Six Sigma Tagged Improvement Insights

Improvement Insights Blog

Posts tagged "Six Sigma"

Snowthrower Delivery Debacle

Ordered a snowthrower as a wedding gift for two day delivery. Eight days later it was delivered to someone’s home (not mine). How can we mistake-proof these kinds of problems?

“One of the guys in my office is getting married this June and so I got him an early wedding gift: a snow thrower. So I ordered it from Amazon. I ordered it on Monday, it was supposed to arrive on Wednesday; two days shipping on Prime.

“Then on Wednesday I get this notice that said, “Well, it’s sort of delayed.” So then it said maybe Friday, but of course on Friday it wasn’t here, and they tried to deliver it on Saturday, of course, which is when we’re closed.

Posted by Jay Arthur in Agile Lean Six Sigma, Improvement Insights, Lean, Service, Six Sigma.

Nobody Wants to Look Bad

Nobody wants to look bad, which can make it impossible to make improvements. Here’s why:

“One of the things I’ve learned in all these years working in Quality Improvement is nobody, but nobody, wants to look bad. With the recent coronavirus [outbreak], the doctor who found that and [leaked news] out to the world, the Chinese government tried to shut him down, tried to keep that bit of information inside because they didn’t want to look bad.

“Well, this isn’t just a Chinese or Asian thing – saving face. In any business you walk into, somebody is in charge of how things are working and they’re in charge of trying to make it better, faster, cheaper.

Posted by Jay Arthur in Agile Lean Six Sigma, Healthcare, Improvement Insights, Lean, Six Sigma.

People Can Learn Quickly

People can learn Lean Six Sigma quickly, in a day or less. Here’s why:

“When I was about six years old, I was playing in a neighbor’s yard; we were rolling around in the grass and stuff like that. I came home and I went into my bedroom and I started digging around in my pocket and I felt something kind of fuzzy. I thought maybe there was a lint ball or something. I pulled it out of my pocket, threw it down and it came back and stung me in the neck.

“That bee sacrificed his life, but I learned a phobia of bees.

Posted by Jay Arthur in Agile Lean Six Sigma, Improvement Insights.

IHI Trillion Dollar Checkbook Webinar, 1 of 3

Webinar 1 of 3: February 12, 2020

More than 60 people signed up for this webinar, with Jay Arthur doing an overview on the IHI’s goal, and how implementing Agile Lean Six Sigma can speed an organization’s improvement process and better sustain results.

 



Posted by Jay Arthur in Agile Lean Six Sigma, Data Mining, Healthcare, Webinar.

2/11/20 QI Macros Webinar

More than 50 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.

Posted by Jay Arthur in Data Mining, Excel, QI Macros, Webinar.

I Only Get Paid to Do It the First Time

How big is your Fix-it Factory?

“I talked to a contractor at a building site and he told me, “I get paid to do it the first time, but I don’t get paid to do it the second time (to rework things),” so he’s very much focused on doing it right the first time.

“I think we’d all say that, but if you look at most companies, they all have a giant Fix-it Factory, fixing this, that and the other thing. Those people are being paid to fix things that shouldn’t have been broken to begin with. Or to trash the things they can’t fix.

Posted by Jay Arthur in Agile Lean Six Sigma, Improvement Insights, Lean, QI Macros.

Agile Hacks for Making Lean Six Sigma Sticky

Some companies are discovering Agile methods for implementing Lean Six Sigma. Over 50 years of research into how cultures adapt, adopt and reject change can explain why Agile works and why it accelerates Lean Six Sigma adoption.

“I recently did a video about how Christus Health and Novartis and Underwriters Laboratories were all using Agile methods to implement Lean and Six Sigma with one day (sometimes two day) training classes that created Yellow Belts focused on making improvement. I got to thinking about that a little bit, and it turns out that there’s over 50 years of research into how cultures adopt, adapt and reject change.

Posted by Jay Arthur in Agile Lean Six Sigma, Improvement Insights, Lean, Six Sigma.

Management By Control Chart

My career was dipped in various management methods such as MBO and MBWA. Recently I read a new term: Management by Spreadsheet (MBS). Maybe there’s a better way.

“When I was working at the phone company we had a variety of management fads. I think first there was MBO, or “Management By Objectives.” Of course, that assumed that you know what your objectives were. We had MBWA, “Management By Wandering Around,” so the management team was wandering around all the time and just getting in our way. Recently I saw a different phraseology and I kind of liked it: MBS, which stands for “Management By Spreadsheet.”

Posted by Jay Arthur in Agile Lean Six Sigma, Improvement Insights, Lean, QI Macros, Six Sigma.

IHI’s Trillion Dollar Aim – Reduce Healthcare Waste by 50% by 2025

IHI set a goal to reduce healthcare waste by 50% by 2025. Here’s how to do it with the Trillion Dollar Prescription.

“Hi, I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma for Hospitals.” We were just out at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement conference in Orlando, Florida. [There were] like, 4500 medical doctors and nurses and CNO’s and CNMO’s and people all involved in improving healthcare quality. This is their 31st annual conference. (I can tell you based on what I was looking at on the posters, people are not really aggressively going after change…)

“The IHI announced that it’s tackling what they call the “Trillion-Dollar Checkbook.”

Posted by Jay Arthur in Agile Lean Six Sigma, Healthcare, Improvement Insights.

1/9/20 QI Macros Webinar

More than 50 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.

Posted by Jay Arthur in Data Mining, Excel, QI Macros, Webinar.