Six Sigma Blog by Jay Arthur

Improvement Insights Blog

Latest "Six Sigma" Posts

Every Day Should Be World Quality Day

Let’s create a Hassle Free America and a Hassle Free World

Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights, Lean, QI Macros, Six Sigma.

Great Training Robbery

Consultants, trainers and professors are wasting students’ time on things they don’t need to know to solve problems they don’t have to impress people they don’t like.

Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights, Lean, Six Sigma.

The One Thing

In the movie City Slickers, Jack Palance gives Billy Crystal some advice that applies to Lean Six Sigma. Do you know what it is?

Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights, Lean, Six Sigma.

Have Your Processes Turned Into Frankenprocesses?

Here’s how to deal with the creature you’ve created.

Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights, Lean, QI Macros, Six Sigma.

Quality 4.0

Software automation is connecting everything in the supply chain. Smart devices are collecting information constantly and feeding to artificial intelligence engines to maximize profits and minimize costs. What does this mean for quality professionals?

Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights, Six Sigma.

Run Charts vs Control Charts

Run charts used to be a bridge to control charts. You no longer need to build a bridge. Just start with Control Charts.

Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights, QI Macros, Six Sigma.

Excellence Imperative

20th Century quality was about manufacturing. (Old school)

21st Century quality is about services. (New school)

What we need now is a fresh approach to Lean Six Sigma for the 21st Century. I call it Agile Process Innovation.

Download my free Agile Process Innovation ebook from https://www.qimacros.com/pdf/Agile-Lean-Six-Sigma.pdf.

Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights, QI Macros, Six Sigma.

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.

days between power 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.

power outages by event

Next, where are outages most likely to occur:

power outages by region

And what month? Readiness months: March-July.

Posted by Jay Arthur in Data Mining, Jay Arthur Blog, QI Macros, Six Sigma.

Building Rapport with Improvement Teams – Step 3

A district level manager was hopping mad about something. I decided to see if I could use pacing and leading to calm her down and get back to solving the problem to meet her needs.

Posted by Jay Arthur in Healthcare, Improvement Insights, Lean, Manufacturing, QI Macros, Service, Six Sigma.

Building Rapport with Improvement Teams – Step 2

My boss sent me to talk to a cranky manager about a software project he wanted to do. Here’s how I used non-verbal rapport to connect with him in 30-60 seconds.

Posted by Jay Arthur in Healthcare, Improvement Insights, Lean, Manufacturing, QI Macros, Service, Six Sigma.