Improvement Insights Blog
Complex Statistical Software–a Barrier to Six Sigma
ASQ Lean Six Sigma Conference Exhibit Hall
At the ASQ Lean Six Sigma Conference, the QI Macros booth was right next to my biggest competitor–the big dog in the market (you know who they are). A guy comes up to me and says: “We bought 150 copies of their product (pointing to the booth next to me) and it was really expensive. I asked our Green Belts if they were using it and they said No, it’s too hard to use. What are they using; they said Excel.” He went on to say: “I’m thinking about getting the QI Macros because everyone is comfortable with Excel.”
And he wasn’t the only attendee who complained about the same issues: costs too much and too hard to use.
Here are my questions:
- If you buy expensive, complex statistical software that no one uses, isn’t it a barrier to Six Sigma? Isn’t it a form of waste?
- If your Green Belts spend their time creating home-grown (and probably incorrect) charting tools in Excel, aren’t they wasting time they could be spending on improvements?
- If employees are already comfortable in Excel, why aren’t companies embracing Excel-based Six Sigma tools like the QI Macros when they are so much easier to use, faster to learn and available at a fraction of the cost?
It seems like a foolish waste of time and money.
