Six Sigma Golf - Hole in one on a par 4
Jason Dumler, stepson of my friend Elaine Dumler, hit a hole in one on a par 4 at the Vista Ridge Golf Course in Erie, Colorado for the CBS news crew.
A hole in one on a par 3 is the dream of most golfers. It happens perhaps one in 10,000 times.
But a hole in one on a 370+ yard par 4?
Well, that's what Six Sigma Golf would feel like.
A hole in one on every par 3; an eagle on every par 4, and a double eagle on every par 5.
Watch the video: http://cbs4denver.com/sports/Jason.Dumler.vista.2.725308.html
Jay Arthur, the KnowWareâ Man, works with companies that want to fire up their profits using Lean Six Sigma. He is the author of Lean Six Sigma DeMYSTiFieD (McGraw Hill 2007) and the QI Macros SPC Software for Excel. Instead of training Black Belts and Green Belts, Jay wants you to develop Money Belts--people who can find and plug the leaks in your cash flow.
Trying to convince your organization to use the QI Macros SPC Software for Excel?
We can help with 30-day trial CDs (includes $80 worth of Lean Six Sigma ebooks), PowerPoint presentations or Quick Reference Cards. To order for U.S. delivery at no charge, click here.
Or send me an email about what we can develop to meet your needs.
Sign up for our email courses:
Lean Six Sigma Demystified: mailto:six-sigma-ezine@aweber.com
QI Macros: mailto:qimacros@aweber.com
Software for Your Mind: mailto:knowware@aweber.com
mailto:knowwareman@mindspring.com
http://www.qimacros.com
2253 S. Oneida St, Ste 3D
Denver, CO 80224
303-756-9144 (888) 468-1537
Tradeshow SNAFU
We recently exhibited at a tradeshow. We had to send our materials in advance and pay several hundred dollars to have them delivered to our booth. I got confirmations that all boxes had been received.
When I got to booth to set up...no boxes.
I spoke to the tradeshow organizers. They made a note and said that the advance delivery truck had been delayed.
I set up the booth and went to my hotel.
The next morning...still no boxes.
They asked who I talked to the day before.
Silly: It doesn't matter who I talked to; their system lost my boxes.
Three or four people later, one guy showed up and said they'd been delivered to the registration booth because they weren't in their system.
Here's the really silly part. We had to print labels and put them on our boxes with the booth number on it. When they arrived, the system had a glitch so they marked our boxes as UNKNOWN, even though our booth number was on the label they had us put on each box.
The UNK was written in marker. The label was on the side of all boxes. See below.
Here's my point: If you're going to make customers jump through hoops, make sure you use your own hoop.
Lean Banking
I took my mother to open a CD at Washington Mutual.
She was transferring money from a WaMu account to the CD and adding a check from WaMu.
It took 45 minutes. That's ridiculous.
We had to fill out transfer and deposit slips.
The rep couldn't process the transaction at his desk. He had to go to one of the other terminals.
It was perhaps the slowest automated process I've ever seen.
And it's not just WaMu. I've had similar experiences at other banks.
The only place we've ever walked in and out in under 10 minutes is World Savings.
Here's my point, brick-and-mortar banking needs to wake up to the economies of speed.
Lean Restrooms
I rarely think about the role that architecture plays in Lean's principles about economy of movement until I find a radical departure.
As a man, when I go into a public restroom, I have two choices: urinal or toilet. Because urinals get higher traffic than toilets, the urinals are usually closer to the entrance than toilets.
Not so a Reagan International Airport in Washington D.C. I walked into one of the men's restrooms on the main concourse and was surprised to find first a half dozen toilets and then urinals all of the way at the back. Admittedly, I only had to walk an extra 20 feet or so to get past the toilets, but if you multiply that times hundreds of travelers per day times 365 days a year, it's the equivalent of walking from Washington DC to Ontario, Canada.
I've heard people say: "It's good exercise."
I say: If you want your employees to exercise, put in a gym.
Lean Principle: Unnecessary Walking is Waste.
I recently worked with an architectural firm that was bidding on the design and construction of two new rural hospitals. We spent a lot of time with Post-it notes trying many different configurations to minimize patient and clinician travel. We had to rethink many of the long held beliefs about hospital design and patient care. (P.S. They won the contract.)
Here's my point:
Redesign your workspaces to eliminate unnecessary movement.
It will save you time, money, mistakes and injuries.
Jay Arthur, the KnowWareâ Man, works with companies that want to fire up their profits using Lean Six Sigma. He is the author of Lean Six Sigma DeMYSTiFieD (McGraw Hill 2007) and the QI Macros SPC Software for Excel. Instead of training Black Belts and Green Belts, Jay wants you to develop Money Belts--people who can find and plug the leaks in your cash flow.
Pain Shot Takes the Life of Denver Businesswoman
According to the Rocky Mountain News, Leslie Fishbein, owner of Kacey Fine Furniture, had a massive heart attack after receiving "an injection to relieve pain" from her private physician.
The 1999 study, "To Err is Human", found that one person out of every 100 admitted to a hospital would die due to a medical mistake. This makes healthcare the eighth leading cause of death in the U.S. There were 33 million admissions in 1999; you do the math.
The study also admits that most medical care occurs outside of the hospital and that preventable deaths were hard to track.
The Institute for Healthcare Improvement (www.ihi.org) has been working on finding and eliminating the root causes of preventable deaths in over 3,000 U.S. hospitals. Many protocols, some as simple as giving a heart attack victim an aspirin at arrival, are saving lives.
Isn't it time to extend that healthcare prescription to the non-hospital providers?
