilized during periods of low work volumes. When a management team finds itself confronting these issues, team members may ask the following questions: How can staff respond to internal and external […]

Availability is one of the key metrics that demonstrates the overall performance of an information technology (IT) system. But defining and calculating the availability of an IT system from a business perspective is a challenging task. Most of the time, IT departments report availability values that are on the higher side (such as more than […]

Breakthrough Management Group International Hosts 2-Day Innovation Workshop for Executives – Seminar Targets Senior Leaders Looking to Enhance Organizational Innovation Efforts

Several management approaches, including Six Sigma, involve a key focus on process analysis. Too often processes are schematically represented in boxes and arrows. While this final result of a process analysis is beneficial, practitioners should ensure they are considering the numerous factors and components that influence a process and how it is viewed. Stakeholders and […]

Lean Six Sigma for information technology (IT) is still maturing and has not hit the critical mass to transform the industry to its next level, as it has in other industries in the past 10 years. This may be due in part to common myths about Lean Six Sigma for IT. These myths include: IT […]

Lean Six Sigma Shares Innovation with DOD Components

Organizations looking for a silver bullet customer metric look no further than the Net Promoter Score (NPS). Developed by Frederick Reichhold and his colleagues at Bain & Co., NPS provides an economical and concise metric for assessing how loyal a company’s customers are. Managing that measurement is the key to future growth. What Is NPS? […]

New Release of Crystal Ball Gives Users Scatter Charts and Microsoft Office 2007 Compatibility

Medication reconciliation – the process of comparing a patient’s medication orders with all of the medications he or she has been taking – can be difficult. Lack of patient knowledge regarding medication details, multiple care providers, multiple sources obtaining different medication lists for the same patient and new Joint Commission requirements all contribute to the difficulty. Hospitals […]

With more than 1,000 trained Black Belts, the U.S. Army continues marching forward in its Lean Six Sigma efforts. Trained Black Belts who complete projects and obtain certification are essential to building a robust cadre of practitioners. To this end, the Army formalized the use of Belt course portfolios (BCPs), the collection of projects assigned […]

Lean Six Sigma is part of a broader U.S. Marine Corps and Department of Defense (DoD) continuous process improvement (CPI) effort aimed at enhancing all aspects of support provided to Marine Corps operating forces to maximize combat readiness and war fighting capability. The Marine Corps has emphasized that the CPI program is entirely focused on […]

The U.S. Marine Corps’ continuous process improvement (CPI) effort is aimed at enhancing all aspects of support provided to operating forces to maximize combat readiness and war fighting capability. That means the Marine Corps is emphasizing that the CPI program is for every level and every element of the corps. Here is what is being […]

Free Six Sigma iPhone app now on iTunes

The Quality Group announces several education programs designed to help organizations that are looking to blended learning as a way to face the seemingly insurmountable task of maintaining–or even increasing-their Lean Six Sigma / Continuous Process Improvement training levels.

Caught in an exploding market, with rapidly improving products, the management of a media organization in India realized that improving the quality of printing of its newspaper was imperative to survival and progress. The organization adopted total quality management (TQM) and has completed several improvements in office processes related to turnaround, which is so vital […]

Hertzler Systems Releases Case Study of Six Sigma in Financial Services

Based on the desirability function, using batting average, home runs, runs batted in (RBIs), All Star Game appearances and Gold Glove awards all weighted equally, Ron Santo, a third baseman for the Chicago Cubs from 1960 to 1973, should be a member of the National Baseball Hall of Fame. An understanding of the desirability function […]

An Unprecedented Quarter for i-nexus: i-nexus Today Announced Record Trading Figures for the Final Quarter of 2007

Rath & Strong is pleased to announce the release of its Lean, Integrated Lean Six Sigma, Lean Six Sigma Champions, Six Sigma Team and Six Sigma Pocket Guides on Amazon Kindle™.

Instantis, the leading provider of on-demand project portfolio management software used by business process and IT leaders to improve strategy execution and financial performance, announced today its spring Webinar series line-up.

STAT-A-MATRIX Announces Publication of ItsLatest White Paper: Making Improvement Work: Using Process Management to Transform Your Performance Improvement Initiative

Dr. Joseph M. Juran, ‘Father’ of Quality, Has Passed Away

Increasingly, organizations that use Six Sigma are making an effort to integrate Lean into their existing process-improvement framework. For many, combining Six Sigma’s focus on process quality and Lean’s emphasis on turn-around time results in more high-impact, quick-hit projects. To gain this advantage, however, organizations must face a difficult obstacle: integrating Lean without creating ripples […]

SBTI Announces Release of Lean Six Sigma Green Belt Certification Testing

For any process improvement program, effective resource planning is key. A measurement system that will determine the benefit of internal projects from an HR perspective might be particularly helpful in implementing project goals for IT departments.

Conversion Services International Sponsors iSixSigma Financial Services Industry Channel

Extensive training and a thorough understanding of complex analytical tools are required to successfully perform traditional Six Sigma projects. Although this careful and methodical evaluation is an invaluable problem solving technique, traditional Six Sigma projects can be time consuming and must be carefully selected. Lean projects, on the other hand, are different. Lean is intuitive, […]

SigmaXL Announces Release of Version 6

The American Council on Education Has Recommended Graduate Level College Credit for SBTI’s Master Black Belt Program

MoreSteam.com® Launches Virtual University Platform for 3-D Distance Learning

Companies interested in retaining customers should complete a two-phase process: first, they must determine what is important to customers and second, they must make sure their organization is capable of filling those needs reliably.

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For Six Sigma to succeed in a financial services organization, the deployment team and the business need to be able to measure the benefit of the projects. This should occur from both a financial and operational effectiveness perspective.

The beginning of any design or development project should include activities aimed at a deep understanding of likely user behavior. Gathering this information should involve open-ended questions and observation, which will highlight user needs.

A Six Sigma initiative can be wildly successful or it can sadly fail. The reasons are found in 10 major points critical to the success of a Six Sigma deployment. The points also are in the list of the 10 ways that a Six Sigma initiative can fail.