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How do we get people up to speed in Lean Six Sigma? I have found that the traditional approach leaves a lot to be desired. Here’s how I’ve modified the approach to accelerate learning and application.
“Hi, I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma Demystified” and QI Macros [software].
“You know, ever since I got started in the phone company, we were teaching people for weeks at a time. I kept trying to think, “How can I get these people up to speed so that they really embrace Quality?” It took me a while to start to figure out how to collapse the training and everything using QI Macros to get people trained in one day and up to speed and delivering results.
Continue Reading "Getting People Up to Speed In Lean Six Sigma"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights.
John, a senior executive with a large lumber company, went to Japan with 30 other leaders for 30 days. Everywhere they went, in every corner of the company, they found one quality tool over and over again.
“Hi, I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma For Hospitals” and the QI Macros [software].
“I started telling you a little bit about my new friend John who worked for the big lumber company and went on that trip to Japan. He said, “Everywhere I went, Pareto charts, Pareto charts, Pareto charts, Pareto charts, Pareto charts, Pareto charts, Pareto charts.”
Continue Reading "Pareto Charts Everywhere"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights.
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: 10/10/23 QI Macros webinar"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Data Mining, Excel, QI Macros, Webinar.
We used to need a pay phone to make a phone call; now we use cell phones everywhere. Websites were difficult to build; not they’re not. So, why does everyone think Lean Six Sigma has to be learned the same way it was taught in the last century?
“Have you ever noticed that things are getting easier? A lot of things are getting easier.
“You know, we used to have land lines, now we have cell phones we can take with us everywhere that do all kinds of things like take pictures and do text memos, and we can talk to people face to face.
Continue Reading "Ever Noticed that Things are Getting Easier?"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights.
In my 30+ years in quality improvement, I finally got to use basic statistics to save millions of dollars. And it was easy. Here’s how:
“Hi, I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma Demystified” and QI Macros [software].
“I recently had a chance to help a food company that had frozen meats of various kinds – you know, poultry and so on – and they’d had a chemical spill. Well, what the USDA wanted them to do was prove that it had not affected their food and so somehow I got called in to help with that.
Continue Reading "My First Statistics Project"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights.
Most people think Quality Improvement is hard. It’s not. It’s surprisingly easy. Here’s why:
“Hi, I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma Demystified” and QI Macros [software].
“I think too many people spend a lot of time pretending that Quality Improvement is hard; it’s not, right? You’re either out of control but you might be in spec, or you might be in spec and out of control, or… in control and out of spec, or you can be in control and in spec. That’s not too hard.
“You know, with a handful of tools you can solve most of the problems involving defects, mistakes, errors.
Continue Reading "Quality Improvement is Not Hard"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights, Jay Arthur Blog.
One guy told me that defects, mistakes and errors are like the wind and the waves. There’s nothing we can do about it. He’s so wrong. Here’s why:
“I was talking to somebody the other day, and we were talking about defects and mistakes and errors and things going on. They said, “Oh, that’s like the wind and the waves.” I said, “No it’s not. It’s not cosmic forces and atmospheric conditions. It’s a system, and the system is forcing people to make those mistakes or letting them make those mistakes and errors. All we have to do is fix the system.”
Continue Reading "It’s the System!"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights.
Most companies have way too many KPIs (key process indicators). How many do you need?
“Hi, I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma For Hospitals” and the QI Macros [software].
“I go out and I see people, and very often they have too many Key Process Indicators. They’ve got giant dashboards full of all kinds of stuff, and it turns out that that makes it difficult to figure out what to do. A lot of the dashboards are speedometer charts or line graphs or bar charts or some combination of all that stuff, which means you don’t really know if there’s anything going wrong, bad or whatever.
Continue Reading "How Many KPIs Do You Need?"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights.
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.
