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“Pareto” Misuse
Many people have built the Bar Chart in figure 1 below and called it a Pareto Chart. Even I in my early years a Quality Engineer created this chart as a “Pareto chart”. But this is NOT a Pareto Chart. It is only a Bar Chart. Why? This is because this bar chart does not show us, […]
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Must Six Sigma Be a Panacea?
The perfect is the enemy of the good, they say. Six Sigma devotees know all about this. Criticisms of Six Sigma are sometimes quite bizarre. Perhaps the most odd are criticisms of what Six Sigma doesn’t do. For example, Six Sigma has been criticized because On the other hand, Six Sigma gets written off too […]
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U.S. Airlines Continue On-Time Improvement in February
Wow. 83% on time arrivals. And by “on time” we don’t mean, well, on time. On time is defined as within 15 minutes of schedule. This article compares the February on time percentage with January and with February of the previous year. This February was better. Of course, the root cause is assumed to be […]
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Why Isn’t Six Sigma Used More in Healthcare?
Apparently there are still questions about whether or not a process improvement methodology like lean or Six Sigma can work in healthcare. I find this astonishing and disingenuous. The only real requirement for deploying any process improvement is whether or not there is a process that is done more than once. Healthcare at any respectably […]
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21 Soft Skills All Six Sigma Belts Need
One of my most popular articles is 101 Things a Six Sigma Black Belt Should Know. Of course, the list is primarily a list of technical tools and skills needed, but anyone who has worked as a change agent knows that there’s more to it than that. Soft skills are at least as important, if […]
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Measuring Customer Satisfaction and Expectations
There is much confusion about the constructs of quality and customer satisfaction (Q/CS). “Quality is doing the right things right,” say some experts, but how can we be assured that a service provider is doing the right things? Here’s an example: “I recognize that the opera singer has a tremendous vocal range [high quality], but […]
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Voice of the Customer-The New QFD
To say Mary Scott was nervous was an understatement. She was downright scared. Since her new boss told her that Quality 2.0 would be different, there was one change that she most dreaded: making her department’s transition from a cost center to a profit center. “We need to sell our services, people,” Mary announced. She […]
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Root Cause Analysis: When to Stop
“Is that Miss or Mrs.?” the receptionist asked. “Miss,” replied the elderly lady. “My friends just call me Di.” The receptionist nodded as she typed. “Got it. Miss Di Agnosed. That should be all we need for the records. You can see the doctor now.” Dr. W. R. Ong smiled pleasantly. “What seems to be […]
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Selecting Winning Project Portfolios
Software helps select the best projects. In a previous post I discussed how Six Sigma projects should be selected using the theory of constraints (TOC). After attempting to do so, most discover yet another constraint: money. In most organizations there are more opportunities for improvement than one can afford to pursue. If it isn’t money, […]
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DMAIC and Project Plans
Six Sigma’s magic doesn’t lie in statistical or high-tech razzle-dazzle. Six Sigma relies on tried-and-true methods that have been around for decades. In fact, Six Sigma discards a great deal of the complexity that characterizes total quality management (TQM). By one expert’s count, there are more than 400 TQM tools and techniques. Six Sigma takes […]