All Features
All too often FMEA (Failure Modes and Effects Analysis), DFMEA (Design, Failure Modes, and Effects Analysis) or FMECA (Failure Mode, Effects, and Criticality Analysis) ends up costing a company hundreds or thousands of dollars to prepare and returns nothing by way of payback, increased…
Praveen Gupta
I talk to a lot of people and most of them are stressed at work and carrying it over to their homes. The question then becomes, “What drives performance—fear or fun?”If someone asks employees what it’s like to work at Google, the most likely answer is that it’s exciting to work in a fun,…
Anthony D. Burns
In 1633, opposition to the common viewpoint could mean death. This was the case with Galileo when he proposed that the Earth revolved around the sun. He was tried for heresy. Of course things are different today. People who question dogma are no longer burnt at the stake. Instead, they’re branded…
David C. Crosby
Zero defects is an idea that was discovered in the early 1960s. It was articulated by Phil Crosby and first implemented at the Martin company in Orlando, Florida. Zero defects enjoyed widespread popularity until the mid 1970s, and almost every major company and their suppliers had a zero-defects…
Praveen Gupta
I’ve been reading about the 1.5 sigma shift for some time. Several different interpretations have been published and people are losing sleep over this matter. Some have even driven a stake into the ground to fervidly defend their position. My intent in writing this column is to simplify…
Praveen Gupta
Many people believe that they can buy Six Sigma certification and get some marketing advantage. By documenting a few more procedures, they can achieve Six Sigma recognition. For some, Six Sigma is a fact-based methodology made of fancy statistical tools that solve all business problems.…
Gregory Roth II
I, for one, am tired of the quality flavor of the month. It isn’t quite that bad but it seems like it at times. Have you been through statistical quality control, TQM, total quality speed, re-engineering, zero defects, quality circles, SPC, Motorola Six Sigma, AlliedSignal Six Sigma, GE…
Praveen Gupta
Corporations have been implementing improvement programs as far back as I can remember, at least since my first job at Motorola in 1981. I’ve noticed that more and more organizations—whether it’s Motorola, Ford Motor Co., General Motors Corp., Delphi or smaller, privately-held companies—measure…
Steven Ouellette
“The great aim of education is not knowledge but action.” Herbert Spencer (1820 – 1903) What’s distance learning? Six Sigma Black Belt training has long been the realm of the elite. It used to be so expensive and required so much time that only companies with the cash and resources to…
Praveen Gupta
A major misunderstanding regarding Six Sigma is its fabricated definition, (e.g. “Six Sigma is a fact-based decision-making methodology…”). I’ve seen people willing to attack anyone utilizing common sense to make decisions without facts. One of the reasons for taking such a strong position…
Praveen Gupta
A major misunderstanding regarding Six Sigma is its fabricated definition, (e.g. “Six Sigma is a fact-based decision-making methodology…”). I’ve seen people willing to attack anyone utilizing common sense to make decisions without facts. One of the reasons for taking such a strong position…
Praveen Gupta
During the last couple of years, I’ve interacted with several United Auto Workers (UAW) associates. Irrespective of what the former Big Three do, they’re all trying to do a good job.I’ve had the chance to teach some classes to UAW members. It always amazes me how people make money in the auto…
The purpose of process data analysis is to answer the question, "May the observed data fluctuations reasonably be attributed to common-cause variation?" The principal use of the Shewhart control chart is to guide efforts for process improvement by assisting in the discovery of peculiarities in the…
Ken Levine
Engaging your workforce is a major obstacle in a lean Six Sigma implementation. Only a limited number of employees will initially participate in Six Sigma improvement projects. It can also take one to two years before all employees participate in a lean kaizen event. It’s best to encourage…
Praveen Gupta
Our minds continually perform root cause analysis, which is a way of answering our questions about our surroundings and quenching our curiosity. We establish cause-and-effect relationships between what we see and what we do, or what we get and what we do, or what we want to get and what we need to…
Praveen Gupta
Teamwork has always been considered a critical component of completing complex projects that require significant improvement. The process of teamwork has been well-documented, but teamwork is still often elusive. Why?
When teams succeed, it’s often for the following reasons:
Strong leadership
Well…
Daniel S. Munson
The Empire State Building in New York City, with its 103 stories, 73 elevators, 2,500,000 feet of electrical cable and 6,500 windows, was built in 405 days. The framework rose at a rate of four-and-a-half stories per week. That’s nearly a floor a day. Most impressive was that the project came in…
Praveen Gupta
Most Six Sigma initiatives are project-oriented. And although implementing Six Sigma methodology on a project can lead to some improvement, a company can’t achieve full benefit of implementing Six Sigma. To maximize Six Sigma benefits, a corporation must commit to the methodology in its entirety.…
Praveen Gupta
The price of Six Sigma consulting, training and certification has been coming down and, interestingly, so is the amount or the rate of improvement being reported. We no longer hear success stories like Motorola or GE in larger number commensurate with the growth of Six Sigma, as evidenced by the…
Marilyn Fischbach
Deployment is one of the most critical elements of a successful Six Sigma program. Top-down support, champion training, wide publicity and Six Sigma awareness training for all employees are common components. In addition, employees selected to be Black or Green Belts must be trained and projects…
Tom Pyzdek
Some years back I, along with Drs. Doug Montgomery, Bryan Dodson, John Ramberg and others in the quality community, became concerned that there was no standardized criteria for becoming a Six Sigma Black Belt—or any other Six Sigma belt for that matter. The leading quality organization at that time…
Praveen Gupta
Companies are facing challenges in sustaining the energy and resources to continually benefit from Six Sigma. Black Belts face challenges in continuing to work on projects as these are becoming increasingly difficult to identify. Experts are talking about the ”Death of Six Sigma.“ Company…
Thomas R. Cutler
Kanban, in its most simplifying role, is a visual signal (or cue) that something needs to be replenished. More specifically, lean manufacturers today use kanban to drive a process to make, move or buy the appropriate parts. Thus, kanban has become one of the fundamental building blocks of a pull (…
Praveen Gupta
I had to catch a 6:10 a.m. flight the other day. The day before, I’d returned from work, done the normal stuff, prepared for the flight and finally had gone to bed so I could get up early the next morning. I got up around 3:00 a.m., got ready and went to the airport. As expected, traffic on road…
“Jim, how do we know that your project made any improvement?” asked the Six Sigma champion. The Black Belt candidate looked confused. “Um, the sponsor said he was happy with the outcome,” he offered. The members of the certification board looked skeptically at one another: “But the only metrics…
