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Posts tagged "Control Charts"
Register for the upcoming FREE QI Macros Live Webinar, happening Tuesday, August 6th, 2024 at 9:00 a.m. MDT.
Learn more about it in the video below, and register at THIS link.
What: FREE QI Macros – Lean Six Sigma SPC Software for Excel Webinar.
When: Tuesday, August 6th, 2024 at 9:00 a.m. MDT.
Where: Join online from wherever you are.
How: Register for the webinar HERE.
Continue Reading "*Next Free QI Macros Live Webinar: Tuesday, August 6th, 2024"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Data Mining, Excel, QI Macros, Webinar.
Over 30 people signed up for this webinar, with Jay Arthur demonstrating some of the software’s most frequently used tools and answering questions asked by attendees.
If you saw a feature demonstrated in the webinar that might have been added to QI Macros after the version you’re using (for instance, the Improvement Project Wizard or the automated Process Change Wizard), you may need to purchase an upgrade to bring your QI Macros to the current version.
Send an email to support@qimacros.com and we can help, for instance in generating a quote to upgrade all the users at your organization or just guiding you through the purchasing process.
Continue Reading "*Latest webinar: 7/16/24 QI Macros webinar"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Data Mining, Excel, QI Macros, Webinar.
Too many companies use management by spreadsheet which just doesn’t work anymore. Here’s why:
“I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma for Hospitals” and QI Macros [software].
“I think far too many companies do management by spreadsheet or leadership by spreadsheet: They look at spreadsheets and they think, “Why’s this number up? Why’s this number down?” Blah blah blah blah blah… They don’t really understand that it’s all in statistical process control and you should stop talking about it. Right? Stop chasing Wild Goose chases, all right?
“So what do we want to do? We want to go from this ‘hindsight spreadsheet mentality,’ where they have heat maps and they think, “Well, this one’s too high, this one’s too low, this one’s below our target…” Right?
Continue Reading "Management by Spreadsheet"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights.
Ever noticed that some people struggle to learn Quality Improvement and Lean Six Sigma Here’s why:
“I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma Demystified” and QI Macros [software].
“I talked about Tim Ferriss’ approach to simplifying things. He also points out that in many situations when people are coming on board there are certain failure points: where do they fail? His cooking book is about having too complicated a recipe, or too many things that had to get done at the same time. So how do we make it up so that they don’t have that problem? How do we eliminate the failure points?
Continue Reading "Eliminate the Failure Points of Quality Improvement"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights.
Too many teams try to use every tool in the Six Sigma toolkit. It’s counterproductive. Here’s why:
“I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma for Hospitals” and QI Macros [software].
“For a number of years, I’ve been a fan of Tim Ferriss, the author of “The Four Hour Workweek.” In “The 4-Hour Chef,” he spends a whole chapter talking about how he takes a process, breaks it all down and makes it simple and easy to learn. One of the things that I found in there (and I’ll just read this, because it makes it a little easier for me), he says, “Do as little as needed, not as much as possible.”
Continue Reading "Do as Little as Needed, Not as Much as Possible"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights.
A statistician using a bar chart is like a surgeon using a butter knife. Here’s why:
Download my free ebook Agile Process Innovation.
“Hi, I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma Demystified” and QI Macros [software].
“I was recently perusing the American Statistical Association’s magazine, and they had some posters that were done by kids in K through 12. This one was an analysis of what kind of charts and graphs are used in poster presentations at statistical conferences. They found that more often than not, the winners had bar charts, and that bar charts were very popular because of their simplicity.
Continue Reading "Statisticians Using Bar Charts"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights.
I was rereading Deming’s book “Out of the Crisis,” and discovered a way to use control charts that is new. Deming uses control charts to compare individual worker performance. Deming often asked leaders to drive out fear, but comparing individuals seems like a way to create fear unless you use the results to help train individuals to higher standards of performance. Here’s how:
“Hi, I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma Demystified” and QI Macros [software].
“I don’t know about you, but every once in a while I go back and re-read books about Quality.
Continue Reading "Deming’s Insights on Control Charts for Workers"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights, Jay Arthur Blog, QI Macros, Statistics.
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.
Absence blindness means that you can’t see what isn’t there. The tools of quality can help you see the invisible so that you can do something about it. Here’s how:
“Hi, I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma Demystified” and QI Macros [software].
“There’s a concept called “absence blindness,” and basically what that says is you can’t see what isn’t there. That’s why it’s kind of difficult to see things that are working well, because they just work well, but a defect or some sort of complication or issue raises this ugly head and you can see that one.
Continue Reading "Seeing the Invisible"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Data Mining, Improvement Insights, Jay Arthur Blog, Six Sigma.
Ever seen a heart monitor at a hospital? Control charts perform the same function with almost every aspect of your business.
“If you’ve ever been to a hospital, you may have noticed somebody hooked up to a heart monitor, and it’s going [gestures]. Right? So that monitors the heart rate of that patient, and you can tell if it’s getting crazy or it’s starting to trend down, which means you need a rapid response team to come in and make sure they’re not dying.
“So that’s the idea of a heart monitor, but that’s what a control chart is. It’s like a heart monitor for a hospital (or any other business).
Continue Reading "Control Charts are Like Heart Monitors for Your Business"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights.
