Lean Six Sigma for Business Performance Improvement

How to use candy to teach or learn Six Sigma

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Sat, 27 Feb 2016 22:14:00 +0000

During our Yellow Belt (beginner Six Sigma) class, we have found lots of success teach statistical concepts using candy.

It is a fun way to make statistics less “scary” for those who don’t have a strong math background.

We start out the class by opening up the bags, and counting out the number of pieces in each bag. Each student separates the pieces into colors, and creates a Pareto chart of their bag (see image below).

Next, we inspect the pieces to see how many have defects, so we can calculate a sigma level based on defect rates.

Next, we collect the total number of pieces by bag from each student, and calculate a mean (average), median and estimate variation using the standard deviation for the number of pieces per bag. Yes, we calculate it all by hand, not using Excel or Minitab.

In the next exercise, we create a histogram of the pieces, to look at the distribution of the class data (it comes out looking like a normal distribution, no surprise there).

We calculate capability indices (Pp and Ppk) from the data, using specification limits that might represent wasted money for the company, or customer dissatisfaction from insufficient pieces in a bag.

During some of our classes, we conduct a gage R&R study by measuring the size of candy pieces, to see how well we can get consistent measurements. Other times, we opt to use an attribute gage R&R study, and check to see how well people can determine the difference between different types of soda or brands of bottled water).

Finally, we calculate control limits for an Individuals chart, and plot the results to look for “out of control” conditions (based on Nelson Rules, an updated version of the Western Electric Rules).

If you'd like to see the class live and in-person, we have a Six Sigma Yellow Belt training class taking place in Portland >>>

If Six Sigma is new to you, this is the best class to get started. If you are already trained or certified in Six Sigma, you should also attend, so you can see how to take this fun class back to your company to teach your employees or clients.

If you know someone who might be interested in this course, please forward this webpage to them.

Which lean event type should I do first, Value Stream Mapping or Kaizen Burst?

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Sun, 23 Aug 2015 01:50:00 +0000

What type of lean event should we do first, Value Stream Mapping (VSM) or Kaizen Burst?

Before we can answer this question, let’s first define these two popular event types

Value Stream Mapping (VSM) – A multiple day event (2-5 days) focused on mapping the process from customer order to customer delivery. The goal is to complete a current state and future state map, then identify the 8 forms of waste that is keeping the process from achieving the future state. Requires multi-disciplined participation from all stakeholders who impact, or are impacted by the process. The deliverable is a list of projects, actions and events that need to be completed in the next 6-12 months, with names and due dates.

Kaizen Burst – Also called rapid process improvement (RPI). A 3-5 day event focused on making dramatic improvements to a specific part of a process by the end of the event (focus is on implementation, not planning). Not every action will be completed, but the goal is to have 80% of the actions completed during the event, and the remaining 20% completed within 30 days of the end of the event. The event should allow time to make adjustments in case the changes do not work. The goal is to make quick progress without pushing the waste to another department or area.

If you’re just getting started with your process improvement in a process area or department, I would highly recommend the kaizen burst event. The goal is to scope the intent and purpose of the event, then do a considerable amount of work up front (usually takes 1-2 weeks of preparation). During the event, the first couple days are focused on getting everyone familiar with the preparation, and to go and physically observe the current process, so everyone is aware of the wastes and issues. The rest of the days are focused on implementation. It’s an action-driven event. When you get done with the event, you have something to show for all that work and time away from your regular job.

Typical Kaizen Burst Workshop format, from Lean Enterprise Institute

When you pull people away from their job for 3 to 5 days, and you are just starting with process improvement (Lean and Six Sigma), you want to have something to show for all that time.

One of the problems with VSM events is that they end with a list of actions items. Now in order to see results from the event, you are asking those same people to spend more time after the event to complete these tasks. Remember, they have already taken time out of their work week. They are already behind with their regular work, and will need time to catch up. Even though there is excitement after the event, it’s not enough to carry into the following week. It requires a lot of micro-managing and project management and “hounding” people. In addition, usually only a handful of people get assigned tasks, and it is usually quite a few actions.

Don’t get me wrong, I think VSM events are excellent, and great for getting multiple departments and groups to understand the entire process, and get on the same page. However, it is really just a good planning activity, and the event alone does not result in any immediate improvement (other than networking and knowledge of the value stream). In fact, it can takes months before the actions results in any improvement.

Example of Value Stream Map

But for those getting started, or those that are needing major improvements, I would highly recommend the kaizen burst event.

Both events require upfront planning, but the kaizen burst requires more than the VSM, since there may be major improvements taking place in a short amount of time. Getting the right people involved is essential to success. That is why the kaizen burst event needs leadership authorization to empower the team at the start. In order to make these improvements, they must be allowed to try it out without a lengthy approval process. Leaders must assign and delegate people to the team they trust, or provide guidelines and rules that the team must stay within (such as budget, procedures, etc).

Finally, a kaizen burst usually involves the people doing the value-added work, more often than VSM events, which seem to be too heavy on management. You want to engage those people as much as possible early on in a Lean Six Sigma journey, since they are the ones who need to understand the concepts, and see the immediate results applied to their work.

After the process area has matured, or a couple kaizen bursts have been performed, then a VSM event might be needed, when their primary problems are coming from outside their area (outside their control). The idea is to “clean up your own backyard” before you bring outsiders into the process.

In summary, if the process area does not have a mature lean system (poor visuals, employees not trained in lean, hard to see process flow, lots of inventory, poor labels, lots of waste), then kaizen burst is the place to start.

What do you think? Do you agree? Share your comments below...

Employee engagement that will make you jealous!

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Sat, 16 May 2015 01:20:00 +0000

One of the most difficult things for business owners and managers is to engage their employees in continuous improvements every day. Even the most advanced companies have struggled with this.

The problem is that companies focus too heavily on the tool side of process improvements. It’s actually more important how these tools are applied.

The secret is to focus on your employees and make them as successful as possible. When your employees are happy, they want to do a better job for the company. When they do a better job, your customers notice and are happier. Happy customers buy more stuff from you. Most companies don’t make this connection.

Rather than dictate improvements you would like your employees to make, you need to ask those who do the job day in and day out for their ideas, and help them implement them as quickly as possible.

Sadly, only a handful of companies have been able to break through and accomplish this.

One of them is FastCap, a small manufacturer of woodworking products and tools. The owner is Paul Akers, who has transformed his company into highly motivated employees that drive their own efficiency into their daily work.

Paul learned the culture of improvement from experts in the Toyota Production System. He wanted to share what he learned with all his employees, so he came up with a simple and easy approach that everyone in his company could understand and participate in, called “2 Second Lean”. Employees are encouraged to reduce time in their work by 2 seconds. That’s it! Who in your company would not be able to do that?

Luckily for all of us, Paul has documented and recorded his lean journey at FastCap on his YouTube channel and in his book. If you want to be motivated, inspired and amazed at their success, check out his videos at Youtube.com/user/fastcaptv

If you want help with the technical tools, check out our website at BIZ-PI.com.

If you want help engaging your employees, it starts with you! We would suggest watching at least 5 of Paul’s videos, and sharing them with your management team.

Combining DMAIC and lean events to maximize process improvements

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Sun, 29 Mar 2015 03:53:00 +0000

The DMAIC approach for process improvement is the foundation for Six Sigma, and I have grown to appreciate it more each time I use it. However, DMAIC projects can take a while to complete. Lean events are great approaches to make dramatic improvements, but who is tracking the long term results after the event is complete?

There are two powerful ways to combine DMAIC with lean events:

1) Use lean events to move quickly through the DMAIC phases
2) Use DMAIC framework to manage lean activity in a work area

1) Use lean events to move quickly through the DMAIC phases

You can reduce the completion time for your project by using the lean event format to help you quickly move through the different DMAIC phases. The great thing about lean events is that you get the right people in the room, focused on a specific outcome, and you have a set timeline to get it done. This creates a strong sense of urgency that some Six Sigma projects seem to lack.

For example, you could have a lean event to build the project charter, perform an FMEA, gather detailed data for the measure phase, develop control charts, or conduct a pilot study or DOE. The idea is to get everyone together for a common task and get it done, rather than drag it out over one hour meetings every week.

