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Fixing or otherwise improving a process usually involves changing it in some way. For this reason, Six Sigma projects almost always involve some element of process engineering or re-engineering. On top of that, folks in deployment leader roles or similar are often tasked with developing brand new processes like project selection, candidate identification, certification, and […]

This week Sam Decker gives a beginners course on Six Sigma and marketing over at his blog Decker Marketing. I’ve been reading Sam Decker for about a year and a half now. He never fails to share the insights he’s learned from his work experiences from start-ups to managing Dell’s eBusiness. As for marketing blogs, […]

The Cox-Box is Copyright © 2000-2005 iSixSigma LLC and Gary P. Cox – All Rights ReservedReproduction Without Permission Is Prohibited – Request Permission

Hi All, Sorry for the long delay since my last post. I’ve been neck deep in my project out in California and it seems every time I sat down to write, something else came up. Anyway, this project has been a real eye-opener. Essentially, I’ve been leading the transformation of an old school batch & […]

Recently, I was asked to participate in an evaluation of presentation skills for one of our senior leaders. The questionnaire included questions that I expected – “speaks concisely” – but also some that I didn’t. After I completedthe survey, I started to think about my own presentation strengths and weaknesses. Here are some of my […]

Six Sigma news this week… Fortune Magazine has decided to pick on Jack on the cover of their latest issue. The article, Tearing Up the Jack Welch Playbook, is an attempts to throw out the old and bring in the new… way of thinking that is. Fortune senior writer Betsy Morris, lists seven of the […]

Ok, I have to pose a question for the general “Lean Thinkers” out there who are aware of how conservative healthcare is. I have been reading so many articles that highlight the success of Kaizen events in healthcare settings. However, I have to ask myself, do they really work? Do the changes really sustain? Is […]

As I was scanning news this week, a couple of articles caught my eye. The first was a piece by Damon Darling in the New York Times about Farecast, an airfare search engine that aims to predict how much the price of an airline ticket will rise or fall before the flight actually occurs. Says […]

Thelatest podcast is ready to download.This podcast includes highlights from the Six Sigma and Information Technology survey, published in theMay/June issueof iSixSigma Magazine. This survey takes a look at the relationship between Six Sigma and IT and answers questions such as: How often is Six Sigma used to improve IT processes? How often are technology […]

Likely to be overheard if you have a Klingon Black Belt… 1. Behold, the Value Stream Map of Kalis! The greatest Klingon Black Belt who ever lived! 2. You doubt the worthiness of my statistical analysis? I should kill you where you stand! 3. By questioning my data you have challenged the honor of my […]

The Cox-Box is Copyright © 2000-2005 iSixSigma LLC and Gary P. Cox – All Rights ReservedReproduction Without Permission Is Prohibited – Request Permission

Lean and Six Sigma make their rounds through the media this week surfacing in publications around the world including Time Magazine… The article in Time entitled “Lean and Mean” is the story of the Army’s implementation of Lean Six Sigma. It is a fantastic article full of Six Sigma war stories from streamlining procurement to […]

In a world where I could call myself the Senior Master of the Highest Order of Black Belts, I have always been a little circumspect of using the Black Belt handle. So after 18 months the time has come. I can now call myself a Six Sigma Black Belt! I have been accredited by our […]

Nayism 29: I’ve been to Green Belt training, passed my test, completed my project and have been certified. Now can I get back to doing my real job? This naysayer has obviously gotten lost but has not realized that he is not in Kansas anymore. In his view, he has ‘punched his ticket’ and now […]

What was really written on those stone tablets that Charlton Heston held in “The Ten Commandments?” The Ten Commandments For Six Sigma Black Belts in Healthcare I.Thou Shalt Have No other Goal than to Serve the Welfare of the Patient, by Process Improvement using Data Analysis or Lean Tools as Thou Needest. II.Thou Shalt Not […]

For a Fourth of July Six Sigma post, I’ll pay tribute to the Lean Six Sigma efforts in the United States Military operations. Read success stories from the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines.

