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Healthcare organizations face tremendous challenges in addressing efficiency, cost, quality, staffing shortages and mounting pressure to raise salaries. To bolster lagging morale and improve retention rates, management must empower staff and effectively leverage existing resources. Tools and techniques that support these imperatives are critical to the success of modern healthcare organizations. Many problems in healthcare […]

Three methods used to dissolve a powder in water are compared by the time (in minutes) it takes until the powder is fully dissolved. The results are summarized in the following table: It is thought that the population means of the three methods m1, m2 and m3 are not all equal (i.e., at least one m […]

Major General Rooney, U.S. Air Force, Recognizes Outstanding Achievement of Aon/Rath & Strong

SigmaXL Announces Release of SigmaXL V.5 Excel Add-in for Six Sigma Statistical and Graphical Analysis

Many information technology (IT) organizations are utilizing the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) as a guiding framework for operational excellence. One of the many “best practices” within ITIL is utilization of service level agreements, (SLAs) and operational level agreements (OLAs). When implemented well, these agreements and associated management processes go far in establishing fruitful working […]

It may be counter-intuitive to consider using Six Sigma tools in an Agile software project. Six Sigma’s genesis was in the manufacturing world where one of its primary goals has been to reduce process variation. On the other hand, Agile software development is built on the premise that complex software projects, unlike manufacturing, cannot be […]

Information technology (IT) expenses are growing at a significantly faster rate than any other portion of most businesses, and IT has become a significant component in the cost of doing business. Increasingly, IT organizations are required to determine the cost of delivering and supporting particular services, as well as qualifying and quantifying the value that […]

At its core, Design for Six Sigma (DFSS) is concerned with the accurate translation of what the customer wants into measurable characteristics, and then putting these characteristics into functions and design elements. The idea behind DFSS is intuitive and simple. If done well, a company will end up with a product that has what the […]

Lean Six Sigma – like most things that continue to flourish – evolves. It grows, expands and adapts to fill new niches. Marketing professionals have identified evolutionary patterns common to many different products, services and markets – including Lean Six Sigma. Understanding these patterns is significant when considering purchase of Lean Six Sigma services and […]

Many times in software development and information technology, attribute data is what is available. Thus, it is valuable to look closely at the nature of attribute data and explore some tips for making the most of it.

A patient management scorecard presents, in general, a comprehensive framework that helps healthcare managers to define strategies, track performance and provide information to show whether their institution is performing well in terms of its mission. By implementing this strategic management tool, hospitals can construct measures to aid performance measurements in areas essential to their strategies. […]

How does one sustain high levels of performance in manufacturing after the first successful waves of Lean Six Sigma projects? Research done on 75 manufacturers, predominantly European, sheds light on the balance between product/process and people leadership capabilities needed to sustain high levels of performance. Of High Performers and Lagging Performers High Performers: Sustaining high […]

CIOs and CTOs are faced with a plethora of issues ranging from corporate realignment to growth to shrinking budgets. Many have heard about Lean Six Sigma but given their busy state of mind, it is difficult for them to dedicate the time required to translate Lean Six Sigma successes in top manufacturing company’s to its […]

There is usually a strong belief that a validated analytical method, either partly automated or fully manual is simply perfect and cannot generate any defect since it complies with highly demanding regulations. Thus, any apparent variation in a production process is automatically attributed to the manufacturing process or raw material suppliers. The latter being also […]

Because of information technology’s unique role as a support function in most organizations, process improvement means improving both the processes of its internal management system and the business it supports. As a matter of fact, for most organizations today information technology (IT) infrastructure and management is the backbone of all critical processes. Combine that with […]

Instantis, the number one provider of software for managing top-down performance improvement initiatives like Six Sigma, announced the immediate availability of EnterpriseTrack 5.0.

Innovation has broad appeal. Businesses see it as a key to survival, and most individuals enjoy being creative – at work or anywhere. At first it might seem that the discipline called for in the workplace would take all the fun out of being creative. But actually, innovation coupled with Six Sigma discipline and data […]

Emagia Raises Third Round of Financing with $7 Million from Timeline Ventures, Sigma Partners and WestBridge Capital Partners

Many Six Sigma companies experience challenges in their effort to calculate and allocate benefits from throughput projects. This is a complex process, especially when the throughput capacity profile includes several different processes that behave independently, and where bottlenecks shift from one process to another. Employing the theory of constraints provides an effective solution. At BHP […]

You’ve got data. You’ve got a hypothesis. You’ve got Minitab… but you don’t have statistical significance at a p-value equal to or less than 0.05. You must have missed the critical Xs in the Define phase, right? It’s time to go figure out what variables you missed and collect more expensive, time-consuming and team-irritating data, […]

One branch of computational intelligence tools, neural networks, is worth surveying as part of the extended data mining and modeling toolkit. The focus here is on a specific kind of neural network applied to empirical model-building – comparing and contrasting its capabilities and performance to more traditional tools like regression analysis. Neural Networks Mimic Biological […]

Every sales force has a few outstanding sales representatives, who always deliver on or above target. What is it, in their way of working (process), which makes them so outstanding? If we identify these processes and give them as tools to the rest of the organization, our belief is that we will increase sales force […]

SBTI Announces Second Generation of Design for Six Sigma (DFSS)

Effort accounting is needed in software and IT for the simple reason that labor is generally the most important controllable element of cost. Labor cost (effort hours times prevailing labor rate) is an essential and fundamental element of efficiency measurement. Six Sigma projects in software and IT (especially DMAICs) are often focused on driving down […]

Six Sigma is about organizational improvement, with its focus on process improvement, design and management. But, it is as much about people’s behavior as it is about the behavior of processes. These two behaviors cannot easily be separated.

