National Aviation Services Introduces Six Sigma to Selected Kuwait University Students
Posted by: meikah | 29 October 2007 | 8:04 pm
The initial project of National Aviation Services Kuwai (NAS) and Kuwait University was to have some students study the high turnaround of employees at NAS.
With the right guidance, the students went down to work. Using the Cause and Effect Approach method the students presented a number of solutions to improve human resource functions and also gave the management a SWOT Analysis with a process map on the way forward.
NAS was so impressed with the work of the students that it decided to sponsor the selected students to a Six Sigma training course.
As a reward NAS will also be sponsoring the students in attending the world renowned Six Sigma Development program. The program that has been developed by Motorola university has been designed to improve business performance and companies all over the world use the program to enhance customer satisfaction, maximize process efficiencies, increase competitive advantage & market share and make savings on operating expenses.
“As a local company that is expanding at a rapid pace, we lay a huge emphasis on corporate social responsibility and this includes encouraging the local youth to pursue exciting careers in the fields of aviation, medicine, IT, engineering and business,” commented Eng. Naji Al-Ajmi, CEO of NAS who was present at the ceremony at which the students were presented with certificates in addition to the Six Sigma Sponsorships to commemorate the completion of their training. “It was a pleasure for us to have these young people in our midst and we are glad they got to learn a little about our business. We will definitely look into their finding and recommendations and we wish them the very best in their endeavors in the future,” he concluded.
To me the gesture of NAS is commendable. It’s good to start them young so that when these students get out of university, they bring with them the concept of quality and continuous improvement.
Source:
AME Info, a Six Sigma Zone featured link
*Photo from Stock.Xchng
Filed under: Benefits and Savings, Six Sigma Organizations, Human Resource, Training, Team Dynamics
No Comments » |
SixSig is (Partially) Back!
Posted by: meikah | 25 October 2007 | 8:17 pm
For more than a week, SixSig was down. So un-Six Sigma right? A blog about Six Sigma should have known how to prevent a downtime. 
Well, the downtime hit me right when I was not expecting it, which is usually the case. We all know that downtime can be costly.
In manufacturing, downtime usually occurs during maintenance check of equipment or worse, a sudden breakdown of equipment. This can be prevented by putting a system and corresponding budget for regular maintenance check, which is less costly.
When we talk of maintenance problem, we often hear people say that the problem with downtime is you cannot monitor it, measure it, log it, report it, track it, attack it, or delegate it. But downtime will not go away until you “eliminate it,” that is, prevent it from happening in the first place.
How? Lean maintenance is often recommended.
For websites or weblogs, downtime can be any one of the following reasons:
- the database or host server is down
- some files are deleted by accident
- uploading of files is interrupted, which can be due to Internet connection or the software used in uploading
- an open security hole that allows the site to be hacked
Can these be eliminated? For numbers 1 to 3, yes. As they say, if there’s a will, there’s a way. For number 4, it depends. I think hackers have made it their business to unlock any security there is. As I write, I have yet to restore my other pages, the Six Sigma Interview and Six Sigma Study Guide.
Now what about the cost of the downtime?
Basically if your site is earning per ad impression or clicks, you compute the earnings when the site is up during that same length of time that the site is down.
So for example a page of your site gets 10,000 views a day, then the advertiser pays $1 per 1,000 times their ad is shown, you earn $10 per day. If the site is down for a day, you will lose $10 per advertiser.
That is only a conservative estimate, and not considering the effect of a downtime on the pagerank. Ouch!
Related source:
Lean Maintenance ™ using Six Sigma DMAIC
Filed under: Benefits and Savings, Technology, Lean, Lean Maintenance, Internet
4 Comments |
3M Knoxville Preserves the Environment Through Six Sigma
Posted by: meikah | 15 October 2007 | 12:53 am
3M Knoxville was recognized by National Environmental Performance Track Program for its 3P program, or Pollution Prevention Pays. The recognition is given to companies that go above and beyond government requirements for environmental preservation compliance.
The 30-year-old 3P program aims to help conserve the environment and energy, and has saved more than $1 billion in first-year aggregated savings to the company. At Knoxville, particularly, the 3P has resulted in the prevention of approximately 1,000 tons of air pollution per year and the prevention of 2,500 tons of solid waste per year.
3M Knoxville uses the Six Sigma process to fight deficiencies at the plant. According to its Web site, Six Sigma is a measure of quality that strives near perfection. It is a “disciplined, data-driven approach and methodology for eliminating defects in any process.”
In Knoxville, waste has been reduced by throwing out as little as possible. Material that may not be used in a first round of production is recycled for a second. Uses are found for the waste from that round, including the use of it as a fuel.
With the increasing awareness and global focus on environmental preservation, companies should realize soon the use and value of Six Sigma.
Source:
Journal Express, an iSixSigma featured link
Filed under: Benefits and Savings, Manufacturing, Six Sigma Organizations, Deployment, Sustainable Business, 3M
No Comments » |
The Importance of Being Six Sigma
Posted by: meikah | 14 October 2007 | 11:14 pm
Yet another round of product recalls is happening in the U.S. Over-the-counter infant cough and cold medicines are being removed from the shelves because they are allegedly harmful if misused.