You also don't need a full week for each lean event. However, you probably need more than one hour, so schedule half-day or full-day sessions with your team (we suggest at least 2 per month), so you can make lots of progress all at once, and not wait for action items to be completed. It also can be frustrating when you just start making progress, and you hit the end of your hour long meeting.

2) Use DMAIC framework to manage lean activity in a work area

You can also use the DMAIC structure to help with your lean events. During a traditional kaizen event (week long improvement workshop), the DMAIC framework is already being used, even if you don't realize it. When you are doing the prep work, you are conducting the Define and Measure phase. During the actual event, you are conducting Analyze, Improve and Control. However, sometimes the improvements and control systems are not as strong as they are during a Six Sigma project, due to time constraints. In addition, the long term tracking of metrics, to ensure that the event truly achieved the results, is often lacking after an event.

The DMAIC framework will also help you realize if you need more events to complete the improvements in order to achieve the goals for the workarea, and allow you to fully capture any cost savings or metric improvements. Perhaps the lean event made great strides, but the inventory is still too high, or they have not been able to consistently achieve their takt time. Maybe the last remaining action item is one of the most crucial items, that will make a dramatic improvement to the flow? DMAIC will keep the effort moving forward until the results are achieved.

It's important to combine DMAIC and lean events in your improvement plan. We don't want to have an event, make improvements, then walk away and not verify the team achieved their long term goals. Likewise, we don't want Six Sigma projects that take forever to complete.

Download a Free DMAIC project checklist >>>

Split testing website marketing messages with Minitab's Chi-Square % Defective comparison tests

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Wed, 24 Dec 2014 21:43:00 +0000

Six sigma techniques have expanded beyond traditional manufacturing companies, into healthcare, movie industry, government and now online marketing.

Split testing (also called A/B testing) is one of the more popular techniques being used today by website developers, programmers and any company with an online presence.

Split testing describes a comparison test that is used to determine what works best on their website, by showing their site visitors different images, colors, phrases, layouts, etc and tracking which ones get the most "interest". Interest can be measured by time spent on a website, percent of clicks on a link or ad, website load time, and even tracking of cursor scrolling patterns.

For example, a website might want to determine what gets the most clicks, a button that says "Free Sign Up" (option A), or "Register" (option B).

After enough visitors arrive on the site (sample size is adequate), a comparison of the click rate is reviewed to determine which one did the best. The click rate is defined as the percentage of site visitors that clicked on the button divided by the total number of visitors who saw that option.

In the image above, you can see that 78% of the visitors clicked on the button when it said "Free Sign Up," but only 34% of the visitors clicked on "Register."

The click rate that is higher would be selected ("Free Sign Up"), and the other option is dropped (or modified again to run another A/B test).

Essentially, split (A/B) testing is a simplified hypothesis test or design of experiments (DOE).

In our example, assuming I had more than 100 site visitors, it is pretty obvious that the difference in the percentage is most likely statistically significant (not due to random chance). However, there may be situations where the percentages will be much closer together. In addition, what if we want to run an A/B/C test (3 options instead of only 2)?

Since the primary metric in split testing is a click rate (proportion), analyzing the split test cannot be done with an Analysis of Variance (ANOVA). Therefore, you either need to run a 2-sample proportions test on each comparison (A vs B, B vs C, and A vs C), or you can try Minitab's Chi-Square % Defective analysis.

We recently performed a split test on our website, using 3 different messages at the top of our website. The top bar in green is a service we used called Hello Bar, which is free for use (one website only).

The three options we used for our message, along with the background color:

A: "Check out all the FREE downloads and information" (Blue)
B: "5S and Control Chart SPC templates for FREE" (Gold)
C: "FREE Lean and Six Sigma Excel Templates" (Green)

After a month of displaying these 3 different messages to our site visitors (done automatically by Hello Bar), we reviewed the data.

A: "Check out all the FREE downloads and information" (Blue) = 0.5% click rate
B: "5S and Control Chart SPC templates for FREE" (Gold) = 0.8% click rate
C: "FREE Lean and Six Sigma Excel Templates" (Green) = 1.6% click rate

From the data, it seems that the last option performed the best. If I was a betting person, I would have predicted the 2nd option (B), but that's why we collect data to make decisions! In addition, as Six Sigma practitioners, we must also ask if these differences are statistically significant, or could the change with more samples?

To run this analysis in Minitab (version 17), we setup our data in the following format:

Using Minitab's Assistant function (highly recommended when unsure what tests to perform), select Assistant --> Hypothesis Tests...

Next, we decide that we want to "Compare two or more samples" (since we are running an A/B/C test). Under that section, since we have proportions (click rate) instead of measurement data (like website speed, time spent on website, etc), we select "Chi-square % Defective"

By the way, if you were running only an A/B test, then you would select "Compare two samples with each other" then select "2-sample % Defective"

On the next screen, we tell Minitab what our options should be assigned to in the worksheet. Under the X column, select "Style" (or whatever field you are using to identify your options).

One thing to note. In the analysis, the "clicks" are considered "defects", but in fact these are good things. Technically, we could have assigned the "non-clicks" as defects. It won't matter either way, as long as you keep track what you define as the "defect".

There are 4 pages that get generated, but the most useful is the Summary Report.

If you start in the upper left, the p-value is 0.031, which is less than 0.05, so we conclude that at least one option is statistically different than one of the other options. The upper right section tells us that the statistical difference occurs between A and C. What it also tells us is that option B is not statistically better than option A, nor is it statistically worse than option C. Therefore, we should definitely drop option A from our Hello Bar message, but we need more data to conclude whether option C is statistically better than option B.

Does that mean the message seems to make a difference? Maybe, because if you were paying attention, we also had different colors for each message, so we have confounded our results with color. Maybe site visitors are not clicking as often due to the color, not the words. Sounds like more split testing is needed!

Split testing is a great tool that has brought Six Sigma analysis into the internet marketing world. I plan to use the term "split testing" or "A/B testing" instead of DOE or experimentation when talking to more tech-savvy audiences.

Have you tried split or A/B testing on a website? Explain what you did in the comments below...

Don't waste time on a full Gage R&R study until the data says you are ready

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Sun, 28 Sep 2014 02:43:00 +0000

We support a lot of small volume manufacturing facilities (delivering low rate, high complexity products), which presents different challenges for implementing Six Sigma.

When you only produce one product per day or per week, it can be difficult to gather a good statistical sample for any analysis. In addition, even if the parts were available, the measurements can be complex with numerous data points, so the time to collect the data for each sample can take from 15 minutes, up to 8 hours or longer!

I'd like to share a best practice we've discovered with Gage Repeatability and Reproducibility (R&R) studies that can help all businesses save time and money with smaller sample sizes, not just those in the low volume production businesses.

I'll assume you have some knowledge of a Gage R&R study. If not, check out this page >>>

Let's assume you need to perform a Gage R&R on a new piece of test equipment.

We recommend a study that will require at least 30 total samples in the experiment. This allows us to gather a significant number of experimental runs to understand what is happening. You may require more, but I would suggest starting with 30, and evaluating the results before adding more runs/samples.

If we have 2 technicians running the equipment (only one piece of equipment), then typically we would take 10 parts, 2 technicians and 3 repeat measurements. That is a standard Gage R&R setup. That would be 10 x 2 x 3 = 60 total samples, which exceeds our 30 sample minimum.

What if each sample takes 2 hours to complete? Our original study will take at least 120 hours. Do you think your company would let you tie up the equipment for that long, and prevent 10 parts from being shipped? Highly doubtful in a low volume environment.

However, we should try to reduce the size of our study, and use another combination of parts, technicians and repeats to get closer to 30 samples. We could select one of the following options:

5 parts x 2 technicians x 3 repeats = 30 samples
8 parts x 2 technicians x 2 repeats = 32 samples
6 parts x 3 technicians x 2 repeats = 30 samples
Or any other combination you can think of...

Which one is best? It depends on your situation. If you have a lot of uniqueness in your parts, I would select more parts for your study. If you think technicians may be driving variation, you should try to find a 3rd technician to include. If you suspect repeatability issues, then more repeat measurements may be preferred. This is where the expertise of the technicians, managers, engineers and experts can assist.

Let's select the option with 5 parts, 2 technicians and 3 repeats. Even though we have reduced the study down to 30 samples, it will still require 60 hours of testing to complete the Gage R&R, and we will be holding up 5 parts during that time. That's not what your production team will want to hear.

