All Features
Russell T. Westcott
Early on you recognized the economic effect of shipping defective products to customers and/or providing inferior services. You countered this deficiency with elaborate inspection proceduresIn more recent times, you’ve focused on improving your organization’s processes and decreasing inspections.…
Denise Robitaille
Time is arguably one of the most precious and least quantified resources that organizations possess. It’s a uniquely intangible, yet indispensable, feature of any process or activity. Things occur over a span of time. It’s an indisputable characteristic of our universe and is so self-evident that…
"Es ris!" (“It’s snapped!”) This apocalyptic line from Richard Wagner’s Götterdämmerung (Twilight of the Gods) referred to the thread of fate or destiny that the three Norns, or Fates, had woven since the dawn of time. This ill omen portended the opera’s inevitable tragic conclusion. This year’s…
Peter Dickin
The use of probes on machine tools to assist in setting up jobs is well established. Recent developments in machining and inspection software mean that this equipment can now be used in a wider range of applications that are aimed at increasing overall equipment effectiveness, which consequently…
The purpose of process data analysis is to answer the question, "May the observed data fluctuations reasonably be attributed to common-cause variation?" The principal use of the Shewhart control chart is to guide efforts for process improvement by assisting in the discovery of peculiarities in the…
Thomas R. Cutler
Many organizations are turning to outside operations-expense management companies due to the recognition of billing scrutiny as a key quality control and quality assurance issue. “When performing bill-auditing and rate-analysis services, many utilities in the United States have errors on at least…
Cheryl Ajluni
In today’s fast-paced electronics industry, original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) design, manufacture and service a broad range of products that include fuel cells, pacemakers and wireless devices. In addition to the technical challenges associated with designing such diverse and complex…
Ken Levine
Engaging your workforce is a major obstacle in a lean Six Sigma implementation. Only a limited number of employees will initially participate in Six Sigma improvement projects. It can also take one to two years before all employees participate in a lean kaizen event. It’s best to encourage…
Steve Kersen
Switching from a coordinate measuring machine (CMM) to a laser scanner has helped the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Langley Research Center, increase the accuracy of models used to evaluate proposed spacecraft designs in wind tunnels. Accuracy is critical for the 6- to 12-in. scale…
Denise Robitaille
It’s been my experience as an auditor and as a consultant that the overwhelming majority of corrective actions originate from customer returns. The good news is that the corrective action request (CAR) process is being utilized to address the cause of these problems. Unfortunately, CARs that arise…
Praveen Gupta
Our minds continually perform root cause analysis, which is a way of answering our questions about our surroundings and quenching our curiosity. We establish cause-and-effect relationships between what we see and what we do, or what we get and what we do, or what we want to get and what we need to…
Tim Postema
The Dutch public health care system is being transformed in various ways. With an increasing focus on efficiency and consumer driven care, health institutions in The Netherlands are forced to critically evaluate their actions and processes. With recent political developments creating a more liberal…
Praveen Gupta
Teamwork has always been considered a critical component of completing complex projects that require significant improvement. The process of teamwork has been well-documented, but teamwork is still often elusive. Why?
When teams succeed, it’s often for the following reasons:
Strong leadership
Well…
Ken Lyons
Laser scanning keeps older military equipment running by enabling the creation of spare parts that perfectly duplicate the originals at a reasonable cost. MILPARTS and other companies are taking advantage of new technologies, particularly the ModelMaker laser scanning system, which make it possible…
Denise Robitaille
How is it possible to ship customers the right product, on time, and still fail to fulfill their requirements? Most organizations do a pretty good job of determining what product the customer wants. Based on what I’ve observed during surveillance audits, they’ve also improved their processes for…
Daniel S. Munson
The Empire State Building in New York City, with its 103 stories, 73 elevators, 2,500,000 feet of electrical cable and 6,500 windows, was built in 405 days. The framework rose at a rate of four-and-a-half stories per week. That’s nearly a floor a day. Most impressive was that the project came in…
Fluke Corp.
What is calibration anyway? Many people do a field comparison check of two meters, and call them “calibrated” if they give the same reading. This isn’t calibration. It’s simply a field check. It can show you if there’s a problem, but it can’t show you which meter is right. If both meters are out…
Denise Robitaille
A recurrent theme that dominates discussion on the establishment of corrective action programs is the practice of channeling problems through multiple conduits for assessment and resolution. Organizations inadvertently fragment their corrective action process by trying to address problems and…
Thomas R. Cutler
In repetitive manufacturing, it’s possible to apply statistical process control (SPC) techniques to purchased components and manufacturing quality as well as scrap and yield. Statistical analysis is acceptable if a company mass-purchases or mass-manufactures the same product to the same standards…
Praveen Gupta
Most Six Sigma initiatives are project-oriented. And although implementing Six Sigma methodology on a project can lead to some improvement, a company can’t achieve full benefit of implementing Six Sigma. To maximize Six Sigma benefits, a corporation must commit to the methodology in its entirety.…
Marlo Brooke
The groundswell of radio frequency identification devices (RFID) in health care may be clouded by the stomping of Wal-Mart, but the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries are quietly becoming one of the top innovators and users of RFID, and they’ll likely outpace other market segments in the…
Praveen Gupta
The price of Six Sigma consulting, training and certification has been coming down and, interestingly, so is the amount or the rate of improvement being reported. We no longer hear success stories like Motorola or GE in larger number commensurate with the growth of Six Sigma, as evidenced by the…
C. Martin Schuster
Foam Design Inc. of Lexington, Kentucky, builds a wide range of foam parts, including inserts for headliners used to protect against injuries in the event of a collision. Inspecting these components with a CMM was a tedious and error-prone process because of the difficulty involved in making…
Denise Robitaille
I’ve long been a proponent of involving as many individuals as possible in corrective action, both during the root cause analysis phase and during the development of the action plan. Middle managers, supervisors, machine operators, customer service representatives, shippers, software test engineers…
Marilyn Fischbach
Deployment is one of the most critical elements of a successful Six Sigma program. Top-down support, champion training, wide publicity and Six Sigma awareness training for all employees are common components. In addition, employees selected to be Black or Green Belts must be trained and projects…