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At this years American Society for Quality World Conference in Milwaukee, winning teams improvement projects were displayed in posters in the exhibit hall. As I did at IHI in December, I took a stroke tally of the types of tools used. Like IHI, the vast majority of tools were line and bar charts, which are the dumbest charts on the planet. Only a few teams out of 36 used control charts, Pareto charts, histograms or fishbones.
Shouldn’t quality improvement stories should be told with tools of quality, not simple line and bar charts? Shouldn’t we be using charts that went to college and took statistics?
Continue Reading "ASQ 2016 Quality Tool Usage in Poster Presentations"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Healthcare, Manufacturing, QI Macros, Service, Six Sigma.
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.
People keep asking me if Six Sigma applies only to manufacturing. Nope. You can even use it to improve your golf game.
(You can download my free “Six Sigma Golf” pamphlet by clicking HERE.)
“Hi, I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma Demystified” and QI Macros [software].
“I was at the American Society for Quality’s Lean Six Sigma conference down in Phoenix a few weeks ago, and one guy said, “Aren’t you the guy that wrote Six Sigma Golf?” I said “Yeah!” I [wrote] that book a long time ago. Nobody brought it up for a long time, but I said yeah; I was reading Dave Pelz’ “Putting [Bible]” and “Short Game Bible.”
Continue Reading "Using Six Sigma to Improve Your Golf Game"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights, Jay Arthur Blog.
People often ask if QI Macros is in competition with Minitab. No, I tell them. We are both in competition with a common enemy. Here’s why:
“Hi, I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma Demystified” and QI Macros [software].
“I was at the American Society for Quality Lean Six Sigma conference, and my booth for QI Macros was right next to Minitab. You know, people are always asking me, “Jay, do you guys compete with Minitab?” I say, “No, we compete with ignorance and apathy.”
“Number one, people don’t know how these tools could help them, whether it’s me or Minitab.
Continue Reading "Does QI Macros® Compete with Minitab?"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights, Jay Arthur Blog.
At the IHI conference, many people told me stories of their crazy, cool improvement projects done with QI Macros. I asked them a simple question for which they had no answer. Here’s why:
“Hi, I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma For Hospitals” and the QI Macros [software].
“I was at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement conference out in Orlando at the beginning of December. I was there and people were coming by and they were talking about QI Macros at the exhibit booth. You know, a number of them came up and told me a story.
Continue Reading "Crazy Cool Improvement Projects"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights, Jay Arthur Blog.
Traditional Form-Storm-Norm-Perform models of team development take too long. Here’s how to collapse the time and skip right to perform.
“I was looking at myASQ, and somebody was asking about the four steps of Team development: Form, Storm, Norm, Perform. You know, if you do it traditional (how it usually was taught), it takes a long time for a team to form (come together), storm (fight each other a little bit), normalize their behavior (so they get productive).
“Well, I found that that takes too long. I can’t get to results that way. What I discovered was if I could do the analysis and figure out how to pinpoint where the problem would be, then I can figure out who ought to be on that team to solve that problem.
Continue Reading "Form Storm Norm Perform Takes Too Long!"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Data Mining, Improvement Insights, Jay Arthur Blog.
I found a discussion on MyASQ’s Website about Cpk formulas. Why is anyone talking about how to calculate formulas by hand? It’s a waste of time. Here’s why:
“Hi, I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma Demystified” and QI Macros [software].
“This morning I was out on the myASQ website, and there was a question about Cp and Cpk and Ppk formulas and stuff like that. And there was, you know, “Well, standard deviation” and “Why do we have to do R Bar over D2?” or whatever it was, you know. The answers were like, “Well, you know, standard deviation is pretty close to whatever…”
“I was [thinking], “What is the question here?
Continue Reading "Why Are We Still Talking about Cp/Cpk and Pp/Ppk Formulas?"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights, Jay Arthur Blog, QI Macros, Six Sigma, Statistics.
Singapore is teaching children from grade school through high school quality improvement techniques and how to use control charts, Pareto charts, histograms and fishbone diagrams. Here’s what that means for quality:
“Hi, I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma Demystified” and QI Macros [software].
“This last week I was out in Anaheim for the American Society For Quality’s ASQ World Conference On Quality Improvement. We were exhibiting the QI Macros at the booth, and one guy came by and he was from Singapore. We got to talking and we found out that – guess what?
Continue Reading "Singapore’s K-12 Education for Quality"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights.
