Six Sigma Training Tips from LearnSigma.com
Posted by: meikah | 24 June 2008 | 9:52 pm
Rob Thomson of LearnSigma shares these interesting Six Sigma training tips. I’ve shared my thoughts about it too earlier.
Anyway, here are Rob’s top tips:
- Always emphasise the graphical tools over formal statistical analyses
- Teach the tools and their applications, and omit the underlying theory but not the key assumptions which make the tool applicable or not
- Use real life examples and case-studies
- Use software, e.g. Minitab to demonstrate hands-on implementation
- Tie the training into a project, with the emphasis on using tools which are appropriate to solve the problem, in other words, don’t be overly prescriptive with what tools are required
Very useful tips, Rob, and I like the look of your new site!
You may also want to check out my interview with Rob.
Filed under: Six Sigma References, Tips, Robert Thompson, Six Sigma
1 Comment |
8 Basics of Lean Six Sigma For Manufacturing Firms
Posted by: meikah | 23 June 2008 | 8:52 pm
From Articles Bridge again, I’m sharing here the eight basics of Lean Six Sigma for Manufacturing Firms.
- Information Accuracy - Any system is bound to fail if it is based on inaccurate data and inappropriate documentation.
- Performance Management - A balanced scorecard is often successful in motivating key employees to perform.
- Continuous Production Lines - Using the simple technique of sequential production, organizations can make timely deliveries and gain substantial profit margins.
- Production Point Logistics - Cutting down existing inventory and making an attempt to move production parts and components to their point of use can prove to be substantial cost savers.
- Shorter cycle times - By eliminating waste in production, companies are able to manufacture goods quickly.
- Smooth schedules and linear production - Maintaining constant emphasis on the achievement of daily targets is necessary. It will create awareness among the team of how critical it is to execute timely production planning details.
- Resource Planning -Timely planning with the appropriate workforce size is necessary. By reallocating employees onto other avenues rather than laying them off due to efficient processes, staff will become more confident in the organization.
- Customer Satisfaction - Customer Satisfaction has to be grounded in reality, and cannot simply be perception-based. All communication regarding actual quality of products and expectations should flow directly from customers.
Source:
Six Sigma Zone News
*Photo from Stock.Xchng
Filed under: Manufacturing, Lean Six Sigma, Tips, Lean Manufacturing, Six Sigma Zone
No Comments » |
SixSig Reference Feature: World Class Applications of Six Sigma - Real World Examples of Success
Posted by: meikah | 4 June 2008 | 11:07 pm
I always believe that theory and practice should go together. Several times theories sound so good that they give you a glimpse of heaven. But in practice, they don’t work at all.
That was the reason why I grabbed the chance to attend the forum on Six Sigma Practices in the Philippines last year. True enough, I learned that real is far better than reel.
So, you may want to check this book out: World Class Applications of Six Sigma: Real World Examples of Success by Antony, Jiju; Kumar, Ashok; Banuelas, Ricardo
World Class Applications shows what real organisations have done to implement Six Sigma, the methodology used, and the results delivered. The book provides details of how these organisations overcame issues with the statistical tools of Six Sigma and provides valuable lessons by explaining what went wrong when implementation failed. Cases cover topics including: Six Sigma in HR; Implementing Six Sigma in the Dow Chemical company; Six Sigma in IT; and Six Sigma to improve reporting quality.
- Demonstrates how Six Sigma has been applied through real-life case studies
- Examples from well-known manufacturing and service companies around the world, including Motorola and Dow Chemical
- Estimates the financial savings made from implementing Six Sigma in each case study
Filed under: Six Sigma References, Tips, Six Sigma
No Comments » |
8+1 Reasons Your Lean/Six Sigma Initiative Could Fail
Posted by: meikah | 2 June 2008 | 10:57 pm
In keeping with the previous post, I’d like to direct you to Ron Pereira’s site where he posted eight reasons your Lean/Six Sigma initiative could fail.
And if I add a #9 - You fail to put a follow-through system, which will determine the sustainability of the initiative.
