Six Sigma :Your Resource for Strategic Management

Two of the Many Applications of Six Sigma

Posted by: meikah | 13 August 2008 | 8:40 pm

First, many Indian IT companies use Six Sigma in their billing collection from clients. They didn’t think that hard times is the reason for clients not to pay up, rather, it has something to do with their collection system.

TCS has said that its DSO (day sales outstanding) figure could be lower in future.

It now sees the billing exercise as a six-sigma exercise (a process methodology that improves processes such that given a million opportunities, only 3.4 mistakes are committed), according to Mr Mahalingam. Read more…

Second, in Indianapolis, officials there see Lean Six Sigma as a big help to solving their problem of potholes.

So far this year the city has received more than 16,000 complaints about potholes. Only four years ago, in 2004, the number was under 5,000.

The mayor asked for help from Eli Lilly and their Lean Six Sigma… Lilly came up with the idea but it is up to the city to get the job done. They plan to simplify the process by eliminating the pothole inspection procedure before a work order is placed. Read more…

Filed under: General, Benefits and Savings, Lean Six Sigma, Six Sigma Organizations, Deployment, Six Sigma

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Six Sigma in Shanghai First People Hospital and Fudan University School of Public Health

Posted by: meikah | 2 July 2008 | 9:15 pm

As Six Sigma invades the healthcare industry, many healthcare establishments are seeing the benefits and savings, and thus are going into Six Sigma themselves.

This is what Shanghai First People’s Hospital and Fudan University School of Public Health did. With the help of GE Healthcare, this is how the hospital launched its Six Sigma initiative:

had Master Black Belts and Black Belts do six rounds of training including teaching the principles of the DMAIC five-phase approach, change management techniques, and presentation and finance essentials

from the training sessions, the hospital learned valuable skills and was able to develop an internal team of Six Sigma Green Belts

this Six Sigma team began a range of eight projects across the organization, whose goal is to lower costs and enhance process efficiency

after six months, the eight projects had not only helped the customer realize the equivalent of US$135,000 benefit in clinical, nursing, diagnostic, logistic and administrative departments, but also had refreshed the hospital’s management capabilities to a quantitative level.

Read more…

As more and more agencies in the healthcare industry go into Six Sigma, all the more I’m getting positive and happy.

Filed under: General

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Innovation of the Week: Sitemasher’s Platforms

Posted by: meikah | 27 June 2008 | 2:06 am

Sitemasher, a Vancouver-based start-up company received the inaugural Blue Sky Award, which recognizes leading innovation developed on the Microsoft-based platform.

Mediacaster Magazine reports:

Established in 2007, Sitemasher is a SaaS-based platform for building, managing, and optimizing sophisticated websites.

Phil Calvin, chief technical officer, began developing Sitemasher in 2005. He was intent on transcending traditional website building platforms and Web content management system (CMS) solutions by providing an integrated, search-engine friendly platform to address the entire website lifecycle.

Continue reading…

Filed under: General, Software/Technology, Innovation Update, Internet, IT

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SixSig is Back Up!

Posted by: meikah | 24 April 2008 | 11:54 pm

SixSig is now running on a new server, and I’m hoping this will be a better home. I apologize for the erratic days of SixSig.

And I thank all those who keep checking the site out despite it’s bubble-like existence for the past couple of weeks.

That being said, I’m back in business.

Filed under: General, Six Sigma

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Webcast: Successful Use of Six Sigma in Process Transformation

Posted by: meikah | 18 April 2008 | 3:48 am

Date: June 4, 2008
Time: 2:00 PM - 3:00 PM ET Time Zone Converter

This webcast will discuss:

Actions to gain executive leadership buy-in.

CIGNA’s Lean Six Sigma Model’s implementation and deployment across the corporation.

Key best practices and lessons learned from CIGNA’s Six Sigma Initiative.

Read more…

Panelist:
Leslie A. Behnke, Vice President, Six-Sigma Business Excellence, CIGNA Corporation

Moderator:
Robert Parent, Program Director, The Conference Board

Source:
The Conference Board, a Six Sigma Zone featured link

Filed under: General, Six Sigma References, Processes, Six Sigma Zone, Six Sigma

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“If Sports Were Six Sigma”

Posted by: meikah | 19 March 2008 | 12:58 am

Yeah, what would sports be like if there were no missed shots, missed serves, unforced errors, missed calls by referees?

I think it’s going to be boring. Remember a game becomes exciting when one player is racing against time and himself to score a point.

Actually, I got the title of this post from qimacros.com. So, if sports were Six Sigma, this would be the scenario:

If sports were Six Sigma, no one would ever make a mistake. (Actually, there would be 3.4 mistakes for every 1,000,000 plays, but teams might have to play for months to decide a game.)

Baseball - Every batter would hit a home run or every pitcher would strike out every batter. It would take 333,000 at bats to get one out or one run.
Football - Every kickoff or play would result in a touchdown for either the offense or defense (e.g., a fumble recovered and run in for a touchdown). At the end of four quarters, the result would be a coin toss and the point spread would always be 6 or 7.
Basketball - Every shot from anywhere on the court would always find nothing but net, so everyone would shoot 3-pointers. The result would be a coin toss and the point spread would be 3 (no one would ever foul a player).
Golf - Every stroke would produce a hole in one.
Tennis - Every serve would be an ace or every return would win the point.

But then again, this is in sports. I think if you’re running a business, it’s not a question of whether it’s going to be fun or boring. It would be a question of cost. Delays, errors, missed customer calls, defects are costly. And cost is never fun.

Related story:
The World Series as You’ve Never Seen It
*Photo from Stock.Xchng

Filed under: General, Zero Defects, Six Sigma, Sports

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Dr. Joseph M. Juran passes away…

Posted by: meikah | 2 March 2008 | 11:31 pm

… and SixSig condoles with his family and relatives. May he rest in peace.

Although we can say that Dr. Juran has left quite a substantial Quality books, training modules, and lots of insights, he will be sorely missed by the quality community.