This week in Six Sigma related news around the globe… Read about the new weighing and traceability system, Trac-IT MES, which Maple Leaf Bakeriesin the UK is using to reduce waste in their bagel making process. Now let’s head down under to Linde Australia to read about how Six Sigma in the service division is […]

Nayism 28: So much analysis, so little time. The project needs to get moving – I need a fix now. Ah yes, the analysis paralysis phase of projects can haunt even the best of black belts. Is there ever a time to throw in the belt and call it “enough?” Here’s what I say . […]

There’s a lot of talk about Six Sigma certification these days. I remember being asked by a talent acquisition manager at a previous employer what it meant to be a “certified” Master Black Belt. The question arose because a quick search on Google turned up programs ranging from 3 days (online) to 2 years in […]

Hess, the energy company formerly know as Amerada Hess, got its first taste of Six Sigma from GE back in the year 2000. GE came in and gave a presentation but Six Sigma didn’t stick. Four years later it was introduced in the Marketing & Refining division of the company as a CEO driven initiative. […]

After writing my recent blog, “Physician Heal Thyself,” I attended a review session for the ASQ certification exam. The subject of physicians came up when we were discussing identification of customers in healthcare. One of the attendees reminded the group that physicians tend to be diagnosticians, looking for a way to fit the patient’s symptoms […]

The Cox-Box is Copyright © 2000-2005 iSixSigma LLC and Gary P. Cox – All Rights ReservedReproduction Without Permission Is Prohibited – Request Permission

What makes some physicians so difficult to convince of the need for change? I’m talking aboutphysicians who are extremely unhappy with the current state. They complain to anyone who will listen. They threaten to take their patient volume elsewhere. They tell horror stories about orders they wrote that weren’t filled, wrong items in the orthopedic […]

Here is another example of the use of IT in projects. I would like to describe how useful mapping is in data analysis. I will use a fictitious scenario. Sigma Industries have a fantastic product that VOC research says should be a phenomenal success. But the problem is product sales are not meeting expectations. As […]

Why are we struggling with selecting the “right” Six Sigma Black Belt projects? The “right” projects are the projects that are delivered on time, within the budget and generating or exceeding projected savings in a sustained manner. The “wrong” projects are by default all other. Now think about your own organization. What’s the proportion of […]

Benchmarking results consistently identify examples of Six Sigma success. Even so, getting “naysayers” on board is a continuous challenge. What do you tell them? Nayism 27: Six Sigma is so structured that it stifles innovation and creative thinking. This is a classic nayism which deserves a classic response. So, here’s what I say . . […]

Innovate Forum has posted an interviewwith David Silverstein, President and CEO of Breakthrough Management Group and co-author of INsourcing Innovation. In the interview, Silverstein talks about the TRIZ methodology for innovative problem solving. “Innovate Forum: TRIZ is a methodology that has traditionally been employed in product design. What prompted you to consider applying TRIZ to […]

There are many myths about what happened to that gumball machine. Some say it was sold to another store where it continued to stay on all day and all night and the problem was never fixed and gumballs were sometimes found in dusty corners. And others tell stories of a tool shop opening in the […]

Whatever the organization’s maturity level (go see “week of a black belt part 4-5-6-7”), any improvement initiative needs top management engagement and commitment. Usually, there is enough management attention at the beginning. The CEO or Executive team has announced the initiative and walks the talk for a while. However, there are so many 1000 things […]

It’s a question I hear a lot, except that 30 is sometimes another number. Like 2. Or 8. Or 156. Or 2068.

Time flies! My last “week of a Black Belt” blog dates from May 12th already. Anyhow, when things are busy and interesting things happen, there are lots of ideas to blog about, but no time to actually publish them. Six Sigma’s 20th anniversary will be celebrated soon. Since 1987 and its first success stories, it […]

Are you wondering what happened to this Green Belt Candidate? (Go see Week of a Black Belt part 3). At the end of the last training day, I refer back to the yellow notes on which, the first day of training, the participants have expressed their expectations concerning the training. 95% of the time the […]

The Cox-Box is Copyright © 2000-2005 iSixSigma LLC and Gary P. Cox – All Rights ReservedReproduction Without Permission Is Prohibited – Request Permission

Let me tell you a bit of a story and once you’ve finished reading it now I want you to forget all about it until the right time comes to remember you read it all. There was once a couple who owned a store. The store was in a small village just east of here […]