What can we do?

We suggest you conduct a partial Gage R&R, and evaluate those results before completing the full Gage R&R.

A partial Gage R&R would be a much smaller version of our full study. Instead of 5 parts, we should start with 3, and instead of 3 repeats, use only 2 repeats. We still want at least 2 parts, 2 repeats and 2 technicians as a minimum, so we get some estimates for repeatability and reproducibility.

This would create a Gage R&R study of 12 samples (3 parts x 2 technicians x 2 repeats). Now we have reduced the test time to 24 hours, and are only holding up 3 parts. Compared to the alternatives, that should sound pretty good to your production team.

How can we do this and still properly evaluate the equipment?

The trick is that we might find enough variation in the partial Gage R&R results that we should stop the study, and go work the issues, before we complete the full Gage R&R. No sense wasting time gathering more data showing the same problem!

However, if the partial Gage R&R show favorable results (% of Tolerance and study variation below acceptable levels), then you will need to complete the full Gage R&R in order to ensure those results hold up with more parts, more technicians and/or more repeats.

The savings will come into effect only if there are problems with the measurement system. If there are no problems, then there will be no savings, as the full Gage R&R will still need to be completed. The nice thing is that you don't need to start over from scratch, you would just expand the partial study until it matched the setup of the full study. For our example, you would simply continue the study with the additional 2 parts, and add one additional repeat run to the study.

Let's see how this works with an example, using sample data from Minitab.

After running the full Gage R&R (30 samples), we come up with the following results (charts generated using the MSA Assistant feature in Minitab version 17):

The results show an unacceptable Gage R&R, as the % of Tolerance is above 30% (calculated at 59.7%), and the % of study variation is showing 63.1%. Most of the variation is coming from reproducibility (technician) at 56%.

The question we want to know is whether our partial Gage R&R study would have detected the same problems with the measurement system.

When we condense the data set down to 12 samples, and re-run the analysis, here are the results.

The results come out very similar!

% of Tolerance (Full) = 59.7%
% of Tolerance (Partial) = 64.5%

% of Study Variation (Full) = 63.1%
% of Study Variation (Partial) = 65.0%

% of Tolerance for Reproducibility (Full) = 56.0%
% of Tolerance for Reproducibility (Partial) = 63.5%

Since the measurement system contains reproducibility issues, we benefited by not running the full Gage R&R study. Now we need to investigate and resolve the technician issues, and conduct another Gage R&R when we feel those issues are resolved.

On a side note, do not run a Gage R&R unless you think it will be successful. If you know there are calibration problems, mismatching of equipment, outdated software installed, worn out parts, and differences in techniques used, then resolve those issues first. Otherwise, you'll have to re-run the study again later, after those improvements are made. The initial study would be a complete waste if it told you things you already suspected would be a problem. There are enough unknown variables inside a measurement system that you should deal with the obvious and known variables first.

After we make improvements to our measurement system, we would still need to run a partial Gage R&R the 2nd time, but again, do not complete the full Gage R&R until the partial Gage R&R shows results that are acceptable. Your 2nd study may find additional problems, or prove that the improvements were not effective, so we should stop and fix those right away.

Once you get acceptable results from the partial Gage R&R, only then should you continue to the full Gage R&R.

Bottom line, do not misread this and conclude that you only need to run a partial Gage R&R. A full Gage R&R is still needed to ensure all the variation in the additional parts and repeat measurements have been uncovered. But, until the measurement system issues are fully resolved, don't waste time doing a full study until the data tells you when you are ready to do so.

This concept can be applied to capability studies as well. Ideally, we would like to have 100-300 samples from a stable process produced from all of our sources of variation in the process, before we calculate an accurate number for capability indices (Cpk and Ppk). That may be easy to do in high volume production environments, but that is very difficult in low volume industries. Even getting a statistically valid sample of 30 is near impossible.

What we suggest is to gather the first 5 samples, and calculate capability. If the small samples show a problem (mean near the limits, large variation compared to limits), that might be enough information to dig into the problem. If the results are good (mean near the target, variation small compared to limits), then you will need to wait until at least 30 samples are generated before drawing any long term conclusions from the Cpk/Ppk values.

Remember, 30 samples is ideal, but 5 samples is better than only one sample, which is better than none at all!

In summary, in order to save time and money conducting a Gage R&R study, we suggest you follow these three recommendations:

1) Setup your full Gage R&R study to run only 30 samples - then decide if more are needed
2) Do not run a Gage R&R if you suspect it will not pass - address known issues first
3) Run a partial Gage R&R first, then if they are acceptable, complete the full study, otherwise go address the identified issues

If you'd like to learn more about Gage R&R studies, check out our training class >>>

Has anyone had experience trying this approach? We would love to hear from you! Add your comments below...

What does golfing have to do with Six Sigma?

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Sat, 20 Sep 2014 20:42:00 +0000

Here at BPI, we are always looking for ways to make Lean and Six Sigma concepts easier to understand for those getting started.

We will be creating a series of videos with examples that might resonate with you on basic terms and concepts. Feel free to use these videos in your training class, or send them to your attendees to help reinforce concepts you've already taught or coached.

The following video puts Six Sigma in terms of golfing, where the distance of the tee shot is being measured, compared to the limits of the golf hole.

The process of teeing off can be evaluated in Six Sigma terms based on how likely the shot will land between two sand traps.

We also explain how to connect these concepts back to the real world, such as in business with a forecasting budget process, with limits of +/- 10%.

Are there good examples you've heard, that you'd like us to capture in animation format? Let us know in the comments below...

Myths about Toyota and why this is the improvement book you must read!

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Wed, 20 Aug 2014 05:53:00 +0000

Toyota Kata is one of the most popular books in the process improvement community right now (summer of 2014). I've heard it mentioned many times in the past few weeks, so I decided to see what all the hoopla was about. It is definitely worth all the attention! I've read a lot about Toyota over the years, and have visited the Georgetown facility, and taken training and been mentored by former Toyota employees, but this book, written by Mike Rother, has greatly increased my understanding of how lean should be applied.

This is a lengthy blog, so I will provide a brief overview, prior to the detailed review.

Brief Overview

Toyota is the benchmark for how to improve your business, based on it's years of continued success. Toyota has opened up it's doors to anyone curious to learn, but no one has been able to replicate their success. The reason they haven't succeeded is explained in this book. Toyota has mastered the art of identifying and solving problems. All of their lean strategy is an attempt to force problems to rise to the surface, so they can be quickly resolved using a standard problem solving approach. That is the "secret" that other companies are not disciplined to follow.

Most companies do not embrace problems (usually try to hide them), and they do not use a disciplined approach (called "Improvement Kata") to solve the problems when they are forced to resolve them. They master the problem solving technique through coaching from management (called "Coaching Kata"), who are experts in using the approach as they worked their way up the company. Improvement Kata is not easy to see during benchmarking tours, and companies leave the tours focusing on the tools, instead of the reason behind the tools. When they implement the tools, it raises up problems, and most companies see this as a problem, and quickly claim that it didn't work, when in fact it did exactly what it was suppose to do.

Detailed Review

Let's first define kata, since it's in the title of the book.

Kata is a set of routines or methods practiced daily. These are not documented or described, but a way of thinking and behaving that is embedded within the Toyota culture. This is why most companies who study Toyota cannot replicate them, despites decades of trying to "reverse engineer" it.

Often people ask me, why is Toyota studied and benchmarked? Yes, they have their share of problems, so they are not perfect. However, over the long term, they are one of the most successful companies, based on:
• Sales growth for over 40 years, during which US automakers' sales reached a plateau or decreased
• Profits exceeded other automakers
• Market capitalization has exceeded GM, Ford and Chrysler (formerly "The Big 3") for many years, and recently exceeded all three combined
• World leader in sales rank, and is number 2 in the US

Most companies walk away from a Toyota tour with lean tools that are copied (andon, kanban, heijunka, visual controls, mistake proofing, etc) and they do achieve some success, but how they handle problems is not obvious during the tour. In fact, despite what most people think, Toyota does not standardize on tools and roll them out consistently across their factories, they only standardize on the problem solving approach. The tools change as conditions change, depending on the product and service being performed. If you go back and visit Toyota years later, you will see different tools applied within the same assembly lines. They are constantly adjusting and improving. If companies try to replicate countermeasures (improvements), it will not work in other factories because causes and conditions are different.

