Xcel Energy Cuts The Power
Xcel left a message on our phone that we would “experience periodic electrical outages” because they are trying to conserve “natural gas usage due to cold weather.”
Can’t wait to reset all of our digital clocks.
Improvement Insights Blog
Latest "Jay Arthur Blog" Posts
Agile Lean Six Sigma for Healthcare – NAHQ 2018
How to “hack” Lean Six Sigma for Healthcare Quality and Safety. Recorded at NAHQ 2018 in Minneapolis, MN.
Continue Reading "Agile Lean Six Sigma for Healthcare – NAHQ 2018"
Making Process Improvements Stick
The Nov-Dec 2018 HBR reports that Lean, Six Sigma and Agile “always work well initially, but often the gains fade quickly.”
- 21% of improvement projects failed to yield any improvements
- Only one-third of improvements continued to yield results after two years.
What’s needed to sustain improvements?
- Consistent measurement and monitoring (i.e., control charts)
- Leadership support and coaching
- Avoid initiative fatigue caused by jumping from one improvement initiative to another.
Start monitoring your improvement projects using QI Macros control charts.
Download a free trial at https://www.qimacros.com.
Tell a Friend About QI Macros
If you appreciate how much QI Macros helps you, please tell a friend about the software! Why? Honestly, it’s because we we want to live in a world where more things are done right the FIRST time. Can you imagine:
- … a world where you don’t have to check your takeout order at the restaurant because it’s correct every single time?
- … a healthcare system where an incorrect diagnosis happens only once every 2,000,000 patients?
- … buying a car and knowing that the chance of any defect on the car in the first 10 years is one in 5,000,000?
That’s a world where Quality Improvement is embraced and celebrated.
QI Macros Version 2018.10
We’re excited! From adding Menu Icons to make things easier to find (and easier to add to your Excel Quick Access Toolbar), to adding a Search function to answer those “Where is that one chart…” questions, to the Control Chart Template Wizard… we think this is the most powerful, easiest to use version of QI Macros that there is.
This version is compatible with:
- PC operating systems Windows 10, Windows 8.1, Windows 7
- PCs running Excel 365, Excel 2019, Excel 2016, Excel 2013 and Excel 2010
- Mac operating systems Mojave (MacOS 10.14), High Sierra(MacOS 10.13), Sierra (MacOS 10.12), El Capitan (MacOS 10.11) or Yosemite (MacOS 10.10)
- Mac machines running Excel for Mac 365 or Excel for Mac 2016
If you’d like to upgrade to QI Macros 2018.10, you can purchase a new license by clicking HERE.
Electrical Outages Improvement Story
Jeremy Singer-Vine publishes a Data Is Plural newsletter about available data sets. I took the U.S. & Canada power outage data from 2018 and used it with QI Macros Data Mining Wizard to create an improvement project.
I used a g Chart of time between power outages. Averaging a little over 3 days between outages.
Then, the Data Mining Wizard found the most common cause of outages to be weather. But look at number two: operations. That’s something that could be fixed. Vandalism could also be prevented.
Next, where are outages most likely to occur:
And what month? Readiness months: March-July.
Hunter Pro-C Controller Problem
My water bill recently doubled. Turns out it’s a design flaw in my Hunter Pro-C controller.
A while back, I set some of my zones to zero minutes.
But, if I accidentally hit the minus sign one more time, the controller goes to SIX HOURS:
It was a royal hassle, but I managed to submit an improvement suggestion to Hunter:
There should be no run times below ZERO! Duh!
I had Denver Water come out to show me how to read the meter.
- Meter reader basically said: “Meter’s correct. Fix your controller” and left.
What if they spent 5 minutes helping homeowners check their controller to find the problem?
Well, shoot! Looks like we missed each other!
It looks like you’ve clicked on a link to learn about signing up for a webinar that’s already happened.
No worries, you can click HERE to find out about the next live webinar…
or you can click HERE to view a webinar that’s been recorded.
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Shift from Manufacturing to Supply Chain
The July-August, 2018 Inc. magazine has an article (pg. 22) about manufacturing vs supply chain service jobs. From 1999-2015:
- Manufacturing jobs declined from 12.5 million to 8.2. Supply chain jobs increased from 13.4 million to 20.0.
- Manufacturing salaries climbed only slightly from $54,800 to 59,800 while supply chain jobs rose from $72,600 to $85,200.
With increasing manufacturing automation, more jobs are being created around supporting production than actual production. Something to think about.
Team Communication Costs
People often ask me, how big should an improvement team be? My answer: as small as possible.
In Fred Brooks’ Mythical Man Month, he points out that communication pathways increase in a nonlinear fashion. The formula is simple:
(n2-n)/2
Where n is the number of people on a team.
- 2 people = 1 connection (4-2)/2
- 3 people = 3 connections (9-3)/2
- 4 people = 6 connections (16-4)/2
- 5 people = 10 connections (25-5)/2
- 6 people = 15 connections (36-6)/2
- 7 people = 21 connections (49-7)/2
The bigger the team, the more time is spent on discussion and communication, not progress.
