Home »
Blog » Improvement Insights » Page 19
Improvement Insights Blog
Latest "Improvement Insights" Posts
Here’s the craziest Lean Pull System explanation I’ve ever seen, but it stuck with me:
“A long time ago I was introduced to Lean. We asked the consultants that were helping us with it, “What’s Lean, and what’s a Pull System” and they surprised us all because they started undoing their belts like this.
“They pulled [the belts] out and they said, “If you have a system and you try and push product through it, guess what? You get slack in the middle.” Does this make sense? You get all this work in process and everything else piling up. If you make one end faster the other ends aren’t keeping up.
Continue Reading "Belting Out A Lean Pull System"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights.
My childhood doctor did it all. Now I almost never see a doctor. Are You Doing Black or Green Belt work, or “No Belt” work?
“When I was growing up as a kid, our family doctor, Dr. Pierce (and what an unfortunate name)… anyway, Dr. Pierce was actually a MASH 4077 kind of a doctor, right? He was he was in Korea [where] they were doing meatball surgery. But back in the 50s, he’d come in and take your temperature, check your pulse, and he would give you the shots and anything else that was there: write the prescriptions out long hand and rip them off a pad and hand them to you.
Continue Reading "Are You Doing Black Belt Work or No Belt Work?"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights, Jay Arthur Blog.
Mom used to sew all of her own clothes, just like many people in Six Sigma are creating their own chart templates or code. Mom figured out a better way. You can too.
“Growing up in the 50s, my mom made all of her own clothes. She would go to the fabric store and pick out fabrics and pick out patterns. She’d come home and on this big cardboard thing she’d lay out the pattern on the thing and cut out all the pieces. Then she’d have bought thread, and then she’d sit there at the sewing machine and she would sew blouses and skirts and dresses.
Continue Reading "Are You Sewing Your Own Six Sigma Toolkit?"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights, Lean, Six Sigma.
We’re all familiar with Pareto’s rule: 20% of causes produce 80% of the results. But are you familiar with Arthur’s 4-50 rule? Typically, 4% of any process – one step out of 35 – is the cause of more than 50% of waste, rework and lost profit.
“Hi, I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma for Hospitals” and QI Macros [software].
“Now I’ve probably talked to you about this before, but we’re all familiar with Pareto’s rule that 20% of what you do produces 80% of the mistakes, errors, waste, rework, lost profit. 20% of your customers produce 80% of your revenue.
Continue Reading "Arthur’s 4-50 Rule – The Secret to Breakthrough Improvement"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights, Lean, QI Macros, Six Sigma, Statistics.
Here’s three New Year’s Resolutions to accelerate your quality improvements: 1) Raw Data Diet, 2) Quality Tools and 3) Worst First. Here’s why these will change your future and your company’s:
“Hi, I’m Jay Arthur. It is the New Year and so it’s time for some New Year’s resolutions. Here’s some resolutions I’d like you to consider.
“First, go on a raw data diet. That means you need to know everything about each individual defect, mistake and error, and then you can summarize that. If you start from summarized data you don’t know where the raw data is, and so most of the time you can’t actually figure out what to fix without the raw data.
Continue Reading "2021 New Year’s Resolutions for Quality"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights, Lean, Six Sigma.
When I started in quality improvement, everyone preached Total Quality Management (TQM). Before that it was quality circles. I’d like you to consider that the gospel of Six Sigma is holding back progress. Here’s why:
“Hi, I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma Demystified” and the QI Macros [software].
“The other day I was [presenting] a webinar for one of the ASQ sections; I’ve been doing Agile Lean Six Sigma webinars for the Agile sections that want something to do during this pandemic. One of the guys said, “Well, you’re sort of telling me that that we don’t need Green Belts and Black Belts to do a project.
Continue Reading "Six Sigma Dogma"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Agile Lean Six Sigma, Improvement Insights, Lean, Six Sigma.
My parents and grandparents lived through the early part of the last century – two world wars, Spanish flu, and the Great Depression. My wife’s grandmother caught the Spanish Flu and all of her hair fell out. Maybe we haven’t had the adversity to prepare us for this pandemic, but maybe we can learn from parents and grandparents how to cope.
Riding the Storm Out – REO Speedwagon
“Hi, this is Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma Demystified” and the QI Macros [software].
“On December 7th, 1941, my 17 year old mother was driving back from Knoxville, Tennessee back to Dayton, Ohio.
Continue Reading "Riding the Storm Out – Lessons from the Last Century"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights.
There’s a lot of hype about Big Data, but approximately three-quarters of the money spent had no return on investment. There’s big profits in small data. Here’s what to do differently.
“Hi, this is Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma Demystified” and the QI Macros [software].
“Big Data is actually bad for small business. Now, there was a lot of hype around Big Data, but it kind of crested about 2011-2012 and it’s falling down now because people are discovering that Big Data doesn’t always give you the answers you want. What you need [is] small data, and there’s big profits in small data.
Continue Reading "Why Big Data is Bad for Small Business"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Data Mining, Improvement Insights.
Most quality consultants still quote Deming’s 14 points, but the U.S. economy has shifted. Corporate CEOs are traded like running backs in the NFL. Time for a 21st Century approach to quality that factors in the new reality.
https://www.qimacros.com/pdf/Agile-LSS-Mini-Manifesto.pdf
“Hi, I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma for Hospitals” and QI Macros [software].
“You know, in the Quality world, we still bring up Deming’s 14 points quite a bit. That’s kind of 20th Century Quality. Now, not that those ideas are extinct or anything, but a lot of it was about that time period.
“When I was working at the phone company we didn’t change CEOs but once every 10, 20, 30 years, right?
Continue Reading "Deming’s 14 Points Were Created for 20th Century Quality"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights, QI Macros, Six Sigma.
Most companies are drowning in data, so you don’t need to Define and Measure anything new. Take DM out of DMAIC to accelerate results. Here’s why:
“Hi, I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma for Hospitals” and QI Macros [software].
“In the whole Six Sigma world, the DMAIC process, one of the things I’ve noticed is every company I’ve ever gone to… ever… has so much data they’re just… they’re drowning in their own data, and they don’t know how to analyze what they’ve got. And yet in DMAIC, we teach people to Define and then figure out something to Measure.
Continue Reading "Take DM Out Of DMAIC"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights.