That is the intent of this book, to make it visible to us how Toyota achieves continuous improvement and adapts to change through daily behavior patterns and coaching that supports it.

The book is divided into 5 major parts:

• Part I - Long-term organizational survival for Toyota
• Part II - How most companies behave
• Part III - "Improvement Kata" - solving problems every day to stabilize process performance and identify new problems
• Part IV - "Coaching Kata" - how they teach and mentor employees on how to learn the Improvement Kata
• Part V - Implementing Improvement and Coaching Kata outside of Toyota (in your organization)

Differences between Toyota and other companies

Most companies want to have a clear plan to achieve results. Toyota knows that the details of the plan are unclear, and won't become clear until extensive investigation and analysis takes place. They set a target condition (what it should look like), and work towards the target, knowing that the path will be uncertain, unpredictable and failures will occur. Failures are when the learning takes place, and that is viewed as a positive outcome at Toyota. If we already think we know the outcome, then we are biased towards a certain outcome, and cannot truly understand the causes of the problem. They use the Improvement Kata methodology to navigate through the uncertain and unpredictable path to a solution, and the leaders know the process will work, so they don't need to have a detailed plan. This is similar to a lost hiker, looking to get back on the main route. If you can hear the roar of the traffic (vision), you can head in the right direction, but you only have a flashlight that highlights the immediate danger in front of you (problems) that you need to resolve. You cannot see further than your flashlight, nor do you need to look that far in advance, as long as you are still heading towards the sound of traffic.

Toyota uses a Plan Do Check Act (PDCA) approach to solve problems. The process compares the current results against the target condition, to see where there is a gap. The target condition is not measurable, but instead it is a description of how the process should operate, and does not include solutions or countermeasures (implement 5S or kanban or change layout). Measures can be manipulated, but process descriptions cannot. If there is no target condition, then after evaluating the current state, a short term target condition (1-4 weeks in the future, no more than 3 months) should be defined.

Next, the process is studied and evaluated to understand why the target condition is not being met. This is 90% of the effort, and still part of the Plan phase of PDCA. Once the true causes are understood, then countermeasures are implemented (Do) and checked to see if they move the process closer to the target condition (Check). If not, then the process is analyzed further until the correct countermeasures are achieving results. Once the results are achieved, the process is stabilized, and a new target condition is set (Act). Most companies fall short by skipping past Plan too quickly, spending too much time in Do, then failing to check results, stabilize and set a new goal. They quickly look to move away from this process and work on something new, so they can relax for a while. Toyota does not relax, as they are continuously improving the process and looking for the next problem to occur.

In fact, if there are no more problems in the process, then that means there is a problem because the target condition is not challenging enough to reveal the problems. They are striving to achieve a vision of one piece flow, so ignoring problems are slowing up their progress towards the vision.

Continuous Improvement and Adaption

The world and business is always changing. Toyota is setup to continually monitor and adjust to those changes slightly every day. Most companies wait until the change can no longer be ignored, and then they make massive changes to adjust, if they actually decide to embrace the change. Many do not, and fall further behind.

Toyota believes that cost and quality improvements are made in small incremental steps, not major projects, events and activities that occur periodically. Daily improvements from everyone in the company is difficult to copy, which gives them their competitive advantage. If your process is not continually improving, then the process must be falling back into a chaotic state, which is how most companies operate. They periodically try to improve processes with major activities, and the rest of the time the process is slowly falling back into an unstable condition. All processes are either slipping back or being improved.

"…it is better for an organization's adaptiveness, competitiveness, and survival to have a large group of people systematically, methodically, making many small steps of improvement every day rather than a small group doing periodic big projects and events."

Why Action Item lists are bad

Rother describes how action item lists are very common in most companies except Toyota. However, most of the actions are just adding more confusion into the process in an uncontrolled manner, pulling scarce resources in different directions, and not part of a structured system of small, incremental improvements. Toyota strives for only one change at a time, to allow the cause and effect to become clear, not multiple changes at once. Designed experiments (DOE) can handle multiple changes, but it requires expertise to develop a DOE, and that complex approach prevents all employees from experimenting every day. Changing one thing at a time seems slower, but when the feedback is quick, the next change is also quick, so the entire process overall is faster. We can find plenty of actions to take to improve, but Toyota only addresses the problems that are preventing them from achieving the target condition. Most action item lists are just ideas for what could be done, that may or may not help achieve the target, because the analysis and investigation has probably not been done to determine the correct solution (countermeasure). Toyota also has many problems to solve, but only works on the immediate problems that are preventing them from achieving the target condition. Most companies don't have the patience to wait for the analysis and investigation, and instead reward action that is taken immediately, not results achieved in the future.

Action item lists can exceed 100 or more tasks after a non-Toyota lean event

Long action item lists do not lead to more improvement, they give us a false sense of accomplishment, and can take ownership away from the team ("I completed my actions, so it's not my fault the process is still broken"). In fact, once a few changes have been implemented, it may eliminate the need for other actions on the list, yet they still get implemented anyways. Now we have a new process completely that we aren't sure if it is better than the previous process.

Toyota focuses on one piece flow, not making schedule

Most companies focusing on "making production schedules" but Toyota focuses on continuously improving the process. "Making production" drives companies to hide and work around problems. "Continuously improving" drives Toyota to find and remove problems, so the chance of making production in the future is more likely. By focusing on stabilizing and continually improving the process, the outcomes will naturally come to fruition, instead of people "firefighting" and performing heroics to make schedule. Most companies manage to the outcomes only, focused on results, not the process that drives the results and how they were achieved.

Toyota considers it a negative if problems are hidden or not discovered, so they setup their processes to expose weaknesses quickly and often. This is counterintuitive to most companies, who want to achieve short term results like "make production schedule" only, and think they can replicate those results over the long time without addressing the root causes of the problems. Toyota cannot manage the process if the problems are not visible, as they realize they won't be able to achieve consistent results in the future if the problems are hidden.

Rother gives examples of how attitudes around process changes can be improved. When suggesting countermeasures, he is often met with statements like "let's see if this works." In Toyota, the changes are setup to fail in order to identify problems, so he tells companies he works with that that they are right, it will not work. He suggests you change your company's mindset, and ask them to consider "what do we need to do to make this work?"

Problems at Toyota are not viewed as good or bad, simply a problem that was expected to occur on their way to the target condition. They do not blame operators for problems. They assume that people are doing their best, since they feel that changing out people in a process will likely result in the same problem occurring (most problems are system issues), and teamwork is needed to solve problems (not pointing fingers). That being said, they do not have a laid-back attitude of problems, quite the opposite. It is a diligent focus on solving problems using the Improvement Kata.

Toyota and setting a vision

Toyota uses a broad vision to help move the company in the right direction "One piece flow at lowest possible cost". This helps align the company, especially when departments argue about who will need to take on some inefficiency to help the overall company become more efficient. The example that Rother shares is a logistics manager trying to optimize their process of delivering parts to the factory. The improvement idea presented by the team was to make Logistics unpack and present the parts to the factory, and deliver more frequently in smaller batches. This takes more time, and Logistics see that extra work as waste and slowing them down. However, to the overall process, it's less waste to the factory, which is the best decision overall. Without a vision, the departments will struggle to determine who should take on more waste in the short term for the betterment of the entire value stream, and to help move the company towards the vision.

The vision also keeps teams from working on the wrong problem. Another example provided was the situation where a team needs to increase the number of machine setups, to strive closer to one piece flow. This change will increase the number of setup checks and quality paperwork. Instead of looking for other solutions (because that will increase these tasks), Toyota will proceed with the change because it helps move them closer to their vision. They quickly shift their focus to reduce the impact of the additional setup checks and paperwork, instead of looking for different solutions.

This concept of letting the goal drive activity also carries over with Cost Benefit Analysis and ROI calculations. Instead of using it as a gate for taking action or not, Toyota only uses these financial analyses to help decide which solution is best, or what needs to be done to make it more feasible. If the solution is moving them closer to their vision, then it needs to be done. The analysis is just supporting how to get there, not whether it should be done or not. If the payback is too long, then alternative solutions must be developed to reduce the cost, so it will be more favorable financially. When teams are empowered to come up with more cost effective solutions to support the vision, they have seen impressive results.

