Jay Arthur Blog

Improvement Insights Blog

Latest "Jay Arthur Blog" Posts

If It Don’t Fit You Must Forget

Trendlines are often fake news. How can you separate fact from fiction? It’s easy.



“I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma Demystified” and QI Macros [software].

“One of the things that really irritates me about Excel is it’ll add a trend line to any data, but it does not add a “goodness-of-fit” metric automatically. It’s called “R squared,” and R squared should be like .8 or 80% fit in general.

“I’ve seen lots of charts and lots of posters at lots of improvement conferences where the goodness of fit metric is less than 50%. What?! So it’s not really an improvement.

Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights, Jay Arthur Blog.

More than One Way to Ken a Stat

There’s often more than one way to get an answer with statistics.



“I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma for Hospitals” and QI Macros [software].

“The other week we had somebody call in and say, “Can you do XYZ stat?” Well, by that name I didn’t understand what they were talking about, but then I looked up XYZ stat and it was our ABC stat in the QI Macros. Right?

“There’s more than one way to do things in statistics. There’s all kinds of things, all right? I just found out about something called Dixon’s Q and Grubbs’ Outlier Test for small samples… okay.

Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights, Jay Arthur Blog.

5/21/24 Healthcare Data Analytics Webinar

Over 100 people signed up for this webinar, with Jay Arthur demonstrating how to implement Healthcare Data Analytics to save time, save money, and (most importantly) save lives.



You can view a short two-page illustrated guide to the Zero Harm – Trillion Dollar Prescription by clicking HERE.

If you’d like to see a short demo video to see how our software is used in healthcare organizations like yours, click this DEMO link.

If you’ve never used QI Macros and would like to try it out for free, you can sign up for a free 30 day trial at THIS link.

Posted by Jay Arthur in Jay Arthur Blog.

Have You Got Jargon Monoxide?

Are you asphyxiating people with Jargon Monoxide? Maybe you need some oxygen language.



“I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma for Hospitals” and QI Macros [software].

“I ran across an interesting phrase and I loved it, it was great. They said, “Everybody suffers from… jargon monoxide.” (There, I finally said it!) Jargon monoxide: The asphyxiation through jargon.

“I think Six Sigma is burdened with it from the very start. The words “Six Sigma” make everybody blanch from the get-go. “Sigma? Oh my gosh, that’s statistical! I don’t underst… oh my gosh!” Right? They start to asphyxiate and can’t breathe.

Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights, Jay Arthur Blog.

1/9/24 QI Macros webinar

Over 120 people signed up for this webinar, with Jay Arthur demonstrating some of the software’s most frequently used tools and answering questions asked by attendees.  If you saw a feature demonstrated in the webinar that might have been added to QI Macros after the version you’re using (for instance, the Improvement Project Wizard or the automated Process Change Wizard), you may need to purchase an upgrade to bring your QI Macros to the current version. Send an email to support@qimacros.com and we can help, for instance in generating a quote to upgrade all the users at your organization or just guiding you through the purchasing process.

Posted by Jay Arthur in Jay Arthur Blog.

9/12/23 QI Macros webinar

Over 40 people signed up for this webinar, with Jay Arthur demonstrating some of the software’s most frequently used tools and answering questions asked by attendees.



If you saw a feature demonstrated in the webinar that might have been added to QI Macros after the version you’re using (for instance, the Improvement Project Wizard or the automated Process Change Wizard), you may need to purchase an upgrade to bring your QI Macros to the current version.

Send an email to support@qimacros.com and we can help, for instance in generating a quote to upgrade all the users at your organization or just guiding you through the purchasing process.

Posted by Jay Arthur in Jay Arthur Blog.

Juran – Purchasing Improvement for Lend-Lease

Purchasing departments are sluggish and error-prone. Joseph Juran used the tools of quality to simplify, streamline and optimize Lend-Lease purchasing during WWII. You can too.



“Hi, I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma Demystified” and QI Macros [software].

“I was wandering through my old collection of Quality Progress magazines. This one’s from 2004, it was about a hundred years of Juran. Now, he was born in Romania in 1904 and immigrated to the Minneapolis region at about 12 years of age. I was reading through this, and one of the things in here struck me: during the war, he used his statistical skills and engineering to improve purchasing, budgeting and paperwork gridlock for Lend-Lease.

Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights, Jay Arthur Blog.

Three Signs that You Need Lean Six Sigma

Here’s three simple signs that you need Lean Six Sigma.



“Hi, this is Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma For Hospitals” and the QI Macros [software].

“There’s three clear signs that you need Six Sigma.

“[1:] First off, you spend more time fixing stuff than you do actually making stuff.

“[2:] Customer complaints have risen to an all-time high and you spend too much time dealing with that.

“[3:] You spend more time mending fences than plowing new fields. You know, that’s a clue that these tools can help you.

“That’s my Improvement Insight for this week.

Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights, Jay Arthur Blog.

Quality Improvement is Not Hard

Most people think Quality Improvement is hard. It’s not. It’s surprisingly easy. Here’s why:



“Hi, I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma Demystified” and QI Macros [software].

“I think too many people spend a lot of time pretending that Quality Improvement is hard; it’s not, right? You’re either out of control but you might be in spec, or you might be in spec and out of control, or… in control and out of spec, or you can be in control and in spec. That’s not too hard.

“You know, with a handful of tools you can solve most of the problems involving defects, mistakes, errors.

Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights, Jay Arthur Blog.

7/11/23 QI Macros webinar

Over 70 people signed up for this webinar, with Jay Arthur demonstrating some of the software’s most frequently used tools and answering questions asked by attendees.



If you saw a feature demonstrated in the webinar that might have been added to QI Macros after the version you’re using (for instance, the Improvement Project Wizard or the automated Process Change Wizard), you may need to purchase an upgrade to bring your QI Macros to the current version.

Send an email to support@qimacros.com and we can help, for instance in generating a quote to upgrade all the users at your organization or just guiding you through the purchasing process.

Posted by Jay Arthur in Jay Arthur Blog.