Check out Ron’s eight reasons…
Filed under: Lean Six Sigma, Deployment, Tips, Ron Pereira, Six Sigma
No Comments » |
Six Sigma Cuts IT Costs at Cummins
Posted by: meikah | 7 October 2007 | 11:39 pm
I’ve written quite a lot about Cummins, Inc. here, and I can say that the company is a good example of an organization that has taken Six Sigma seriously and is enjoying the benefits of it.
Over at NetworkWorld, its National Correspondent Carolyn Duffy Marsan interviewed Gail Farnsley, Cummins CIO, and touched on how Cummins is able to cut down on IT costs using Six Sigma.
Some of the interesting points are:
- For employees who think they don’t have extra time to a Six Sigma project, encourage them to use Six Sigma in their tasks at hand.
- Six Sigma is about leading projects, doing analysis, and process improvement.
- You can do multiple pieces of IT stuff as Six Sigma projects.
- Six Sigma can be used for requirements gathering or reducing the cost of support or storage.
- Six Sigma should be the language of the whole organization.
Source:
NetworkWorld, a Six Sigma Zone featured link
*Photo from MorgueFile
Filed under: Manufacturing, Six Sigma Organizations, Deployment, Six Sigma References, Tips, Interview, Technology, Cummins
2 Comments |
Interviews for a Six Sigma Deployment
Posted by: meikah | 4 October 2007 | 10:55 pm
Many companies want to go Six Sigma but are not sure about how to go about it. It’s that one initial step that can make or break your journey. I’ve learned about this from the Six Sigma and Lean seminars that I attended.
The common question is how do we choose the projects? How do we begin the deployment? Simple questions whose answers are not always the basic or easy solutions.
Bill Kastle and Max Isaac share with iSixSigma Financial Services how interviews can help in a Six Sigma deployment, specifically what questions to ask. The questions would touch the following areas:
- Experiences with change initiatives from the past. Are they still in place? Why or why not? Have they made people enthusiastic or cynical?
- Understanding of corporate strategy and priorities: key competitive selling points of the organization and its products/services; key barriers that may hinder or derail deployment of strategy. A big one might be whether organization leaders think they can afford to dedicate a percentage of the workforce as full-time Black Belts.
- Current attitude towards Lean Six Sigma. Do they see it as a means for accomplishing their goals? As a necessary evil?
- How decisions are made and how conflict is resolved. Styles of decision-making, commitment to a team decision once made, support for divergent views, the level at which decision-making occurs.
- What people consider key to their personal success within the organization. How are strategic planning and individual goals are aligned in performance evaluations?
- How work gets done — collaboration vs. silos.
- The organization’s and key individuals’ understanding of and experience with any element of Lean Six Sigma (processes, data collection, cycle-time reduction, best practice sharing, etc.).
- Training history. What training has the company provided in the past? What skills have been emphasized? How well has it worked?
- Union issues. To what extent will unions be a factor in the Lean Six Sigma implementation?
- How strategies, goals, success measurements, and targets are cascaded throughout the organization. What structures and processes exist that determine improvement priorities? How is progress monitored and who participates in the processes?
- Teamwork/collaboration. Is it there or is it lacking within the organization? Are there turf wars?
- Openness to new approaches. How prevalent is the “not invented here syndrome”?
Like any other endeavor, knowing what is it that you need or need to do is always a good way to start.
Filed under: Deployment, Tips, iSixSigma
No Comments » |
Six Sigma Reference Feature: Using Six Sigma in Safety Metrics
Posted by: meikah | 16 July 2007 | 6:48 pm
There’s a line that goes, “The way to be safe is never to feel secure.”
Manufacturing plants know this too well. That is why they schedule maintenance check on their equipment a regular basis. More importantly they set up safety measures for their workers. All these because accidents can be costly.
Here’s a good reference on how you can use Six Sigma in Safety Metrics. It is the quality review process at Motorola.