Process management vs management by results

Toyota manages the process, whereas most companies manage the results only. If you manage to results, there are many ways to achieve the outcome you want, and most of those ways are detrimental to the business and create a false sense of achievement.

For example, if you want to achieve your sales output for the month ($500,000), you could either:

• produce what the customer wants by having each product deliver on time as planned (good)

OR

• build more of the same items, in hopes that enough will pass test and inspection to complete the sales demand, in order to work around the quality issues, which increases inventory (bad)
• deliver partially completed units to the next process, then recall them early next month and complete them, so you can get the sales credit (bad)
• move resources to higher cost items and deliver more of them, to increase the total output dollars, even if they aren't due yet, which increases inventory and robs the work from the next month (bad)

Ford influenced Toyota?

Toyota adopted many of Ford's assembly line and conveyor system approach, but built the flexibility and problem solving aspect into the model. They are constantly striving to achieve a conveyor system for every product, which is what Ford was trying to achieve (although with only one product). Rother goes through some history of Ford and Toyota and how they developed into the company they are today. Rother also explains that most management practices utilized in companies today are not actually flawed, but need to incorporate continuous improvement and adaptability in order to align with Toyota and keep up with changes in their industry.

Ford Highland Park had elements of continuous flow in the early drawings

Lean tools are temporary countermeasures towards the vision

Common lean tools like Heijunka (Leveling production), kanban (pull systems) and supermarkets are viewed by most companies as ideal states (after they tour a Toyota facility), but Toyota views them as temporary states to help them achieve their one piece flow vision. The real intent with these common lean tools is to create a target condition, so that the process can be evaluated against it, and problems can rise to the surface (when the process fails to achieve the target). Instead of setting up a schedule that is achievable in the short term (like most companies), Toyota will establish a schedule that is not achievable, and work the issues so that it will eventually be achievable. They will then remove the temporary systems (kanban, heijunka, supermarket, etc) so they can continue to move towards one piece flow.

Pareto charts are overused

Pareto charts should not be used as often as they are. They tend to be utilized far too late, after the problems have happened, and when the causes are no longer around to observe. Many times, the "Other" category is the biggest issue on the chart, which still requires additional analysis or data collection. Toyota feels it is better to solve problems as they come up, as you will eventually encounter the biggest and most critical problem, rather than spend time analyzing old data in an attempt to identify the biggest problem. Old data means old information about what happened. Toyota focuses on quick responses to problems as they occur, when the root cause is still able to be found.

Countermeasures are temporary only

Toyota looks for temporary solutions, in order to continue further towards the target condition, instead of coming up with perfect solutions that takes weeks, months and lots of money to implement, and expecting them to be in place for years. If a team is continually improving, today's solution may be improved upon tomorrow, so why spend lots of time and money on something that might change again. He relates a personal example of how a team he worked with spent lots of money and changed priorities for many departments to expedite a new rack system, only to request changes to it the next week.

The Five Questions

Rother describes the 5 questions, which are at the heart of Improvement Kata.

When done correctly, using PDCA and comparing the current condition to the target condition, the countermeasure will become obvious, and it will often times be simpler, easier and more effective than expected. Rother provides an example of a damaged fan blade that resulted in tightening a screw on a fixture, instead of a complicated mistake proofing alignment device or additional operator training that was initially proposed, before the full analysis was completed.

Employee empowerment not what you think

One misconception about Toyota is that the lowest level employees are empowered and given time to solve problems. They are empowered to provide input, but other team members actually observe the process and solve the problems. The operators are expected to follow the standard, and pull the andon cord when they encounter problems. If they spent time working on solving the problems, that would prevent them from stabilizing the process and becoming experts on the standards. They also do not have improvement experts, since everyone's job is to solve problems by using the Improvement Kata, that they were taught and coached on how to follow.

Coaching and mentoring

When mentoring employees on the Improvement Kata, Toyota makes sure that the mentor does not suggest solutions, but instead only asks leading questions, and makes sure the next step proposed by the mentee is logical. If not, then the mentor provides suggestions and helps them through the next step. If they have a better idea than what the mentee suggests, but the mentee is able to move towards the target condition with their own solution, then the mentor cannot suggest their idea, otherwise it ruins the relationship. It would fall back to the mentee wanting to constantly ask "tell me what to do" and not learning how to do it themselves.

They also suggest that a written document (A3) should support any coaching sessions. Otherwise it's too easy to divert from the target condition and get off track. Keep mentoring sessions at 15 minutes to keep the mentee focused on the next step only, not jumping too far ahead, and they encourage them to increase the frequency of coaching cycles. The mentoring should take place often but for short durations. A good mentor-mentee relationship will meet multiple times per day for minutes at a time, instead of on set schedules (one hour per week). If the mentee is not successful, then the mentor is not doing their job, and should use Improvement Kata to figure out why. It is imperative that the mentor take ownership in the outcomes of the mentee, so they are both accountable for results.

"If the learner hasn't learned, the teacher hasn't taught"

How should companies implement Improvement Kata?

For companies to begin to adopt Toyota's kata practices, consider starting with Toyota's vision of "one piece flow at lowest possible cost," since that can apply to any business.

Rother provides a great list of common obstacles that companies encounter that differ from Toyota:

Using action item lists
Senior leaders struggle with internalizing the 5 questions
Using PDCA, there is too much "do" but not enough "check" and "act"
Jump to solutions and skip over detailed analysis and observations
Mentees trying to guess the solution that a mentor has in mind, when in fact, the mentor does not know the solution in reality
Not comfortable with not having a clear path to a solution
Repeating steps (repeating go and see, more analysis) is viewed as a negative or error, when in fact it is part of the learning process
Don't realize it is a new way of managing, not additional work
Spending too long coaching at one time, instead of smaller focused efforts

This book could have been titled "The Toyota Secret" as it clearly explains why Toyota has been so successful, but why most companies cannot replicate what they've done.

If you are just starting out in process improvement, or are an expert or consultant, you will find this book very beneficial, and will want to read it more than once, in order to make sure the message and recommendations are embedded in your memory.

Click here to order Toyota Kata from Amazon >>>

Six Sigma for Small Business - Book Review

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Fri, 18 Jul 2014 19:36:00 +0000

One of the common complaints I hear about Six Sigma is that it is only for big businesses who can afford to invest in getting started. They hear stories about the cost to train a Green or Black Belt, and assume that it would not work in their own business because they are "too small."

I was intrigued by the book, "Six Sigma for Small Business" by Greg Brue (involved with GE's Six Sigma initiative). I was looking for ways to communicate with all businesses how Six Sigma concepts apply to everyone, not just Fortune 500 companies. If you've studied Six Sigma for any length of time, you'll hear all the reasons why it won't work in certain processes, businesses, organizations and industries. All of these reasons are completely false, and I often spend significant time trying to give examples of how it does apply to what they do.

Brue provides a list of common myths about Six Sigma, and his response to them:

Only applies to large companies
Only applies to manufacturing
Requires outside consultants and experts (Black Belts)
It is a complicated methodology that ordinary people do not understand
It overlooks customer requirements
It is a repackage of Total Quality Management (TQM)
It is an accounting game with no real savings
It is only about training
It is a "magic pill" to fix problems with no effort

Once companies are able to get past these myths, then they are willing to see the value it can provide.

There are a couple quotes about Six Sigma that can be used with small businesses, to help them understand why they need to implement a program.

Six Sigma is about "using science and an established set of steps that will give you the bottom-line results you and your employees want."

"Six Sigma is all about identifying and fixing problems that lower costs, improve quality, and raise your bottom line."

What company could argue with that logic? I would add that the customer wants and needs should also be included in these quotes, but I think it's a good way to summarize how Six Sigma can be beneficial to any business.

One reason small businesses NEED to have an improvement program is that they are competing with larger companies, and most likely are more expensive (due to scale and volume pricing). Therefore, small businesses cannot afford to have quality and customer satisfaction issues, whereas larger companies can afford more issues because they can still retain customers with lower prices.

He also provides an interesting Sigma level scale that relates to employee empowerment, that is another key benefit of an improvement initiative.

