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John Wilkerson, a Six Sigma Black Belt, was recently certified as the first international lead management consultant in the United States. Wilkerson is executive director of Bellwether Services, a lean Six Sigma consultancy and training organization. Published in 2003, the international…
FlexNet Quality, recently introduced by Apriso Corp., supports the prerequisites for effective implementation of Six Sigma, including statistical process control and define-measure-analyze-improve-control techniques.FlexNet Quality supports lean manufacturing programs by focusing on waste…
The market for continuous improvement software—primarily programs for lean and Six Sigma—had total hardware, software and services revenues of more than $200 billion in 2005, and it will nearly double by the end of 2010, according to new research. Research firm ARC Advisory Group forecasts…
MoreSteam.com recently announced a two-fold expansion of its lean Six Sigma curriculum. Each of the online training company’s lean Six Sigma DMAIC courses—Black Belt, Yellow Belt and Executive Overview—are now available in versions customized for service or transactional environments. In…
Tom Johnstone, president and CEO of SKF, recently received the Six Sigma Premier Leader Award from the International Society of Six Sigma Professionals. Johnstone is the first corporate leader in Europe to receive the prestigious award. It was presented during the ISSSP’s 6th annual Six…
Chuck Aubrey, vice president of process management and lean Six Sigma for Anderson Packaging Inc., received the prestigious Harrington-Ishikawa Medal at the 12th annual Asia Pacific Quality Organization Conference. The conference was held in October in Sydney, Australia, and Aubrey spoke…
A civilian worker at the Corpus Christi Army Depot was recently recognized for his supervision of a Six Sigma project that dramatically improved maintenance work on Army aircraft. George Kunkle III, the depot’s process optimization manager, received the first-ever Joint Depot…
Participants at “One Day to Lean” will learn to identify and eliminate the seven deadly wastes as demonstrated by Taiichi Ohno, who developed the Toyota Production System. The event will be hosted by Tefen USA, an operations management consulting firm. Tefen estimates that 95 percent of…
Companies that use technology to support their Six Sigma systems do better at controlling their defect rates, according to new research.“The Lean Six Sigma Benchmark Report,” a survey performed by the Aberdeen Group, found that data collection and the standardized use of information…
Leaders of the United States Air Force recently reported that the success of existing lean programs will spur the organization to expand lean’s use. The Air Force has implemented extensive lean programs at its Materiel Command air logistics centers, and will implement the methodology at…
STAT-A-MATRIX’s latest white paper, “Achieving Lean Success: A Pathway for Implementation,” presents a road map that unites lean concepts with specific tools and techniques in a straightforward manner. Taken individually, lean approaches and tools can seem simple, but when looked at…
Some companies focus on product innovation for competitive advantage, others on operational innovations. For breakthrough advances, both approaches might be wrong. According to a new report by Diamond Management & Consultants Inc., companies that bet solely on one innovation strategy…
George Eckes, who is widely credited with helping to formulate and clarify Six Sigma’s use in varied industries, recently joined the faculty of Villanova University’s online Six Sigma program. Eckes, founder and president of Eckes & Associates Inc., has more than 20 years of…
The implementation of Six Sigma in financial services is the topic of a new book written by two leading consultants. Six Sigma for Financial Services: How Leading Companies are Driving Results Using Lean, Six Sigma and Process Management (McGraw-Hill, 2007), by Roland Hayler and Michael…
Oriel Inc. recently published “Achieving Lean Success: A Pathway for Implementation,” which unites lean concepts with specific tools and techniques in a manner designed to make it easy to implement lean throughout an organization. The paper includes an “Ask an Expert” feature that’s…
iSixSigma magazine recently named software from PowerSteering Software Inc. as the top solution for project tracking. The magazine cited PowerSteering’s best-in-class home page, multiple methodology support capabilities and feature-search capability as key performance indicators in the…
Mikel J. Harry, founder of Six Sigma Academy in 1994 and one of the world’s leading authorities on the methodology, is rejoining the company as chief knowledge officer and vice chairman.
“We are delighted that Mike is joining us. We love that he has chosen to return to his company,” says Scott…
The Society of Women Engineers announced on Oct. 11 that Siddika Demir is the recipient of its 2006 Emerging Leaders Award for her leadership in quality assurance. Demir is the manager of corporate services and Six Sigma for Bechtel Corp. She is charged with setting Six Sigma strategy for…
Vice presidents, directors and managers from leading companies convened at The Ritz-Carlton Hotel in St. Louis for the Global Benchmarking Council’s third-quarter conference last month. “Unleashing Success through Breakthroughs in Lean Sigma and Quality” was attended by hundreds of Six…
While more than 50 percent of respondents in a new report indicated that they had implemented Six Sigma programs, only 16 percent of the programs meet the methodology’s core requirements. The survey, performed by the Aberdeen Group, also found that the 16 percent of programs that…
Conference organizer WCBF will host a conference for Six Sigma professionals in the software and information technology industries Nov. 7–9 in San Francisco. The event will be held at the Holiday Inn Gateway Hotel. The conference is designed to blend real-world examples with practical advice,…
Valley Baptist Health System recently selected Six Sigma software from Streamline Health Solutions Inc. to manage its document management and workflow solutions. Hospital representatives report that they expect better operational efficiencies that will result in higher-quality care for…
SFR, the second-largest telecommunications provider in France, has selected PowerSteering Software to manage its Six Sigma-based quality improvement program. In an effort to finance new investments, innovate and reinforce its competitive position, SFR has already started several projects…
According to recent research, lean and Six Sigma are destined for eternal togetherness. The Avery Point Group, a national executive search firm that specializes in lean and Six Sigma, conducted a survey in which the desire for Six Sigma skills outpaced that for lean skills by a wide…
A new book offers a 10-step process for applying lean Six Sigma to supply chain management. Lean Six Sigma for Supply Chain Management (McGraw-Hill Professional, 2006), by James William Martin, provides a description of the tools, methods and concepts for lean Six Sigma management as…