How is Your Quality?

When we talk about Six Sigma or Lean, we also talk about quality. After all, it’s quality of our processes that we’re trying to continually improve.

So, how well do we know quality? or How well do we know how to read and interpret data, and associate it with quality?

PQ Systems eLine has an interesting quality quiz made by Professor Cleary. Take the quiz now!

Here’s also a more complete video explanation.

Filed under: Data, Data Analysis, Quality, PQ Systems eLine

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IT Data for Six Sigma

Dealing with data is part and parcel of any operation. But how to treat the data in your hands is another question. That is the usual dilemma that CIOs and senior IT team leaders face.

What’s ironic even, is that CIOs and senior IT team leaders often find themselves handling a lot of data, yet they seldom treat these information as something that can help them optimize their organizations effectively. That is because they don’t have the tools that help them sift through and find the relevant data. This is where Six Sigma comes in.

Thus, in the recent Six Sigma in IT conference, this question was asked: “What should we be measuring for our IT organization?”

To know the answers, read IT Measures That Matter.

Source:
Information Week

*Photo from Stock.Xchng

Filed under: Software/Technology, Data, Data Analysis, Six Sigma, IT, Data Quality, Metrics

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The SixSig Roundup

Here’s another serving of the SixSig roundup. Data is very important in Six Sigma, and so the focus of this roundup is data, data management, and data quality.
The ASQ blog needs your thoughts on sizing up the government: For those of us who are schooled in the methods and values of quality and organizational improvement (e.g., Deming, Kaizen, SPC, Lean Six Sigma, etc.), what would the process of assessing government agency missions look like? Are there any best practice examples around the world that our Government Division and other readers know about? What can the Government Division do in the days and weeks ahead, to think about the work of the next Administration, and offer the benefit of our knowledge and experience?

Informatica Data Quality Blog says that you can’t achieve customer data integration without data quality. CDI helps you to address data quality issues, such as accuracy, timeliness, and completeness.

Over at BNET, managers are encouraged to apply evidence-based management. People can make good decisions when armed with complete data.

Joyce Norris-Montanari of Dataflux asks “do you do data?” Doing Data includes any process, model, database, architecture, data stewardship issue, data governance issue, or metadata repositories that include data.

Filed under: Data, Six Sigma, Data Quality

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Alarming Figures that will Need Six Sigma

An article on New York Times about a month ago boasted of a 65% decrease in fatal airplane crashes. It’s deemed as the golden age of safety, the safest period, in the safest mode, in the history of the world.
Should we be happy about this? Look at the following figures:

1. In 1996, two (2) infamous crashes that together killed 375 people.
2. The rate dropped by about 65% to 1 fatal accident in about 4.5M departures, from 1 in nearly 2M in 1997.
3. Around the world, there have been 7 crashes this year that killed more than 20 people each.
4. The Flight Safety Foundation recently calculated that if the 1996 accident rate had remained the same in 2006, there would have been 30 major accidents last year. Instead, there were 11.

There are however sustained efforts to address the problem.

• improving equipment, like cockpit instruments that help planes steer clear of mountains when visibility is poor, and reliable jet engines
• conducting “unstabilized approaches,” meaning pilots had to fiddle with flaps, throttle and other controls just before landing
• developing better guidance for pilots to follow flight paths precisely and stay farther away from mountains in the area
• better signs on taxiways to prevent planes from moving into the path of other aircraft

Policy initiatives:

• acquire new planes
• more “safety summits”
• a national commission on aviation safety and security led by VP Al Gore in 1997

The trend to watch out for: air and runway traffic will double by 2025

Source:
Fatal Airplane Crashes Drop 65%

*Photo from Stock.Xchng

Filed under: Data, Data Analysis, Aviation

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A Quality Quiz from PQ Systems, Inc.

I subscribe to PQ Systems, Quality e-Line, and so I get interesting insights on quality every time. Today, I got this interesting Quality Quiz, which I was able to answer correctly.

I’m posting here the quiz now. Take the quiz and tell me how you fared.

Polly Yurathane considers herself the SPC queen, after successfully explaining the beta coefficient of regression analysis (standardized regression coefficient), to her new boss, Hy O. Pinyon. Now she is preparing a presentation for division manager Emily Dickinson, a poetic manager who leads with an iron will nonetheless. Emily has requested information about the relationship of the cost of coal mined by Blackern Dirt Mine Company to the amount of coal mined and the cost to mine that coal.

Polly, knowing that Emily is a poet, assumes that she knows little about statistics, so she feels quite relaxed about her presentation, seeing it as an opportunity to once again mount her throne as SPC queen.

Opening the Power Point presentation she has prepared, she explains the concept of simple regression, using this data:

DATE	TONS (in 1000s)	TOTAL COST ($1,000s)
JAN	2	2
FEB	5	8
MAR	7	10
APRIL	1	4
MAY	7	7
JUN	8	9
JUL	2	5
AUG	3	5
SEPT	5	7
OCT	6	7

She then shares a printout, generated by software that does simple regression, and explains patiently to Emily that this is a regression model that shows the relationship between the cost (Y) and the amount of coal mined (X).

(Click on the printout for a larger version.)

Where

dependent variable

independent variable

“You can use the model to predict your cost if you know the amount of coal mined,” she says slowly to the division manager, who has remained quiet through the first part of Polly’s presentation, reinforcing Polly’s inaccurate conclusion that Emily is not absorbing the message. Now, however, Emily asks a question:

“What assumptions are you making to assure that this model works?”

Not expecting such a sophisticated question, Polly stumbles for a minute, then asserts firmly, “It is very important that the dependent variable is a parameter and the independent variable is a random variable.”

Is Polly’s response to Emily’s question appropriate and accurate?

a) Yes; now she has really assured her permanent position as SPC queen.

b) No: Polly Yurathane can consider herself only a princess at best.

You can also click here for a more complete video explanation.

Filed under: Data, Statistics, Data Analysis, Regression Analysis

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