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Traditional Lean Six Sigma Training takes weeks when it’s possible to train people and get results in one day. Here’s why it costs so much to train people using last century strategies:
“I want to talk to you about the economics of a Six Sigma class. All right, so as much as I hate pie charts, I’m going to use one to demonstrate this. Let’s say you have a classroom and let’s say you have 20 odd people or something go in there. Now, I can tell you in advance every class is filled with three types of people: Prisoners, Vacationers and Learners.
Continue Reading "The Cost of Lean Six Sigma Training"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Agile Lean Six Sigma, Improvement Insights, Lean, QI Macros, Six Sigma.
Are you skipping Six Sigma stones across the surface of your business or are you finding people who take to it like a duck to water. People who can dive beneath the surface to find the invisible low-hanging fruit?
“Have you ever skipped a rock across a lake? Maybe the first time you threw it out there it just went “sploosh.” Then you figured out that flatter rocks skip better, so you started throwing them out and they’d go “skip-skip-sploosh,” or maybe get three or four or five “skip-skips” and “sploosh.”
“Then a duck came flying in, put out its landing gear and just kind of eased into the water.
Continue Reading "Skipping Stones or Diving Beneath the Surface of Your Business?"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Agile Lean Six Sigma, Improvement Insights, Lean, QI Macros, Six Sigma.
Over 140 people signed up for this webinar, with Jay Arthur demonstrating how to use some of the useful features of QI Macros, as well as some of the new features introduced in recent releases of the software.
Some attendees were familiar with the software and already use it, some had only begun to use it; all were interested in learning new ways that QI Macros can help them with their Agile Lean Six Sigma and Quality Improvement efforts. (You can hear him answering questions and comments typed in by webinar 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 Templates Wizard, the Fixed Limit indicator or the automated Process Change Wizard), you may need to purchase an upgrade to bring your QI Macros to the current version.
Continue Reading "6/9/20 QI Macros Webinar"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Data Mining, Excel, QI Macros, Webinar.
That's root cause analysis: What are the common patterns? Where's the Pareto principle?
Continue Reading "Root Cause Analysis in the Time of COVID-19"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Healthcare, Improvement Insights, QI Macros.
One great thing about the past few months – with in-person socializing limited, that means that you can connect with friends who live far away from you just as easily as those who live a mile away. Because of this, some friends of mine from our Midwestern high school re-started our weekly Euchre game from long ago, but this time via webcams and a forum where the card game can be hosted online.
I was preparing for just such an evening when I got a notification that the first of my friends had logged in to our online meetup space.
“Hey, Kokomo!”
Continue Reading "Cards and darts and XmR charts…"
Posted by Jay Arthur in QI Macros Monthly Newsletters.
This is a fun thing we did last week. While Watching the movie “Forrest Gump,” Jay heard this song and had the idea that this song is particularly applicable to our current situation. Several of the people that work for QI Macros are musicians, so we tried to do something fun while we’re working remotely. This was recorded in 4 separate homes and then assembled and arranged by Nicholas. We hope you enjoy it:
Continue Reading "Let’s Work Together"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Jay Arthur Blog.
Most companies measure success of Six Sigma using simple, easy to understand metrics. Are you using these measures of success?
“Hi, I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma for Hospitals” and QI Macros [software]. Today I want to talk to you about success metrics.
“Back in the late 60s I was in high school. I had a paper route and this was during the Vietnam War, and every day I would fold 120 papers and deliver them. The headlines always on the Tucson Daily Citizen was that we’d killed so many Viet Cong and so many Americans had died, so we had this body count metric every single day, Monday through Sunday.
Continue Reading "Six Sigma Success Metrics"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights, Six Sigma.
Even before COVID-19, I gave my staff digital thermometers, oximeters and blood pressure cuffs to help them monitor their health. You can too. Here’s how:
“Hi, I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma for Hospitals” and QI Macros [software].
“I don’t know about you but when I was a kid growing up and my mom needed to take my temperature we used something called a thermometer. This is actually the original box that it was in, but that’s no longer necessary right? Now we have these kind of tools which you can just buy at your local store. Once you press it and turn it on you just scan it across your head and it’ll read your temperature.
Continue Reading "Tools to Monitor Your Own Health"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Healthcare, Improvement Insights.
Humans, by nature, have a fear of looking bad (FOLB). And we have a fear of looking stupid (FOLS). These are slowing COVID-19 response and quality improvement. Here’s why:
Hi, I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma Demystified” and QI Macros [software].
“You’ve all probably all heard some of these acronyms that are running around like FOMO: Fear Of Missing Out. Well, I wanted to introduce you to a couple more that I’d like you to consider. FOLB: Fear Of Looking Bad.
“Now when I’ve gone out to work with companies in consulting roles, some of these managers think, “I’m supposed to be in charge of fixing everything.
Continue Reading "FOLB – Fear of Looking Bad"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Healthcare, Improvement Insights, Lean, Manufacturing, Six Sigma.
Over 120 people signed up for this webinar, with Jay Arthur demonstrating how to use some of the useful features of QI Macros, as well as some of the new features introduced in recent releases of the software.
Some attendees were familiar with the software and already use it, some had only begun to use it; all were interested in learning new ways that QI Macros can help them with their Agile Lean Six Sigma and Quality Improvement efforts. (You can hear him answering questions and comments typed in by webinar 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 Templates Wizard, the Fixed Limit indicator or the automated Process Change Wizard), you may need to purchase an upgrade to bring your QI Macros to the current version.
Continue Reading "5/14/20 QI Macros Webinar"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Data Mining, Excel, QI Macros, Webinar.
