Here’s a story that proves once again that exciting quality applications can occur anywhere in the world.

The current recession is the fifth in my working career. And it is beginning to feel like the worst.

A colleague of mine made an interesting point about how we teach and learn experimental design techniques, and I thought I'd explore the subject further.

One of the most frequent questions I get from Black Belts and Green Belts I train is about the characteristics of a good Six Sigma project, particularly a first project.

Those best adapted to particular conditions will succeed in the long run. This idea was invented by Herbert Spencer in Principles of Biology (University Press of the Pacific, 2002) to describe Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection of living species.

Criteria changes and lean Six Sigma

In these difficult economic times, organizations are looking at all possible means to operate profitably.

Many people go through a point in their lives where they question the beliefs they hold most dear. Then there are those who question the entire basis for statistical process control (SPC) once they have learned the statistical basis for them.

As you read this you will, no doubt, have already made (and perhaps broken) your New Year’s resolutions. I’d like to propose one that we, as business leaders, have a special responsibility to follow and whose failure we hear about in the news almost every day.

During a recession, the concept of lean should make absolute sense to an information technology (IT) manager who wants to pursue every channel to increase efficiency and productivity.

There are several issues about the Six Sigma approach to quality that bother me. First, Six Sigma is a performance standard that hardly anyone can understand. Secondly, it’s an engineering approach to quality management.