Improvement Insights Blog
We Don’t Make Widgets
Unlike manufacturing, service industries don’t make widgets–pistons, brake pads, etc. That means service industries need a small Six Sigma toolkit.
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“Hi, I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma for Hospitals” and QI Macros [software].
“Some years ago I read a book called “We Don’t Make Widgets,” about a guy who’s talking about how in government, we don’t make a thing. We don’t make a piston or a… whatever… a guitar pick. It doesn’t matter what it is. We don’t make those things.
“What do we make? Well, probably 90+ percent of America’s folks work in service industries. We make transactions. What? You know: orders, invoicing, purchasing, payments… you know, we make things that are transactional. We make driver’s licenses. Right? We make passports. We make whatever it is, but most of it is a transactional thing.
“I’m going to tell you right up front that a lot of the things we teach in Green Belt and Black Belt training are not useful unless you’re working on making widgets. DOE? That’s a widget thing. I’ve yet to see a good service-oriented DOE project.
“Now, I just want you to think about… if you work in the service side of the business, whether you’re in manufacturing or healthcare or banking, I don’t care – you don’t need to know every tool in the tool book. All you need to know is the Magnificent Seven Tools that I put in my Agile Lean Six Sigma book. And you need to know how to use those and use QI Macros to focus, improve, and sustain.
“You know, I’ve had people take my Yellow Belt training and they’ve saved $5 million for their company. More than once. And I talk to people and they go, “Jay, you know, it’s so easy to teach people how to use QI Macros. Select some data, click a button. Select some data, click a button.” It’s easy to teach. It’s easy to learn. You don’t have to be an expert to do it.
“I think we’ve made this entirely too complex because let’s face it: as consultants, we need more billable hours, so we want to teach you more stuff. Not that that’s good for you. It’s just that if you ever got one of those one or two percent jobs that are in manufacturing on a factory floor, yes, you need to know that. Otherwise, no.
“Anyway, that’s my point of view. That’s my Improvement Insight for this week. You don’t need to know everything to do anything.
“Let’s go out and improve something this week.”