Jay Arthur, the KnowWareâ Man, works with companies that want to fire up their profits using Lean Six Sigma. He is the author of Lean Six Sigma DeMYSTiFieD (McGraw Hill 2007) and the QI Macros SPC Software for Excel. Instead of training Black Belts and Green Belts, Jay wants you to develop Money Belts--people who can find and plug the leaks in your cash flow.
Trying to convince your organization to use the QI Macros SPC Software for Excel?
We can help with 30-day trial CDs (includes $80 worth of Lean Six Sigma ebooks), PowerPoint presentations or Quick Reference Cards. To order for U.S. delivery at no charge, click here.
Or send me an email about what we can develop to meet your needs.
Sign up for our email courses:
Lean Six Sigma Demystified: mailto:six-sigma-ezine@aweber.com
QI Macros: mailto:qimacros@aweber.com
Software for Your Mind: mailto:knowware@aweber.com
mailto:knowwareman@mindspring.com
http://www.qimacros.com
2253 S. Oneida St, Ste 3D
Denver, CO 80224
303-756-9144 (888) 468-1537
Some Banks Are Slower Than Others
The other day, I took my mom to two different banks to open CDs.
Both bankers had to commute to a copier to photocopy our IDs.
At bank number one, the banker had to run a credit check in case I was a felon trying to extort money from an old woman I guess. He had to use a different computer across the room to run the check. It seemed like it took forever. Then he had to print out a 20-page CD certificate describing every known type of financial investment (overproduction). Even though this was a small bank in a grocery store, the printer was as far as possible from the banker's desk. He had to walk 30 feet each way to get our paperwork (unnecessary movement). Then he had to try to sell me a "free" credit card.
All in all it took about 45 minutes.
At bank number two, the banker entered our information. This was a branch bank, so he had to walk about 100 feet to make the deposit and about 30 feet to get the one-page certificate from a big laser printer (unnecessary movement), but we were in and out in under 10 minutes.
Why did both bankers have to type the information from our driver's licenses? There's a magnetic strip on the back of most IDs with all of the information. Why don't they just zip it through a reader that fills in the banking information?
Why is there only one big printer across the room instead of a small laser printer by each desk?
(This is a Lean principle: use more, smaller machines.)
Also, if it was a multifunction printer, they could use it to copy the driver's licenses as well.
If they were my banks, I'd redesign the workplace so that the banker never had to move from their desk to handle a customer transaction.
Here's my point: In business, the fast eat the slow.
Which bank do you think will get my business in the future?
Jay Arthur, the KnowWareâ Man, works with companies that want to fire up their profits using Lean Six Sigma. He is the author of Lean Six Sigma DeMYSTiFieD (McGraw Hill 2007) and the QI Macros SPC Software for Excel. Instead of training Black Belts and Green Belts, Jay wants you to develop Money Belts--people who can find and plug the leaks in your cash flow.
Sign up for our email courses:
Lean Six Sigma Demystified: mailto:six-sigma-ezine@aweber.com
QI Macros: mailto:qimacros@aweber.com
Software for Your Mind: mailto:knowware@aweber.com
Medical Mistakes - Brains and Babies
Last week the news reported that Dennis Quaid's two newborns were given 1000 times the dose of blood thinners (probably grams instead of milligrams). Given today's technology, shouldn't it be impossible to dispense and administer an adult dose of medication for an infant?
This week, the Associated Press reported that Rhode Island Hospital had been fined $50,000 for the third case of wrong-side brain surgery in a single year. The last number I read for Colorado was 29 wrong site or wrong patient surgeries per year. Surgical mistakes, left ins and infections are an ongoing problem, but wrong site and wrong patient surgeries continue to plague healthcare. Shouldn't it be impossible? Isn't there a way to mistake-proof the process to eliminate them altogether?
In 1999, the report To Err is Human stated that 100,000 people die each year due to medical mistakes, making healthcare the eighth leading cause of death. The Institute for Healthcare Improvement (ihi.org) initiated their 100,000 lives campaign a few years ago by instituting procedures and protocols to prevent many mistakes. Based on their analysis two years later, the effort had saved over 100,000 lives.
With the weekly reports of glaring medical errors like baby overdoses and wrong side brain surgery there is still a lot of room for improvement.
Jay Arthur, the KnowWareâ Man, works with companies that want to fire up their profits using Lean Six Sigma. He is the author of Lean Six Sigma DeMYSTiFieD (McGraw Hill 2007) and the QI Macros SPC Software for Excel. Instead of training Black Belts and Green Belts, Jay wants you to develop Money Belts--people who can find and plug the leaks in your cash flow.
mailto:knowwareman@mindspring.com
http://www.qimacros.com
2253 S. Oneida St, Ste D
Denver, CO 80224
303-756-9144 (888) 468-1537
Home Run Root Cause
Coors Field in Denver sits at 5,280 feet. When the park first opened,
there was an unusually high number of home runs in the park. Turns
out, it's so high and dry here that baseballs tend get harder which
leads to more home runs.
If dry was the root cause of home runs, then the countermeasure is
simple: humidity.
To equalize Coors field with other parks around the country, the
Rockies installed a humidor holding up to 4,800 baseballs. The
baseballs are kept at a constant temperature of 70 degrees and 50%
humidity to prevent shrinkage. These balls retain their size and
shape, making Coors field more like any other field.
And the home run percentage has fallen back in line with other parks.
Root cause analysis shows up in the most unusual places.
Jay Arthur, The KnowWare Man works with companies that want to fire
up their profits by plugging the leaks in their cash flow.
2253 S Oneida St, Ste 3D
Denver, CO 80224
303 756 9144
http://www.qimacros.com
