Improvement Insights Blog

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? In Singapore, they’re teaching Quality Improvement techniques in grade school! Grade school. They have students in high school learning how to draw control charts, Pareto charts, histograms, fishbone [diagrams] using the tools of quality.

“Now, I want you to think about this because I don’t think that’s anywhere in the American educational system. All right? So the rest of the world out there is trying to get ahead of this curve so that they can be profoundly successful in the future, because all of their kids will know problem solving techniques and tools, right? They can create a hassle-free world, hassle-free healthcare.

“Don’t just look around, right? We have to look across the borders. I had another guy from Vietnam [who] stopped by and they were doing similar things. Asia is hungry; maybe we’re not hungry enough.

“That’s my Improvement Insight for this week. Let’s start getting everybody involved in Quality Improvement. Let’s get a little hungry. Let’s go out and improve something this week.”