He also provides a table for different sized companies, showing who should fill certain key Six Sigma roles, and how many people based on your employee size. For example, a business with $3-7 million in revenue with 10-50 employees should have the following roles:

Champion: President/owner
Master Black Belts: Outside expert, or experienced Six Sigma employee
Black Belts: 2-3 employees 100% dedicated
Green Belts: 1-5 employees 20% dedicated
Project Team members: 6 member project team

Brue also gives some real-world examples of Six Sigma tools and ways to simplify them, such as:

Quality Function Deployment (QFD): It can be a complicated tool to use, so he provides a simplified template (provided in book) to help businesses clearly understand their customer needs, without making it too complex.
Gage Repeatability and Reproducibility (R&R): Checking the accuracy of grocery check-out lines to see if each cashier gets the same total
Correlation Analysis: Without calculating an actual correlation coefficient, you can use his technique for outlining the shape of the pattern on a scatter plot, and using the ratio of length and width to estimate correlation. The formula is provided in the book.
Design of Experiments (DOE): He provides a simple example of DOE using shower water temperature based on hot and cold knob settings.

There were a few tips that were provided that work well for small businesses:

Balance the amount of training and projects with the need for results. It doesn't have to be a full immersion, but letting projects drag out and not freeing up time to work on them will quickly kill your Six Sigma program. Do as much as you can afford to do, with the idea that you'll recoup that investment, since that is what you are doing, investing in your people.
To reduce training costs, piggyback your training with larger companies in your area. Many are willing to help the community, and if they have an internal course, there is no extra cost to them. They might also offer some of the experts to help your business get started. Local community or technical colleges offer less expensive training. There are many inexpensive online Green and Black Belt training courses to choose from. A last resort should be to build your own training material.
Use Excel add-in programs, such as Snap Sheets or SigmaXL, instead of starting with Minitab or another more expensive software. This might depend on your training curriculum and what package they use.

I was hoping for more tips and tricks specifically for small businesses, but I still feel this is an excellent book on Six Sigma. I would recommend it to anyone looking for a good comprehensive Six Sigma book for beginners, and especially for those working with or inside a small business.

Learn more about the 'Six Sigma for Small Business' book on Amazon >>>

Tips and tricks for more efficient and effective PFMEAs

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Tue, 15 Jul 2014 21:10:00 +0000

Process Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (PFMEA) tables can be a powerful tool to identify potential failures in a process, and to prioritize which failures should be improved first. However, the effort required to complete a PFMEA can take many hours, which costs money.

Based on our experiences with PFMEAs, here are a list of tips and tricks for making them more effective and efficient. We will break the information into three categories: Forms and Templates, Efficiency, and Effectiveness.

Forms and Templates

Break out the process control column from the detection control column. Sometimes they are contained in the same column, and the teams often focus too much on the detection and forget to talk about prevention activities in place. We would recommend having the columns in this order: Cause of failure mode, process controls, occurrence score, detection controls, then detection score.
Create a new column for Severity x Occurrence ranking, to identify internal rework cost issues (high impact and it happens frequently, regardless if we detect the failure in-house). Typically, teams rank risks by RPN only, but that is only assessing the risk of external customer escapes.
Consider adding another category for cause category, based on the fishbone diagram (Machines/tools/equipment, Methods/Processes, People/Personnel, Materials, Environment, etc). The PFMEA team can summarize the type of causes, and that information can be summarized and reported to identify systemic or higher level issues. If machines is the highest category, then the team should identify a project to look at machine preventative maintenance or equipment calibration updates.

Efficiency (complete PFMEA faster with fewer people)

"The more; the merrier" is not a good approach for conducting a PFMEA. Instead of having a larger team involved in the event just in case certain team members might be needed, invite only the core team, and have others as "experts on call". When the team runs into an issue, highlight the cell by color to identify who needs to answer the question. Then bring in each expert as needed, and review the questions for them all at once.
Before the PFMEA session begins, enter the failure mode and process steps into the form, so the team doesn't waste time watching the facilitator fill it out on the screen.
Don't let the team get hung up on one point differences in scores. Instead, consider flipping a coin, have someone make the tie-breaker decision, vote using majority rules with the team members, or always select the highest score (round up).

Speaking of failure modes, this coin flip controversy cost Pittsburgh the game.

Before diving too deep into the exercise, scope the overall effort ahead of time. Consider evaluating Key Characteristics, Critical to Quality (CTQ) or Most Important Requirements (MIRs) only, instead of trying to assess every requirement. The idea is to start with the most important risks, so the biggest risks get identified as early as possible. Often times, the teams start to dwindle over time, so address the biggest issues when the momentum and excitement is highest.
Start with listing all the failure modes, then group the failure modes together and score them all. This helps align the team with the proper severity score. Next, list all the detection controls and detection scores (that align with the failure modes). Next, brainstorm the causes of the failure modes, then list the process controls and then score the occurrences (to help align the occurrence scores).
Keep sessions between 2-4 hours long. Over 4 hours can be tough for the team members to keep attention. Less than 2 hours is inefficient, since it takes some time to get setup and calibrated, and requires scheduling many more sessions, which increases the chance of people not attending.

To keep the team from digging deep into solutions during the scoring, add notes and ideas into the Improvement Actions column, so the team can move on to the next item.
Keep track of attendance and hours for each PFMEA session, so actual costs can be captured. There is often overestimates of PFMEA cost, so this data will help dispell myths. Ideally, your company will begin to create estimates for how must each PFMEA will cost based on size and magnitude of the effort.

Effectiveness (Identify more potential failures and causes, and make analysis more complete)

Bring in the physical product, forms, software (view on screen), etc that is being discussed, so the team can physically see the process. If possible, perform the PFMEA right in the process area, so observations and questions can be answered quickly by the right people.
Align the failure modes with defect categories in your quality system, and align your process steps with process step names in your business system or documentation.
Fill out as much detail as possible into each column, such as document and reference numbers. Often times, what was written down was a summary of the discussion, and teams struggle to remember what the statements mean when the read it days later, and it helps others not involved in the sessions to understand what was discussed.

We prefer this level of detail, not just "friction" or "excess weight"

After actions are implemented, in order to reduce occurrence scores, there must be a process control (training, fixture, mistake proof device, procedure change, etc) implemented. To reduce detection scores, there must be an inspection or test implemented.
Spend time calibrating the team on the scoring tables at the beginning of each PFMEA session (especially the first session). Don't speed through this process, or you will struggle to keep the team aligned.
Provide scoring handouts for each team member, or post the scoring on the wall. Allow extra time to go through the first couple lines slowly with the team.

A regular review of the PFMEA should be setup as a recurring meeting (suggest monthly or quarterly), to force the teams to get together and update the PFMEA.
Don't use a cut-off RPN score criteria for actions, instead work on the top risks only. Teams can be biased in their scoring when trying to stay below a value (such as 150 or 100) that require actions. Some processes may have many actions over that threshold, but the team cannot address all of them at once. However, AS 9100 requires that the criteria for how the team decides to take action should be defined on the PFMEA. We would recommend taking action on the top 5 RPNs, regardless of score.
Customize the PFMEA ranking tables to align with your business, to minimize scoring differences between teams. Especially if conducting a PFMEA in a service or transactional process, or an industry other than manufacturing (where PFMEAs were developed, and most scoring tables were designed for).

For more information about PFMEAs, download our training material or FMEA Excel template

Which lean book is better? Toyota Way or Toyota Kata

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Sun, 29 Jun 2014 19:18:00 +0000

I saw a recent interview with author Jeffrey Liker about both of these books, and I think he does a great job summarizing what each book can be used for.

He explains that "The Toyota Way" provides companies with the "ideal state" vision. It explains how they should operate (similar to Toyota), and how to think differently about what is possible for their business. It is a powerful book about how Toyota operates.

The Toyota Way is the first book for a general audience that explains the management principles and business philosophy behind Toyota's worldwide reputation for quality and reliability.

However, for most companies, that is quite a stretch from where they are today. Many companies end up rejecting the entire idea based on many factors (not our industry, different business model, different constraints, "we're different," etc). The ideal state seems so far off, that it seems impossible for them, so they shut down and ignore the concepts completely.

In order to close the gap from current state to ideal state, Mike Rother wrote "Toyota Kata". Consider it to be "future state" for companies.

Drawing on six years of research into Toyota's employee-management routines, Toyota Kata examines and elucidates, for the first time, the company's organizational routines--called kata--that power its success with continuous improvement and adaptation.

