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How to Integrate Six Sigma and Innovation
To make your customers truly happy, you must go beyond six sigma. Some people, including me, believe that garden variety six sigma doesn’t go far enough. In fact, even zero defects falls short. Defining quality as only the lack of nonconforming product reflects a limited view of quality. Of course, that was never Motorola’s intent […]
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Activity Based Cost Accounting Hinders Lean Six Sigma
In a recent post Bill Waddell tackles one of my pet peeves: activity based costing, or ABC. Few things do more harm to lean six sigma than this method of accounting. In fact, it is my opinion that the accounting systems used by American businesses are responsible for a great deal of our country’s declining […]
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Creativity and Six Sigma Breakthrough
Creative breakthroughs occur only when we have the freedom to try new things. Simply stated, the Six Sigma management paradox is as follows: To attain Six Sigma performance, we must minimize process variability, slack and redundancy by building variability, slack and redundancy into our organizations. Six Sigma involves an intense effort to reduce process variation […]
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Six Sigma Overkill
Six Sigma Economics | Product Design and Development. I’m all for spreading the word about Six Sigma, but some authors get a little bit silly about it. This article is a case in point. The article is a very interesting analysis of the news that the stock market, as measured by various indexes, has improved […]
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My Prescription for the Healthcare Crisis
Inspired by some questions not asked in health care debate – BizTimes. Like many, I am concerned about healthcare in America. The above story outlines a number of issues with our system The author discusses the fact that Six Sigma has only recently been introduced in American healthcare, and then only on a limited basis. He […]
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GM and Toyota Call It Quits at NUMMI
Toyota Motor Corp (7203.T) said on Friday it would consider liquidating its stake in a California-based joint venture with General Motors Corp (GMGMQ.PK) after the U.S. automaker pulled out of the venture. The venture started 25 years ago and it was originally set up in an attempt to help GM learn more about Toyota’s Lean […]
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What Is a Six Sigma Master Black Belt?
Over the years the bodies of knowledge used to certify Lean Six Sigma Black Belts and Lean Six Sigma Green Belts has become relatively standardized and stable. To be sure, there is still a good deal of variability, but it is decreasing. The same can not be said for Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt […]
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Surface Temperature Data Quality Suspect Casts Doubt on “Global Warming” Hypothesis
The Obama administration has proposed, and the House of Representative has recently passed, sweeping legislation to deal with the problem of climate change or, more specifically, global warming. The problem is supposedly that human activity is releasing CO2 and this in turn is causing catastrophic increases in global temperatures. This hypothesis is supported in part […]
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A Quality Lexicon
In the deployment of Six Sigma, we usually begin by defining our terms. I must admit to negligence in this regard, because I haven’t yet defined for you what I mean when I write about “quality.” As this definition is at the root of all of our discussions in one way or another, it deserves […]
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The Six Sigma Knowledge Gap
Statistical probability should be used only when we lack knowledge of the situation and cannot obtain it at a reasonable cost. I recently attended a presentation using a control chart. The control chart showed a process in statistical control at about an 8-percent reject rate. The presenter noted that the process was stable and went […]