QI Macros

Improvement Insights Blog

Posts tagged "QI Macros"

Are You Using the Available Tools of Quality 2025?

Too many people are using unsupported, home-grown tools to improve quality. Or using none at all. That’s a problem. Here’s why:

Download my free ebook, Agile Process Innovation-Hacking Lean Six Sigma for Results.



“Well hi, I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma Demystified” and QI Macros [software].

“In the old days, pharmacists used to grind up and mix chemicals by hand to make prescriptions, right? And graphic artists used to hand draw everything, right? And opticians used to grind lenses by hand to make glasses. So all those people… all those jobs are still needed, but they don’t do them the way they did 30, 40, 50, 60, 80, 100 years ago, right?

Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights.

2/20/25 Healthcare Data Analytics Webinar

Over 80 people signed up for this webinar, with Jay Arthur demonstrating how to implement Healthcare Data Analytics to save time, save money, and (most importantly) save lives.



Books that Jay may have mentioned in the video:

You can view a short two-page illustrated guide to the Zero Harm – Trillion Dollar Prescription by clicking HERE.

Posted by Jay Arthur in Agile Lean Six Sigma, Data Mining, Excel, Healthcare, Lean, QI Macros, Six Sigma, Webinar.

I’m Lazy and That’s a Good Thing

I’m lazy and that’s a good thing. It might be good for you too. Here’s why:



 

“Hi, I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma For Hospitals” and QI Macros [software].

“I want to tell you: I’m lazy. I don’t want to spend any more time doing anything that I have to, right? When we started up, [the standard was] week-long trainings for teams. I eventually boiled that big binder down into about a 16-page handout (which I now use) and train people in in a day or less and get results. I wanted to collapse the curve between learning and implementation of results so that people got that hit of “This is what we can do quickly.”

Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights.

Capability Analysis Issues

Struggling to get a good Cp and Cpk? It might be your data. Here’s why:



“I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma Demystified” and QI Macros [software].

“We had a guy call in the other day and he was trying to determine the capability of his process. Unfortunately, he’d taken [measurements of] everything from his startup to his shutdown scrap and ran that as a capability study, and he wasn’t capable. I said, “Well, there you go…” But if you run a control chart of that, you can see the wiggly startup and the wiggly shutdown and then there’s this nice stable process in the middle.

Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights.

Mom’s Wringer Washing Machine

Are you still using last century tools in the 21st Century?



“Hi, I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma For Hospitals” and QI Macros [software].

“When I was a kid growing up in in the 60s, my mom had this old wringer washing machine. Back in the day, there was a washing machine where you washed all your clothes and there was a wringer on top. You would take the clothes out and you’d feed it in the wringer, which would squish all the water out of it. There weren’t any electric dryers… I’m sorry. She would wring her washing and then she would go out and hang it on a clothes line where it would dry in the Tucson sun, and then she’d bring them in fold them and whatever.

Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights.

1/14/25 Healthcare Data Analytics Webinar

Over 40 people signed up for this webinar, with Jay Arthur demonstrating how to implement Healthcare Data Analytics to save time, save money, and (most importantly) save lives.



Here are the books Jay mentions in the video:

You can view a short two-page illustrated guide to the Zero Harm – Trillion Dollar Prescription by clicking HERE.

Posted by Jay Arthur in Agile Lean Six Sigma, Data Mining, Excel, Healthcare, Lean, QI Macros, Six Sigma, Webinar.

Process Management Rises from the Ashes

Harvard Business Review (Jan 2025) argues for a renaissance, a rebirth of process management and quality improvement. Here’s why:



You might want to order reprints of these articles and forward them to your leadership. (HBR Reprint S25011)

Download my free eBook, Agile Process Innovation-Hacking Lean Six Sigma for Results.

 

“I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma Demystified” and QI Macros [software].

“In the most recent issue of Harvard Business Review (I think this is January 2025), shockingly enough, what did I discover? An article about Process Management! Oh my gosh!

“The closing argument in here from these folks is:

“It’s time for senior management to put process back on their radar screens and begin to sort out how to make it better in their departments.”

Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights, Jay Arthur Blog.

You Already Have All The Data You Need

Don’t try and invent new data. There’s a lot of data out there you can use right now, today, to make an improvement. Here’s how:



“Hi, I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma For Hospitals” and QI Macros [software].

“All too often, I see people try to follow DMAIC: “Well, we’re going to Define, and then we’ve got to go find some Measurements and spin up some measurements…”

“I’m telling you that every company in this world is awash in data about how things work. There’s tons of data out there, okay? Go find data that exists about a problem that you have, and use the data that’s already there to solve [that problem] and improve that process.

Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights.

Qualitative Data Analysis

Much of Six Sigma is focused on quantitative data (numbers). But what about qualitative data (text)? How can you use it to improve?



“I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma Demystified” and QI Macros [software].

“You know, most of Lean and Six Sigma is focused on quantitative data: numbers, things you can count, right? But there are qualitative data that we need to analyze. You need a little different toolkit for some of those things.

“For example, if you have a call center and reps are typing in comments from customers, that’s all words, right? How do we analyze words?

Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights.

12/17/24 Healthcare Data Analytics Webinar

Over 200 people signed up for this webinar, with Jay Arthur demonstrating how to implement Healthcare Data Analytics to save time, save money, and (most importantly) save lives.



You can view a short two-page illustrated guide to the Zero Harm – Trillion Dollar Prescription by clicking HERE.

If you’d like to see a short demo video to see how our software is used in healthcare organizations like yours, click this DEMO link.

If you’ve never used QI Macros and would like to try it out for free, you can sign up for a free 30 day trial at THIS link.

Posted by Jay Arthur in Agile Lean Six Sigma, Data Mining, Excel, Healthcare, Jay Arthur Blog, Lean, QI Macros, Six Sigma.