All Features
Akhilesh Gulati
Since one of the pillars of lean thinking is the visual workplace, why hasn’t problem solving in the workplace been taken to the visual level?
Flowcharts are popular visual tools that can show what’s currently happening, what could be happening, or what should be happening—a great opportunity to…
Ron Kirscht
Donnelly Custom Manufacturing of Alexandria, Minnesota, a short-run injection molding company, knows that proper training is vital to productivity and quality. Still, using traditional methods, training at Donnelly was taking longer than desired and employees often weren’t retaining enough of what…
Denise Robitaille
E
mpowering people is a cool idea. Giving individuals authority and responsibility has many benefits. It fosters accountability and communicates confidence. It avails people the opportunity to contribute in a manner that allows their voices to be heard. They experience the self-satisfaction of…
Gregory Roth II
In the 1990s the theme seemed to be, “Don’t compete against your competitors, buy them and compete with yourself.” It appeared that every company was merging with another. To their stockholders, companies pitched, “We’re going to buy company XYZ and increase economy of scale for both companies and…
Lori Loethen
When organizations decide to deploy a Six Sigma initiative, there are several foundation stones required for a successful venture. One of those building blocks is leadership. From executive-level support to assigning champions and choosing the right projects, leadership is critical for Six Sigma…
Carolyn Clancy
Choosing a hospital that scores well on quality can make it easier and safer for you to recover from a serious event, such as heart surgery, or a routine one, such as having a baby. Doing a little homework before you choose a hospital can do more than give you peace of mind.
As a physician, let…
Akhilesh Gulati
Remember way back when you knew Newton’s Third Law, how to do long division, how to solve quadratic equations, and the difference between mean, mode, and median? As quality professionals, we’ve probably all had to learn these basic concepts at some point in our careers. Do we remember them?
While…
Bill Kalmar
To illustrate how out of place he sometimes felt, comedian George Gobel once remarked, “Have you ever felt that the whole world was a tuxedo and you were a pair of brown shoes?” When it comes to good customer service I sometimes feel like those brown shoes. Poor service seems to find me, as though…
knowledge.smu.edu.sg
In the world of marketing and branding, sticking out like a sore thumb isn’t necessarily bad, advised brand innovation specialist Chandran Dharmarajan, a co-founder of I-morph, a marketing innovation consultancy based in Singapore. Dharmarajan, who worked for more than a decade with Unilever in…
knowledge.emory.edu
Harley-Davidson knows how to build ownership. For decades, the motorcycle company has attracted and retained a client base that shows no signs of waning. People purchase its products without solicitation, and collectively they gladly spend millions of dollars to wear its advertising on clothes,…
Steven Ouellette
I read an article in Wired magazine the other day that got me to thinking about the relationship between statistics, engineering knowledge, and theory. The article claimed that with the era of massive data storage and analytical capabilities, the scientific concept of the “theory” was becoming…
Mike Micklewright
Question: Many modern enthusiasts claim that feng shui is Chinese for the practice of arranging objects (such as furniture) to help people achieve their goals. What is the American corporation translation of feng shui?
Answer: 5S (5 = feng, S = shui)
A very good client (definition: one in…
Mike Thelen
I received an interesting piece of junk mail recently. What caught my attention and provoked me to open it was simply that it was from an overseas automobile manufacturer and my lean obsessiveness engaged.
I know this manufacturer isn’t necessarily using the Toyota production system, but I…
Niraj Goyal
Abbreviations
t
Thickness of stack of product
T
Batch average of t sampled in the hour
Ta
Average if batch averages T…
Akhilesh Gulati
A recent conversation with the general manager of a manufacturer that was in the process of implementing lean methodologies provided insights as to their ongoing results. He was excited about what was happening in his company. Initiatives in the past had not been successful, and he now understood…
Denise Robitaille
A few months back, I wrote about the choices an organization makes regarding its quality management system (QMS). At that time, I talked about the overall system, with particular focus on management’s investment and support.
Today I’d like to spend some time talking about the choices within the…
Peter Sanderson
Have you ever sat in a meeting room continually looking at your watch and counting the minutes left before the meeting ends? Have you wondered why—after 20 years of manufacturing similar products—you’re still discussing the same issues that reduce your profits and stunt your growth? Did you…
Carolyn Clancy
Walk into many stores and you’re bound to be impressed by the quality of digital cameras, TVs, cell phones, and other consumer electronics. Every year the quality of these devices improves by leaps and bounds, and consumers often pay less as products improve.
I wish the same could be said about the…
The price of petroleum fuels has affected attendance at regional manufacturing expos by quality professionals. Gasoline pump prices are past $4 per gallon, and national trade shows are feeling the effect. Conferences, seminars, and national trade shows aren’t necessarily deficient, but quality…
To be a good leader, you must develop people who can function without you looking over their shoulder. There’s no greater satisfaction than mentoring someone who turns out to be a great leader. In war, a leader must develop capable people to carry out orders, and to succeed in business you must as…
Are great leaders born or made? I believe leadership is a trait that can be learned. To be a leader you must have followers and you must develop people that can go out and function without you looking over their shoulder. I believe there’s no greater satisfaction than to be able to mentor someone…
Peter J. Sherman
In September 2007 at the QuEST Forum I had the privilege of presenting an AT&T in-house Six Sigma process-improvement success story, “Reducing Non-Billed Inside Wire Dispatches,” which was selected as a best practice in the Six Sigma category. (QuEST—Quality Excellence for Suppliers of…
As is the case with any lean implementation in a traditional environment, culture change is the most difficult obstacle to success. A company can hire consultants, develop work teams, and begin lean initiatives, but if it only talks the talk, the initiative soon becomes just talk.
Why do we do lean…
I was working with a client to create their business’s critical performance measures the other day, and one of the managers said, “We should set the target higher than we want it—you know, aim high to hit low.” This set off one of my rants, and I thought I would share it with you.
When I worked as…
A few weeks ago, I found myself and my family on a beach making a sand castle. It was the last day of our vacation and shortly after we began working the warm South Carolina sand, an official approached us and asked if we would like to be contestants in the weekly sand sculpture contest. Why not?…