Tag: process improvement

Entitlement is defined as the best performance you can reasonably achieve with the existing process.

A competitive and successful business needs to critically evaluate all the opportunities for improvement and deploy valuable resources strategically. By identifying low-hanging fruit, high-impact, low-effort activities can be addressed creating a solid foundation for continuous improvement.

What Is PDCA? The Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) method is a framework used to achieve continuous improvement in a particular organization or process. It’s also known by several other names, including the Deming wheel, the Shewhart cycle, and the control circle. Even though the method was originally rooted in quality control, it has since been […]

When it comes to sampling plans, there are some terms that are absolutely crucial to be aware of. These are Acceptable Quality Level (AQL), Indifference Quality Level (IQL), and Rejectable Quality Level (RQL).

“So much to do, and so little time to do it” might be a good way to describe multi-generational product planning, or MGPP. Sometimes it makes sense to stage your improvements over a longer period of time.

In manufacturing, production may have to halt due to an issue somewhere in the process. Once the issue is addressed, it is important to know just where the clean point is.

How much improvement do you expect from your projects? Is 5% ok? How about 15%? Breakthrough improvement will be 70% or more. Let’s see how breakthrough improvement works. 

Y=f(x) is a concept regarding the setup of a formula used to perform analysis during problem-solving efforts. Let’s look at how Y=F(x) works within the problem-solving process, the benefits of Y=F(x), as well as some frequently asked questions.

In Six Sigma, you will often hear the phrase, “It worked so well we stopped doing it.” The purpose of a process control plan is to maintain the gains of your project and prevent this from happening. 

DMAIC refers to a data-driven quality strategy for improving processes, and is an integral part of the company’s Six Sigma Quality Initiative. DMAIC is an acronym for five interconnected phases: Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, and Control.

You are often faced with many options on how to improve the process. Which one is the best? The Pugh Matrix is a simple tool for you to decide which approach — or hybrid of approaches — you should use.

There are many process improvement methodologies – Six Sigma/DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, Control), Lean, Design for Six Sigma (DFSS) and innovation to name merely a few. But with so many choices, it makes applying an improvement methodology difficult. There are questions such as: “What makes this toolset unique?” and “Which one should I be […]

If you didn’t have the ability to attend an iSixSigma Live! event in person during the first half of 2011 (and given the content at these world-class conferences, you really should have been there), you still have the chance to take in some of the best presentations from those programs with the iSixSigma “Best of […]

Ramblings, grumblings and samplings from the desk of Paul V. Arnold on June 9, 2011: Notes on Newt: iSixSigma publisher Katie Barry forwarded a Politico.com article to me this morning that chronicled Newt Gingrich’s formal signing in New Hampshire of a pledge to adopt Lean Six Sigma principles if elected President of the United States. […]

Nearly 150 change management professionals representing more than 60 companies in the oil & gas and utilities sectors attended the 2011 iSixSigma Live! Energy Forum for Process Excellence on May 16-19 in Houston. Those attendees came from 19 states and eight countries (United States, plus Canada, Germany, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, South Korea, Thailand and the United […]

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.