With an emphasis on problem solving at the employee level, any company can implement these practices, and not feel overwhelmed.

So which book should you start with? Similar to many lean events we run, we need to understand where we are headed and why. I would recommend starting with "The Toyota Way" so companies can see the ideal state. Then, introduce "Toyota Kata," so they can see how to move from current to future state, while still keeping an eye on ideal state.

Watch the full Jeffrey Liker interview below:

What other lean books have you found useful to your company?

"Six Sigma on a Budget" book review with simplified tools

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Sun, 22 Jun 2014 06:20:00 +0000

One of the biggest issues with companies deploying Six Sigma is the upfront cost for training. For a company of 1000 employees, most consultants would recommend 10 Black Belts and 100 Green Belts. Although it can be an effective way to gain critical mass, the price tag can scare many companies away.

There are many ways to cost effectively implement Six Sigma, without all the upfront costs. In fact, we prefer a more targeted approach to process improvement, not a mass training that cannot possibly be supported or managed properly.

Based on these issues with Six Sigma deployment, I was intrigued by the book "Six Sigma on a Budget: Achieving More with Less Using the Principles of Six Sigma"

Despite the title, this book is not about how to deploy Six Sigma cost effectively. We utilize an approach where we identify a target area, focus on making that area successful, then roll out to the rest of the areas in a methodical manner. Please contact us for help with this approach.

Instead, the book focuses on how to use the Six Sigma tools more effectively, to increase utilization with employees and reduce training time. The author, Warren Brussee, went through Six Sigma training at GE, but felt there was a better way to train, without as much technical details, with an approach that provides a more effective use of the tools.

The book covers the basic concepts of Six Sigma, and says that you only need high school level math and Excel software to achieve Green Belt level skills from this book.

Brussee presents many different simplified versions of existing tools, to show how to easily utilize the concepts, without the complexity and effort.

Here are the tools he presents as "Simplified," along with a description on how it differs from the traditional application:

Quality Function Deployment (QFD)

Only uses the two comparisons between customer needs and design options (items). The design items are grouped to help determine priorities. Each customer need is ranked with a 1 to 5 scale (5 being safety or critical), and each design item is ranked with a 1 to 5 scale (5 being that it addresses the customer need completely). The design option that ranks the highest is the best approach for the team. This reminds me of a Cause and Effect Matrix.

Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA)

Only lists the concerns (risks) on the left side column, and lists the potential solutions across the top, using a similar scale as QFD.

Process Flow Diagrams (PFD)

Uses only a few symbols, and only displays four process types: assembly, transfer, measurements, quality judgments

Correlation Tests

Instead of running correlation statistical tests (generating a correlation coefficient), he suggests using visual charts to stack different factors on top of each other, using the same timeline on the x-axis. If you can visually see how variation aligns with other factors, then there might be a correlation. I've seen these simplified charts in Excel, called sparklines. Learn more about sparklines >>>

Gauge Verification

Suggests using "master" parts that are centered near the target (middle of the specifications), then having 3 different operators/machines measure the master part 7 times each. This will provide 21 measurements, of which repeatability and reproducibility can be calculated.

Control Charts

Uses a simpler chart to identify issues that is more intuitive and understandable to workers. Instead of plotting a single data point, a vertical bar is plotted showing the average of the last 11 readings, and the spread represents the variation of the 11 readings. The bars are colored coded based on whether they exceed control or tolerance limits.

Design of Experiments (DOE)

He discusses using a 2-level factorial DOE with 5 replicates (i.e. a 2 factor experiment would require 2^2 x 5 = 20 samples), and to compare the average and standard deviation results to each combination, to find the settings that have minimal variation, and that is closest to the nominal results.

Overall, I would recommend this book if you are looking for "simplified" ways to teach and utilize the tools listed above (QFD, FMEA, PFD, Gage R&R, SPC, DOE).

To order the book or read the first chapter, visit the Amazon page for "Six Sigma on a Budget" >>>

List of supplies for Lean Six Sigma Event Facilitators

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Mon, 26 May 2014 23:14:00 +0000

If you are just getting started leading or facilitating lean or six sigma events, you need to be prepared with a list of kit supplies to have during the event.

Each event will have different objectives and require different supplies, but here is a list of items to consider (Note: Amazon affiliate links):

Write On - Cling On Reuseable Static Easel Pad - Better for the environment than paper easel pads, but if you want paper, at least use the recycled paper version, and you might need a easel pad stand.

Post-it Recycled Sticky Notes - A must have for any event. Select the recycled paper version.

Digital Stopwatch - If you are doing anything related to time, you need real measurements from the process, not data from a system. Timings also allow you to see the waste first hand.

Clipboard with calculator - Useful for taking notes, and doing quick math, such as takt time, yield, or DPMO.

"Butcher" paper roll - Good for taping to wall for process mapping with post-it notes

Recycled Perforated Note Pads - Good for taking notes during walk throughs, tours and process reviews

Colored pencils - Useful for showing multiple flows on spaghetti diagrams

Flip chart markers - Write on dry erase boards or easel pads

Name tents - These are reusable with dry erase markers, to save paper.

Other items that you will need, but should not require ordering online:

Scissors
Rulers
Tape (masking and scotch)
Pencils and pens
Digital camera - someone should have a smart phone that takes good pictures
Tape measure
Glue sticks
Sharpies (permanent markers) - bold enough so words are legible when posted on the wall

The following items are not required, but you might find them helpful:

Pedometer - Easy way to capture actual walking distance of people, instead of what it should be on paper

Label maker - For making signs and labels in work area

Laminator - For making signs to hang in work area or metric sheets that can be wiped clean each day

Measuring wheel - An easier way to calculate square footage and distance than a tape measure

These items above are generic for most events, not specific to a VSM or 5S event, which would require additional items, such as VSM data box sheets or 5S red tags.

Did we forget something important off the list? If so, leave a comment below...

6 resources for Six Sigma Black Belts to save time and improve effectiveness

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Fri, 09 May 2014 03:36:00 +0000

Sigma Black Belts and Master Black Belts often have too much on their plate, especially when there aren't many other Black Belts in your organization.

Here are some resources that you can use to be more efficient and effective, giving you more time to spend coaching and mentoring your Green and Black Belts.

Project Tracking System - Free web-based DMAIC project tracking system, with email reminders for overdue milestones and actions, and upload required artifacts and documents with each phase. This will help you keep projects on track and increase the chance of success.
Green Belt Exam Reminder System - Free reminders sent to Green and Black Belts planning to take the ASQ exam. The emails will provide tips, tricks, materials, and expected progress for key dates and milestones leading up to the ASQ exam, so you don't have to remember to stay in touch with your mentees and make sure they are staying on track.
Lean Six Sigma News - Stay up to date on the latest Lean and Six Sigma trends, tips and tricks. Top blogs, articles, tweets and posts from the top experts and consultants across the web, all displayed on one webpage with no effort.
Lean Six Sigma Skills Assessment - Use this assessment tool to provide your mentees with a way to evaluate their skills and experience on a 1-10 rating scale, based on four major categories: Lean, Six Sigma, DfSS and Soft Skills.
Training Material Powerpoint Templates - Download powerpoint training templates to avoid wasting time creating training material from scratch. Simply add your company logo, review the slide notes, and you're ready to teach topics such as: DFSS, Control Charts, Capability Analysis, 5S, Lean Six Sigma, Cost of Poor Quality, and Root Cause Analysis.
Facilitation Tools - Order items to help you facilitate lean events, such as resusable dry erase sheets, post-it notes, clipboards, VSM data box templates, and more.

Here are some new resources we are working on this year:

Training Reminder System - For each class you teach, setup a checklist to send email reminders as your training class progresses towards the date of the class. Tasks such as:

Check attendance list/sign ups (2 weeks prior)
Print training materials (1 week prior)
Send reminder email and attachments to attendees (2 days prior)
Send contact information to attendees (1 day after)
Send survey to attendees (2 days after)

UPDATE 7/5/14: The class reminder system is now up and running! Check it out at LeanSixSigmaProjects.com >>>

Cause and Effect Prioritization Matrix - Project hopper tool to prioritize projects based on customized criteria and ranking scores, to help determine the best Green and Black Belt projects to work on.

If you are interested in the new tools, sign up for our mailing list to get notified when they are released. If you have other resources you need to make your job easier or more effective, post your ideas below in the comments.

