Have you noticed that in most cities, every time there are lots of umbrellas, it’s raining?
From this analysis, the obvious way to make it rain is to be sure that everyone has an umbrella, preferably a black one, since that seems to be the kind that’s most visible during big storms.
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/
Continue Reading "Confused about causation and correlation (from Seth Godin’s blog)"
My wife ordered a set of monogrammed bath robes for our daughter and son-in-law from RedEnvelope. When they arrived, she checked them (unnecessaryinspection)…no monograms.
So she called (rework) and they told her to keep the two unmonogrammed ones (waste) and they would send two monogrammed ones.
A couple of days later, we did get two monogrammed bath robes (rework). The next day we got two more and the day after that we got two more (waste and rework). When we called (rework), they said, don’t return them because they’ve been monogrammed already.
So now, we have eight robes for the price of two.
Dr. Richard J. Albin, creator of the PSA test for prostate cancer, says that the devastating consequences treatments including surgery and radiation therapy caused:
He now calls the widespread use of the PSA test a “Public Health Disaster.” As a result of these findings, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force will recommend that healthy men no longer receive PSA testing.
Unnecessary tests and treatments of all kinds are estimated to cost $250 Billion in the U.S.
Last weekend, a United Airlines computer glitch delayed and cancelled flights. Even the redundant backup system didn’t work properly.
In a world increasingly dependent on computers and software, IT has been steadfastly resistant to the methods of Six Sigma. While Agile (Lean) programming methods have accelerated software development, mistakes, errors, hitches and glitches continue to plague worldwide productivity. Hardly a day goes by that my PC doesn’t try to install an “upgrade” to some piece of software: Windows, Java, etc.
Sadly, most software escapes rather than releases. Maybe it’s time to start using Six Sigma to optimize delivered software.
Seth Godin’s blog brought this data to my attention: http://www.nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/deaths-per-twh-by-energy-source.html.
There’s lots of ways to display it, but I thought it would be fun to look at as Pareto charts.
Deaths from nuclear power are small compared to the power produced. Coal and oil are still the heavy hitters in the mortality department.
The March 2011 Wired magazine article identifies a new trend in manufacturing: insourcing. An MFG.com survey found that 19% of companies had brought all or part of their manufacturing back to North America. US manufacturing added 136,000 jobs in 2010, the first increase since 1997.
While many small to medium sized businesses moved their manufacturing to China in the early part of the last decade, many are finding benefits from moving production back to the USA:
Last week, Toyota unveiled it’s multimillion dollar system for gather repair reports, complaints and safety concerns from dealerships, internet sites and other sources into one system and mine that data for problems beyond the doors of the factory. The WSJ reported that EVP Shinichi Sasaki said that Toyota had succumbed to ‘Big Company Disease’.
It happens. Big or small, companies shift their focus to bottom-line benefits or growth and drop the ball on quality. But, as I’ve predicted for awhile, Toyota’s quality culture is repairing itself and resuming the quest for quality; now on a global basis.
What are you doing to monitor your quality on a global basis?
Good insights.
http://www.shmula.com/marc-onetto-lean-six-sigma-at-amazon/8042/
Use a histogram to determine the distribution of measurable data and the capability (i.e., the level of performance the customers can consistently expect) of the process. Process capability is determined using your data and the customer’s upper specification (USL) and lower specification limits (LSL).
Its easy to create a histogram in Excel using the QI Macros. See
http://www.youtube.com/user/QIMacros#p/a/u/2/tqlFKtmAxbU
Continue Reading "Create a Histogram in Excel Using the QI Macros"
Control Charts show your data as a line graph with average and sigma lines to determine stability. The average and sigma lines are calculated from your data. It’s easy to create a control chart in excel using the QI Macros. See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TVKz4OQTp0
Continue Reading "Use Control Charts to Determine Process Stability"
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