The Magnificent Seven

Jay Arthur
888-468-1537
303-756-9144
KnowWare International, Inc.
DBA LifeStar
2253 S. Oneida
Ste 3D
Denver, CO 80224

We work with companies
that want to fire up their profits using
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Copyright © 2011

The 1960s film, The Magnificent Seven, starred Yul Brenner, Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson, James Coburn, Robert Vaughn, Brad Dexter and Horst Buckholz. These seven hired gunmen protect a Mexican village from the bandit Calvera played by Eli Wallach. The film was an Americanization of the Japanese film The Seven Samurai. The film implies that you don't need an army to win the war, just seven top "gun men."

The Magnificent Seven of Lean Six Sigma

Over the years, in project after project, I have found myself returning to the same magnificent seven:

	Magnificent Seven
1		Value Stream Maps to identify and remove delays in any process
2		Spaghetti Diagrams to identify and eliminate unnecessary movement of people or materials
3		Control Charts to measure and monitor the performance of any process
4		Pareto Charts to identify the most common type of defect
5		Ishikawa diagrams to document the root causes of each "big bar" on the Pareto chart.
6		Histograms to evaluate deviation in process performance.
7		Matrix diagrams like checksheets, countermeasures and action plans to collect data, and prioritize corrective actions.

I have found that with these seven tools I can help teams solve probably 99% of the problems facing a typical business. Sure, we need more exotic tools to solve problems in the last one percent, but we don't need them yet.

Are you stuck trying to figure out what tools to use in what order? Try the Magnificent Seven to deliver breakthrough improvements. You'll be surprised how far you can go with just these tools.

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© 2008 Jay Arthur, the KnowWare® Man, works with managers who want to plug the leaks in their cash flow.

Hire Jay Arthur to train your staff in his one-day Lean Six Sigma Workshop! Contact Jay at (888) 468-1537, support@qimacros.com.

Rights to reprint this article in company periodicals is freely given with the inclusion of the following tag line: "© 2008 Jay Arthur, the KnowWare® Man, (888) 468-1537, support@qimacros.com."

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