In order to deliver excellence in safety performance, the safety professional must fully integrate with the business. Working in a silo as a service organization with independent initiatives will never provide for your company the outcomes desired. The safety function must prove to be value-added to the business and work toward a world class safety culture that helps to place the business at a distinct advantage among its competitors. The best way to do this is through those systems already in place that the managers monitor that constantly review quality, cycle time and manufacturing costs.
Source:
Adams Six Sigma
*Photo from MorgueFile
Filed under: General, Manufacturing, Six Sigma References, Tips, Data Analysis, Motorola
1 Comment |
Six Sigma W.O.W.!
Posted by: meikah | 26 June 2007 | 8:19 pm
Gianna Clark of iSixSigma Blogosphere wrote “take a walk on the W.O.W. side.”
Everyone is focused on What’s Needed.
Done On Time is part of what be heeded.
Use Six Sigma to make it stick.
Delivered With Value will seal the trick.
It’s very clever for Gianna to create an acronmyn that captures what a company experience when it adopts Six Sigma.
What I want captured though is the sustainability of Six Sigma and the continuous improvement it will encourage. Sustainablity of a process improvement is to me the ultimate WOW!
I guess to find this out, we’ll have to take on Gianna’s invitation to walk with her on the W.O.W. side. 
Filed under: Tips, Processes, iSixSigma, Data Analysis
No Comments » |
Innovation of the Week: Take this Innovation Challenge
Posted by: meikah | 25 May 2007 | 1:34 am
In April last year, BusinessWeek Online came up with a list of The World’s Most Innovative Companies in the 21st century.
These companies are recognized for their being able to:
- reinvent business processes
- build entirely new markets that meet untapped customer needs
- consolidate, select, and execute the right ideas, and bring them to market in record time
Do you have what it takes to be like Apple, IBM, Procter & Gamble, BMW, GE, Nokia, 3M, to name only a few?
Take this Innovation Challenge and find out.
Filed under: Tips, Innovation Update, R&D
2 Comments |
Keeping your Six Sigma Project Pipeline Full
Posted by: meikah | 12 April 2007 | 9:52 pm
Early this year, I attended a benchmarking forum on the Best of Six Sigma Practices in the Philippines. In that seminar, a representative of a big, popular multinational healthcare company asked a very interesting question about choosing Six Sigma projects and having Six Sigma projects on a regular basis.
Well, it’s easy to say that choosing Six Sigma projects should not be a problem if you know your organization and its processes very well. But, I guess the question is valid in the sense that Six Sigma doesn’t really promise to be the only solution to all our operational problems.
Today, I found this article on iSixSigma. It’s titled “Six Steps to Keeping Six Sigma Project Pipeline Full.” The article can help Six Sigma Champions and Master Black Belts identify appropriate projects properly and create an organization’s project pipeline.
Click on the photo for a larger version.
Step 1: Understand the Issues. Meet individually with senior managers to discover the problems underlying the overall business. Big Y type issues can be found by asking senior division managers (e.g., human resources manager, maintenance manager, plant manager, etc).
Step 2: Consolidate the Issues and Confirm. Structure the ideas and areas of concern from Step 1 and categorize them into areas of similar subject (i.e., production, maintenance, human resources, etc.) making use of affinity diagrams. Be prepared to pull out just-do-it projects during this step. Then consolidate the issues and confirm the categories with senior management.
Step 3: Review Meeting with Senior Management. Determine the specific, key issues senior management wants fixed.
Step 4: Develop a Picture of Projects. Validate each issue by asking for numbers, trends, performance charts, etc. Also, determine which level of Six Sigma expertise may be most appropriate for each project (i.e., Black Belt, Green Belt or just-do-it). At the end of this step, a clear picture of specific projects should emerge.
Step 5: Prioritize Project List. Prioritize the list of projects from Step 4 using tools such as the pay-off matrix, criteria rating or Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA).
Step 6: Assign People to Projects. Assign the right people to the right projects. Six Sigma project leaders and team members must have the appropriate training, skills, energy, experience and authority to make improvements on their assigned projects. They also must be allowed time to investigate, analyze and improve the issues properly.
Continue reading…
*Photo from the iSixSigma article.
