Recently some prospective clients asked me for a demonstration project to help them determine if Six Sigma would be a good idea at their company. I advised them against...
Read more
15Apr
The Leadership Process
Leading an entire organization is a daunting challenge. One must keep everyone happy. A delicate balancing act, to say the least. We Six Sigma practitioners are often quick to...
Read more
14Apr
How to Calculate Process Yields
Sam handed Peter a computer printout and asked, “If the yields are so high, why is my efficiency so low?” Peter, a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt, studied the...
Read more
13Apr
Six Sigma Roadmap for Small Businesses
Many Six Sigma experts have expressed doubt that Six Sigma can be used effectively in small, or even in some medium-sized, organizations. However, while the approach to deployment must...
Read more
12Apr
101 Things a Black Belt Should Know
In general, a Six Sigma Black Belt should be quantitatively oriented.
With minimal guidance, the Six Sigma Black Belt should be able to use data to convert broad generalizations into...
12Apr
DMAIC and DMADV
The tools of Six Sigma are most often applied within a simple performance improvement model known as Define-Measure-Analyze-Improve-Control, or DMAIC. DMAIC is summarized in Table 1. DMAIC is used...
Read more
06Apr
The Benefit Effort Matrix – A Tool to Determine Where to Apply Your Resources
An excerpt from my latest book, Everything is a Process. Available on Amazon. I have twenty potential projects at my company. Which are the ones that provide the greatest...
Read more
05Apr
It’s Time to Ditch Process Capability Indices
Process capability indices (PCI) have long been popular with many quality professionals. But they’ve also been controversial and a number of reputable experts have advocated that they be abandoned....
Read more
22Mar
Process Capability-Let’s Skip the Jargon
To many quality engineers and managers, process capability is a jumbled confusion of ideas expressed in jargon that only the anointed can understand. Let me try to clear the...
Read more
17Mar
The Pyzdek Plan to Quit Smoking
My usual blog posts are about six sigma, lean, or process excellence. This one is different. I got the idea when my son asked me when I quit smoking....
Read more