The latest issue of Harvard Business Review features an interview with Jeff Immelt, chairman and CEO of GE. It’s an interesting article because after years of growth through acquisition,GE has now shifted theirroadmap to that of organic growth. As part of the roadmap, Jeff Immelt lists innovation as one of the six key initiatives that […]

Our health system began its Six Sigma journey about three years ago. We started up in Wave I with three Black Belts at the two largest hospitals (myself among them) who had no real idea of what would come. After a successful round of projects in Phase I, we expanded to hire an additional 12 […]

I have spent the last couple of months banging my head against a wall trying to figure out why one group of employees at one of my implementations just can’t align with a Lean way of life. Each time we 5S an area, it gets changed. Each time we try to implement standard work, it […]

Lean Sigma engagements mean I am frequently travelling around the country with many nights in a hotel. This typically means full English breakfast, canteen lunch and hotel dinner. Unfortunately after 18-months it has started to show and I have gone from lean-mean change machine to chubby-mean change machine. Imagine the shock on returning home after […]

A recent article in Electronic Business Online talks about Lean Six Sigma at four companies in the electronics industry: Celestica, ON Semiconductor, Solectron and Xerox. All have seen an improvement inprofitability over the past five years and each agree that Lean Six Sigma has contributed to the gains. Here are a few snippets of information […]

I do my fair share of venting. OK, sometimes I even go on a rant. I have lots of great horror stories. Unbelievable team members, the Project from You-Know-Where, and the day my computer crashed and I lost 6 hours of data entry. I love swapping these stories, and playing “Can you top this?” To […]

A while back I stumbled on a new part of the Google website called “Google Trends”. You can view this website for yourself here. In Google’s words, the website allows users to “compare the world’s interest in your favorite topics. Enter up to five topics and see how often they’ve been searched for on Google over […]

I started reading “The One Best Way: Fredrick Winslow Taylor and the Enigma of Efficiency” a week or so ago and I’m enjoying it so much I thought I’d do a quick write up for those who might be interested. Tayor is judged rather harshly in some circles today but that didn’t quell my desire […]

The Cox-Box is Copyright © 2000-2005 iSixSigma LLC and Gary P. Cox – All Rights ReservedReproduction Without Permission Is Prohibited – Request Permission

I have spent my entire career in IT and feel privileged to have had the opportunity to work in such a fast moving industry and to see the changes from propriety mainframe to open systems to windows and now the Internet. SoI have a tendency to want to apply IT to the projects I run. […]

As it’s put, “the airline industry doesn’t need a plane crash to learn how to crash planes.” The great majority of learning is extracted from incidents which had the potential to result in accidents, not from accidents themselves. So why does healthcare feel that it must make an error to learn from an error? For […]

Cardinal Health has been busy with Lean Six Sigma. Their second quarter earnings release highlighted their progress to date: “Initiating more than 100 operational excellence projects, bringing the total number of ongoing projects to 200. The company is on-track to train nearly 300 “black belts” during 2006 to manage company-wide lean six-sigma initiatives within manufacturing, […]

Roger Penske expects and gets – perfection, IRL-Live.com, May 23, 2006 Roger Penske talks about preparation for the Indianapolis 500 this weekend. Penske is a Six Sigma company when it comes to business, but as for racing, Six Sigma just isn’t enough: “After qualifying, Penske gave an overview of his preparation plan. “We’ll go back, […]

My favorite quote, from a Manager identified as a Six Sigma project Process Owner: “Well if I’d known that being a Process Owner involved this much work, I would have never volunteered to be one!” In healthcare, we haven’t traditionally discussed the leadership role ofprocess management. In fact, “running healthcare like a business” isn’t usually […]

Last week Michael Cyger and I attended the 7th Annual ISSSP Leadership Conference. I blogged a few of the presentations, but was unable to capture the aura of the event through regular blog entries. Call it not-enough-time-in-the-given-day syndrome or too much wonderful food to eat (which really slowed down my presentation to blog entry cycle […]

At an event where the most common number mentioned is SIX, it was really nice to hear a presentation where being ONE was more important than being SIX. Lance Secretan is inspiring. His presentation, ONE, The Art and Practice of Conscious Leadership, delivered at the ISSSP Leadership Conference in Scottsdale, Arizona, USA, was a welcome […]