Six Sigma is not for the feint of heart. It takes courage to attack chronic problems no one has been able to solve. It takes true grit to define and collect the data needed for new insights. And, it takes staying power to see solutions become the new way of working. Is every company ready […]

Some common messages are beginning to emerge from several software-relevant areas – Six Sigma for software, Agile development and Lean thinking. The links between Design for Six Sigma (DFSS) and Agile have been explored recently, but now a broader view yet can illustrate the way that Lean thinking, evolved from just-in-time manufacturing, aligns well with […]

Voice of the customer (VOC) is a central concept within the Six Sigma methodology. Process performance can only be measured if an organization is aware of the critical customer requirements. But customer preferences are often unbalanced (everything is important), vague and unstable. With the help of conjoint analysis, it is possible to derive individual customer […]

Should companies hire ready-to-go Black Belts, develop them internally or use a Black Belt from a consulting company? It is a question that many companies wrestle with during the early stages of deploying Six Sigma. The obvious trade-off is between the time it takes to develop one’s own talent and the time it takes to […]

The application of Six Sigma to marketing should be the most obvious use in the world. Where else does there exist such a direct connection between the wants and needs of the customer and the products or services a company offers? However, at first glance, there would seem to be very little hard reliable data […]

The quality of a product or service is a key element in creating customer satisfaction. The level of satisfaction is ultimately dependent on the fulfilment of customer needs. The Kano survey is a valuable tool for capturing the voice of the customer (VOC), providing critical information on the importance of products and services and the […]

During the last several years, there has been a tremendous amount of discussion relating to the offshore outsourcing of software development work to achieve significant cost reductions. This has been an emerging trend for about a dozen years, but one that has been recently accelerated and subject to wild variations in success and efficiency. A […]

Most of the difficult situations Black Belts face in their day-to-day work are not related to the application of a specific Six Sigma tool, but rather to change or project management issues. For example, issues such as:  How to involve a stakeholder that is very negative about the project. How to get commitment from the […]

The ideal approach to deploying Six Sigma is to begin by improving current processes, followed by ongoing monitoring and managing of these processes, and eventually establishing process-oriented management. However, successful deployments can vary.

The fishbone diagram is the most commonly used cause-and-effect analysis tool in Six Sigma. Cause-and-effect analysis is one of the key tasks in any Six Sigma DMAIC project because half of the game is won when the correct root causes of the problem (the Y) are found. However, poor use of the fishbone diagram is […]

MoreSteam.com Sets Big Ten Attendance Record — More Than 110,000 Six Sigma Professionals Trained

Minitab Inc. Announces the Release of a Japanese Language Version of MINITAB® 14 Statistical Software for Windows®

Managing an integrated European company with variety of national cultures is tough enough. But a little guidance is helpful when a pan-European business is seeking to deploy any organizational change such as Six Sigma or Lean across the business.

One of the big benefits of Six Sigma is the discipline it brings to the use of facts and measures to guide significant and predictable results. At first glance, that discipline might seem to fly in the face of the flexibility and creativity that also are very important in development and problem-solving. One potential collision […]

MoreSteam.com Introduces Design for Six Sigma (DFSS) Online Training

Emagia Announces Free Webcast On Six Sigma Approach to Accounts Receivable Management at Volt Information Sciences Inc.

Juran Institute Moving To New Headquarters In Southbury, Connecticut

Many companies which choose not to utilize Lean and Six Sigma as key components of how they implement change in their organization say it is because the methodologies are too complicated for their business environment. They claim that they do not have the time to build an infrastructure, train Black Belts and Green Belts and […]

Estimating potential improvement project benefits unfortunately have not always been subjected to same level of analytical rigor that practitioners insist on applying in typical Six Sigma work. The fault lies in the lack of an analytical methodology. Project teams can help themselves over this hurdle with a straightforward method for calculating potential and actual benefits. […]

Leaders invest a significant amount of time in meetings. Whether one-on-one or in larger groups, meetings offer a chance to discuss or launch a project, share ideas, consider solutions and reach consensus. Unfortunately, much of this time may be wasted without the use of a few basic management techniques. Along with a well-designed agenda, it […]

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For many Black Belts, the biggest challenge is not learning the data tools – it is learning the managerial skills needed to run an effective team. And one of the most difficult of skills is dealing with commitment conflicts that team members face.

Cummins Inc. showcased its best quality improvement work of 2004 at the Company’s fourth annual Six Sigma Project Expo from on Tuesday April 5, 2005.

The lack of a robust voice of the customer (VOC) process, no proper training in applying VOC in project selction and evaluation, and VOC systems that focus on voice of the business issues keep many Six Sigma companies from being truly customer-driven.

iSixSigma Research Shows That Strategy, Discipline and Six Sigma Drive Innovation Effectiveness