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Latest "Improvement Insights" Posts
One guy told me that defects, mistakes and errors are like the wind and the waves. There’s nothing we can do about it. He’s so wrong. Here’s why:
“I was talking to somebody the other day, and we were talking about defects and mistakes and errors and things going on. They said, “Oh, that’s like the wind and the waves.” I said, “No it’s not. It’s not cosmic forces and atmospheric conditions. It’s a system, and the system is forcing people to make those mistakes or letting them make those mistakes and errors. All we have to do is fix the system.”
Continue Reading "It’s the System!"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights.
People often think defects are spread evenly all over the business, like butter on bread. Not true. Here’s why:
“Hi, I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma Demystified” and QI Macros [software].
“I’ve said this before, but people out there seem to think that defects and mistakes and errors are like butter spread on a slice of bread. It’s just, like, everywhere in your organization, right?
“Not true. It’s more like mold somewhere on a loaf of bread. All you have to do is fix that little piece that’s in trouble in that one [slice] of bread and that’ll keep it from spreading to the rest of the organization.
Continue Reading "Defects Aren’t Spread All Over Like Butter On Bread"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights.
Juran borrowed the work of Vilfredo Pareto to describe the uneven distribution of defects. Vilfredo focused on wealth. Juran expanded it to defects. And I narrowed and expanded it to include almost anything. Here’s what it means to you:
“Hi, I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma For Hospitals” and the QI Macros [software].
“I was rereading Juran, and he was talking about how he misnamed the Pareto Principle but then it stuck. When he was in his mid-20s, as a young engineer he observed that quality defects are unequal in frequency. They seemed to just be in specific places, and so on.
Continue Reading "Juran and the Pareto Principle"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights.
Most companies have way too many KPIs (key process indicators). How many do you need?
“Hi, I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma For Hospitals” and the QI Macros [software].
“I go out and I see people, and very often they have too many Key Process Indicators. They’ve got giant dashboards full of all kinds of stuff, and it turns out that that makes it difficult to figure out what to do. A lot of the dashboards are speedometer charts or line graphs or bar charts or some combination of all that stuff, which means you don’t really know if there’s anything going wrong, bad or whatever.
Continue Reading "How Many KPIs Do You Need?"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights.
Some people want the data to confirm their gut feelings. Others want the data to tell them something they don’t know. Analytical Honesty wins. Here’s why:
“Hi, I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma Demystified” and QI Macros [software].
“I want to talk to you about analytical honesty. I’ve found all too often, people want the data to prove what they want to believe, not what’s actually true.
“So what do we want to do? We want to take the data and let the data lead us to clarity, then we can take action to make improvements, right?
Continue Reading "Analytical Honesty"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights.
Most quality improvement professionals have long forgotten how hard it was to learn QI. What if you could help newbies overcome the frustration barrier?
“Hi, I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma For Hospitals” and the QI Macros [software].
“I was out at the American Society for Quality conference last week in scenic Philadelphia. One of the things that I’ve noticed is when we talk to people, most people forget how hard it was initially to get through the frustration barrier to learn Quality when they began. They forget how hard it is. Just like childbirth, women forget how much it hurt; they just… “Oh, yeah, I got a baby.”
Continue Reading "Overcome the Frustration Barrier"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights, Jay Arthur Blog, QI Macros.
Most Lean Six Sigma trainers do not include quality improvement software in their pricing, because it would make it hard to compete with other trainers. Purchasing is buying on price, not total value. Without tools like QI Macros, the training is wasted. Here’s why:
“Hi, I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma Demystified” and QI Macros [software].
“Last week I was out at the American Society for Quality conference in Philadelphia. We had a number of trainers and consultants who stopped by, and they were asking us about QI Macros because Minitab changed their pricing to be an annual subscription of like $1800 bucks, but you can buy QI Macros for $350 and you don’t have to keep renewing it every year.
Continue Reading "Lean Six Sigma Trainers are Picked on Price, not Total Value"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights, QI Macros.
Even with QI Macros, people sometimes try to do things the hard way without thinking there might be an easier way. One user waited until the ASQ WCQI convention to ask for help. We could have saved her a lot of time if she had emailed or chatted months ago.
“Hi, I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma Demystified” and QI Macros [software].
“I was out at the American Society for Quality conference this last week and one of our groups of users came up and one of the women said, “Well, I update these 91 control charts every week and it takes me like a day and a half, and isn’t there an easier way?”
Continue Reading "Learn to Ask for Help!"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights, QI Macros, Six Sigma.
Most people are still using Excel line, bar and pie charts instead of the tools of quality. How can you expect to achieve Zero Defects or Zero Harm without control charts, Pareto charts, histograms and fishbones?
“Hi, I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma For Hospitals” and the QI Macros [software].
“I keep going to these conferences and looking at all these improvement posters, and people have these line charts with trend lines. Those trend lines are like fake news. They’re not true. You can’t tell if it means there was an improvement one way or the other.
Continue Reading "Are You Using the Tools of Quality?"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights, Jay Arthur Blog.
If you’re creating every process in your business from scratch, you may be wasting time and missing opportunities to make your system mistake-proof. Here’s what I mean:
“Hi, I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma Demystified” and QI Macros [software].
“Way back when I was at Bell Laboratories, we were building a new software system that scheduled how many transmission lines ran between point A and point B all over the country. The problem was we had a lot to do and very little time to do it in, and so we started working on what I call “reuse,” which is where you create something but then it can be reused endlessly.
Continue Reading "Make Something Reusable!"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights, Jay Arthur Blog.
