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Improvement Insights Blog
Latest "Improvement Insights" Posts
Ever seen a line chart with a trend line that implies there was great improvement? Probably not. Here’s why:
“Hi, I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma For Hospitals” and QI Macros [software].
“If you’re listening to anything in the news, they always talk about “fake news,” right? Fake news: somebody made stuff up. But in my experience, when I’m wandering around [seeing] all of these presentations and poster presentations at trade shows and stuff, I keep seeing all these line charts with trend lines in them. “Oh look! We have a trend line! It’s reducing whatever it is,” right?
Continue Reading "Line Charts with Trend Lines are often Fake News"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Data Mining, Improvement Insights, Six Sigma.
Words like “variable” and “attribute” confuse new students of quality improvement. But they need to know that to choose the right control chart using a decision tree don’t they? Not if you automate chart selection for them. Here’s how I did it:
“Hi, I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma Demystified” and QI Macros [software].
“I don’t know about the rest of you, but I got started back in 1990, and that’s when I learned about control charts. Then I started trying to teach people about control charts… guess what? You start talking about ‘variable’ and ‘attribute’ and ‘sample sizes’ and you can watch everybody’s eyes slowly glaze over; it’s just fascinating to watch.
Continue Reading "Automating Decision Trees to Collapse The Control Chart Learning Curve"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights, Lean, QI Macros, Six Sigma.
Ever seen a puff of smoke rising from some debris? What did you do about it? The same is true in businesses; a small error in production can be put out quickly at the beginning. Become a volunteer firefighter in your company. Here’s how:
“Hi, I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma Demystified” and QI Macros [software].
“A few years back I was at the American Society for Quality Audit Conference down in Memphis, Tennessee. We were staying at the Peabody Hotel where they have the famous duck walk at night, where the ducks come out and get into the pond.
Continue Reading "Stomp Out Fires When You See Them"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights, Lean, Six Sigma.
Some people think working long hours and putting in a lot of overtime is the red badge of courage. They are wrong. Here’s why:
“Hi, I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma Demystified” and QI Macros [software].
“When I first hired my first employee Adrienne she’d been working for Arthur Andersen, which was a big accounting firm, and she was used to working long hours like that was the “red badge of courage.” She said, “If you need me to work nights or weekends, I can do whatever that is. I can do whatever it takes.”
Continue Reading "Surprising My First Employee"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights, Lean.
Any time you get the urge to completely demolish your existing systems and try to create a new one from scratch, hit the pause button. Here’s why:
“Hi, I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma For Hospitals” and QI Macros [software].
“Many years ago, they had a whole push towards “re-engineering.” I remember it was about 1990, Michael Hammer was doing all the re-engineering stuff and it was sort of like, “If you just blew stuff up and started over again, you would end up with a much better something-or-other.” Let me tell you, over three quarters of those re-engineering efforts failed miserably, and some of them killed companies.
Continue Reading "Reengineering Doesn’t Work – Use SSOI"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Agile Lean Six Sigma, Improvement Insights.
The answer to almost any question about Lean Six Sigma methods and tools can be found on the internet. When you learn how to use Google or Bing search, you can cut the time to do almost anything. Here’s why:
“Hi, I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma For Hospitals” and QI Macros [software].
“One of the things I think everybody should do is learn how to use Google to look stuff up. It may take you a little time to start to learn how to string words and phrases together; if you just start typing in your menu bar, Google will start feeding you things that you might want to choose that are things other people have already asked for, so you don’t have to know everything to do anything anymore, right?
Continue Reading "Learn To Use Google To Look Stuff Up"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights.
The best approach I’ve found to ongoing improvement and innovation. Use SSOI-the Agile Process Innovation methodology.
“Hi, I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Agile Process Innovation: Hacking Lean And Six Sigma For Maximum Results.”
“Now in here I describe my process and I’ll call it “soy”: S.S.O.I. which stands for “Simplify, Streamline, Optimize and Innovate.”
“Now to Simplify, what do we use: 5S. Go clean all the debris and stuff that’s collected over the years and get all that junk out of the way.
“After we Simplify, we Streamline, so we use Value Stream Maps and Spaghetti Diagrams to figure out how to simplify flows, connect them better so we get rid of all the delays that are slowing us down and slowing down customers and making them unhappy, right?
Continue Reading "SSOI – Simplify, Streamline, Optimize and Innovate"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Agile Lean Six Sigma, Improvement Insights.
Jack Welch made Six Sigma big. Now it’s fading. How can we bring the sparkle back to Six Sigma?
“Hi, I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma Demystified” and QI Macros [software].
“When I got started in my business back in the late 90s, Jack Welch was the CEO to copy. When he got dipped in Six Sigma, guess what? Every other CEO wanted to get dipped in Six Sigma too. This is what I call the Jack Welch Effect.
“Since then, Jack retired and [CEO] went over to [Jeff] Immelt and some other people, and now GE has fallen into some disarray, (not necessarily because of Six Sigma, I think because they let go of some of that), but other forces in the world were pushing them.
Continue Reading "The Jack Welch Effect"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights, Six Sigma.
People think you have to know statistics to do Statistical Process Control (SPC). Not true, here’s why.
“I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma For Hospitals” and QI Macros [software].
“I’ve noticed that whenever I say the phrase “Statistical Process Control,” people start to freak out. It’s unnecessary because guess what? You don’t need to know statistics to do Statistical Process Control.
“Shewhart was a statistician, he figured out how to calculate the variances and… how to calculate the upper and lower control limits and what that all means. Then Nelson expanded all of that stuff, so the statisticians did the statistical part.
Continue Reading "You Don’t Need to Know Statistics to Do Statistical Process Control"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights, QI Macros.
The nightly news reports unemployment statistics, not employment statistics. There’s a lesson here for Six Sigma.
“Have you ever noticed that when the nightly news comes on they always report unemployment rates, not employment rates? “The unemployment rate is five or six percent,” they don’t say “94 or 95 percent of America is employed.” No, they focus on the problem: the problem is the unemployment rate.
“Well, this holds true also in all things Quality related. Once when I was first being trained they said, “Once you get above 80 percent compliance, what you want to do is focus on the 20 percent non-compliance,” so you want to focus on the defects, the mistakes, the errors, the waste, the rework.
Continue Reading "Unemployment Rate Lessons for Six Sigma"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights, Six Sigma.