First toys and now medicines, but both involving children’s welfare.
In times like these, I appreciate all the more the importance of being Six Sigma, or at the very least of having some solid quality program in place.
Filed under: Manufacturing, Healthcare, Zero Defects
No Comments » |
Quality Quiz from PQ Systems eLine
Posted by: meikah | 10 October 2007 | 8:18 pm
For all quality people out there, here’s an interesting quality quiz from PQ Systems eLine.
Quality Quiz:
Armand A. Legge learned last month how to build a confidence interval around the mean of a sample. Quality manager Al Aboard selected a sample of 36 bottles of the company’s new window-cleaning miracle. The sample showed:
ounces
Using this data, Armand built a 95% confidence mean, using the following formula:
Since it is important not only that the bottles are predictably full, but that the labels do not fall off, Armand asked Al to inspect the last 1,000 bottles to determine the rate at which labels slipped off, and discovered that 20 bottles were produced with missing labels. Armand offers to build a confidence interval for the proportion of bottles with missing labels, using the same formula:
Now it’s your turn. Is Armand’s approach to analyzing this problem the correct one?
a) Yes.
b) No.
Filed under: Quality, PQ Systems eLine
No Comments » |
Six Sigma at Quest Diagnostics
Posted by: meikah | 9 October 2007 | 11:11 pm
Quest Diagnostics, America’s leading provider of diagnostic laboratory testing, information, and services, has been a Six Sigma company since the year 2000.
The company has grown since then and is growing. The company’s ultimate objective with Six Sigma is to deliver to customers what is critical to them each and every time — to strive to achieve “virtual perfection.” Read more…
Over at Westgard, Sten Westgard interviewed Kathleen Truitt, Quest Diagnostics Black Belt.
Some snippets:
- Ken Freeman, chairman of Quest Diagnostics, initiated Six Sigma in a deliberate attempt to raise the bar on quality in healthcare services.
- Approximately, there are 150 Six Sigma projects at Quest Diagnostics.
- Six Sigma has made a cultural impact on how everyone in the company performs their jobs.
Filed under: Six Sigma Organizations, Healthcare, Interview, Quest Diagnostics
No Comments » |
Six Sigma and Green Initiatives at IBM
Posted by: meikah | 8 October 2007 | 12:26 am
Business Green Blog writes about IBM launching a Green Sigma service soon. From the name alone, the new service will be a combination of Six Sigma, lean, process management principles, and green initiatives.
The focus will be on developing processes to reduce the carbon intensity of products and processes and create a lean green business. Read more…
In manufacturing especially, carbon usage is big. With this new innovation from IBM, I’m pretty sure other companies can learn from this. Other companies may already have their own green initiatives and are about to incorporate lean or Six Sigma, or both.
If you are among the latter, please do share your experiences here.
Source:
iSixSigma News
*Photo from Stock.Xchng
Filed under: Six Sigma Organizations, Software/Technology, Sustainable Business, iSixSigma, Lean Manufacturing, IBM
1 Comment |
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 Improves Processes at Hotels
Posted by: meikah | 2 October 2007 | 8:32 pm
Saurabh Jaggi, Senior Manager Quality and leads the six sigma initiative at Prudential Process Management Services, shares some interesting insights on how to use Six Sigma in the hospitality industry.
I agree with him when he says that the hospitality industry can benefit a lot from Six Sigma, especially that in every operating hour, hotel personnel are in touch with the customers and building meaningful relationships with them.
Saurabh shares the following:
Some of the areas/ processes where this approach may add value.
Hotel-wide
- Enhance Customer Loyalty
- Reduce Employee attrition
- Productivity/Efficiency Improvement
- Improve Work-life balance
- Reduce Billing errors/losses
- Developing better performance measures/ metrics
- Increase Revenue
- Reduce Cost
- Capture ‘Voice of Customer’ data
Front Office Operations/ Sales & Marketing
- Reduce wait time during peak check-in time
- Reduce wait time during peak check-out time
- Eliminate billing errors and improve accuracy
- Reduce No shows
- Increase Occupancy
- Optimal utilisation of the current product mix (rooms) to increase revenue
- Increase customer delight at the Executive Club
- Reduce/eliminate loss calls (Operators area)
- Accuracy of information
Food and Beverage Service / Production
- To maintain optimal inventory
- Minimise wastage/pilferage
- Standardised output of Food and Beverage
- Reduce the time from order to service
- Optimal utilisation of current product mix (F&B/Outlets) to increase revenue
Accommodation Operation (Housekeeping)
- Reduce the turnaround time of making/turning down a room
- Standardisation of cleanliness across areas
Purchase/Stores
- Reduce Inventory surplus
- Cost Benefit Analysis between cost of inventory and cost of storage of products where prices vary seasonally
- Standardise the operating procedure of issuance to various departments
- Reduce the turnaround time of issuance to various departments
Human Resources/ Personnel
- Accuracy of payroll
- Documentation management
- Reduce the turnaround time of recruitment
- Reduce the turnaround time of relieving
- Increase the employee satisfaction rate
Source:
Express Hospitality
*Photo from CottonBay of Starwood Hotels and Resorts