15 last minute tips before taking an ASQ Green or Black Belt exam

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Sun, 04 May 2014 04:05:00 +0000

You've been studying for the ASQ Green or Black Belt exam. You think you're ready, but you're nervous that you overlooked something, or will make a mistake that prevents you from getting certified. Here are some last minute tips to consider, to put your mind at ease. Many of these tips can be used for any exam, but we're targeting those taking an ASQ exam.

If the exam date is months away, or you're just considering the exam, we have provided some tips and reference material for those taking the Green Belt exam on our website at: http://biz-pi.com/certification.asp

If you've decided to take the exam, check out our newly launched "ASQ Six Sigma Exam Reminder System," which provides you with timely updates in your inbox leading up to the exam date. Learn more at: http://biz-pi.com/exam_reminders.asp

The exam is coming up soon. Am I overlooking or forgetting something?

Here are the last minute tips I tell people a couple days before the test.

1) Know your reference material
Don't forget your reference materials and books. You can bring as many items as you want, but if you bring more than 3 things, you have too many. Definitely bring your Primer booklet, however any sample questions and answers from the practice exam must be removed. For reference books (see list of recommended Green and Black Belt books), you should have post-it notes or colored flags to mark and label important sections (see image at left), so you don't waste time searching for the answers.

2) Bring the correct supplies
Bring at least two pencils with good erasers and plenty of lead, and a calculator you are familiar with that has newer batteries. You will be provided with scratch paper that you will need to turn in when you're done, so you don't need to bring paper.

3) Pace yourself

Bring a watch or cell phone, so that you can properly pace yourself, so you don't lose track of time. Here is the takt time for both tests, which is how much time you have to complete each test. You should check after every 30-60 minutes where you are at to make sure you are ahead of schedule.

Green Belt: 144 seconds per question (2:20)

100-question, 4-hours
240 minutes / 100 questions
2.4 minutes per question, or 2:20 or 144 seconds

Black Belt: 96 seconds per question (1:36)

150-question, 4-hours
240 minutes / 150 questions
1.6 minutes per question, or 1:36, or 96 seconds

So you need to be quicker than you were with the Green Belt exam, in addition to the tougher questions. If you don't know what takt time is, review the section on Lean.

4) Stay positive

If you think you are going to pass, you will be more relaxed and more likely to succeed. Maintain a positive attitude even when you're struggling, and try to stay relaxed. If you start to feel nervous take a few deep breaths to relax, or stretch for a few seconds.

5) Start with the easy questions

Don't stay on a problem that you are stuck on, especially when time is a factor. Since it is multiple choice, if you run low on time, you can always guess at the hard ones. All questions are equally weighted, so the easy questions are worth the same as the hard ones. If you skip a question, put a star or mark it so you can quickly find it (both on the question booklet and the answer sheet).

6) Take your time

Pace yourself, don't rush. Read the entire question and pay attention to exactly what they are asking for, which might not be what you read the first time. The exam will have questions that seem tricky or worded in a way that may be confusing. Don't skim it or make assumptions about what the question might be asking.

7) Focus on you

Don't worry if others finish before you. Focus on the test in front of you, and how you are doing. Use the full time allotted if possible, to increase your chance of getting the best score possible, as exams are ranked based on complexity/difficulty. Learn more at: http://asq.org/cert/faq/exam-grading-process-detailed

8) Inspect your work

If you have time left when you are finished, look over your test answers. Make sure that you have answered all the questions, since there is no penalty for guessing. Watch out for careless mistakes (misaligned answers with the question number, especially if you skip questions). Ensure that you fully fill in the ovals so you get proper credit, and fully erase answers you decide to change.

9) Eliminate poor answers

Since the exam is multiple-choice questions, the process of elimination can help you choose the correct answer. Start by crossing off the answers that couldn't be right. Then spend your time focusing on the possible correct choices before selecting your answer. I prefer to cross out the ones I eliminate, so it's more visual.

10) Breaks may be worth the time

Take a break during the test if you need it. A five minute break may seem costly, but it can refresh your mind, and help you break from a stressful situation. Even standing up and doing a quick stretch can be enough to get your mind back on track.

11) Get to bed early

This seems obvious, but many people try to get as much studying in the night before, and it can do more harm than good. Your brain and body need sleep to function well, so don't stay up late! In fact, go to bed earlier than you normally do, as you may be nervous or have trouble falling asleep, so the extra time might come in handy. Cramming is not helpful for these exams, since memorization is not important.

12) Know your exam location

Do you know where the exam is taking place? If you have never been there before, go visit the location so you know how long it takes to get there. This includes finding the actual exam room, not just the building. The exam date is not the time to get lost or take the wrong road.

13) Eat a good breakfast

Don't skip breakfast the morning of the test. Hunger can cause distractions, and drain your energy. Consider bringing something to eat like power bars, candy, snacks and/or something to drink.

14) Arrive early

Get there early to allow for unforeseen problems (accidents, construction, car issues, etc) that can stress you out or make you late. This will also give you time to review your notes right before the test, so your brain is ready to go.

15) Set multiple alarms

The last thing you want is to oversleep and stress out getting there, or worse, arrive late and not have time to finish. Set multiple alarms, and have someone else make sure you are up by a certain time. This is a significant and important test, so take every precaution you can.

Hope these tips are helpful to you. Did we forget some tips that you feel are important? If so, leave a comment below. Good luck!!

Adding comments that move with the data in Excel SPC control charts

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Sat, 19 Apr 2014 22:59:00 +0000

When you first start out implementing Statistical Process Control (SPC), it is unlikely that your company will invest in a powerful software package. Most likely you will start out using paper and pencil method or Excel, because there is no external payments required to get started (labor only).

You can manually create columns in Excel to calculate the control limits for your chart, since Excel can quickly provide a line chart. To help you avoid creating the control limits and chart yourself, you can download a simple Excel file of an Individual Control Chart for free >>>

One of the biggest limitations to using Excel is the ability to identify out of control points. I don't have any great solutions for this unfortunately. This is why a software package like SigmaXL is ideal, which is an inexpensive Excel add-in (under $300). The work around to this limitation is to train your employees on the Western Electric or Nelson rules, and provide a handouts for them to reference (somewhere near the location of the control charts for quick access). Even with lots of training, out of control conditions will be missed or incorrectly identified.

The next limitation is the ability to mark the out of control condition with a comment about the assignable cause or corrective action (also known as OCAP or out of control action plan). Until recently, I would make a comment in Excel by inserting a text box into the chart. However, as you add more data points to your chart, the text comment does not move with the out of control point. You have to manually move it, which is a pain, and probably won't be properly maintained.

There is a solution to this problem!

First, we need to isolate the data point you want to assign the comment. Click on the data point in the Excel chart, which will highlight all the chart data points.

Next, click on the same data point a second time, to isolate only that data point. Otherwise, the changes will be applied to all points (which we don't want).

Next, right click on the isolated data point. You should see the following menus appear.

Next, select the "Add Data Label" command.

This will assign the actual data value to your data point. Click on the data value to edit the value, and write in your comment.

We entered "Forgot to calibrate before measure" as the new data label. This will keep your comment aligned with your data point, even when new data points are added. In the chart below, we have added 20 more data points, but the comment stays connected with the out of control point. Problem solved!

I would also recommend changing the data point color of the out of control condition (as shown above), so it stands out, and you can show others that it was identified.

Simply right click on the isolated data point (make sure it is the only point highlighted).

Next, select "Format Data Point..." then click on the "Marker Fill" section

Select "Solid Fill" and then select the color of the data point. Red is a commonly used color for out of control points.

As a reminder, here is the link to this free simple Individuals control chart template for download >>>

If you would like to train your employees on Statistical Process Control (SPC) Charts, purchase our training Powerpoint template >>>

Have you found any other tips for control charts in Excel?

How to increase the number of graphs you can display in Minitab beyond 100

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Tue, 15 Apr 2014 03:18:00 +0000

With an increasing amount of data being collected and analyzed these days, I often run into the restriction in Minitab that you can only have 100 charts displaying in the project file at any given time.

There is a way to change it in the Options settings.

Go to Tools --> Options

In the Options section, select Graphics --> Graph Management

In the field called “Maximum number of graphs:” at the very top, change it from 100 to whatever number you need, such as 250 or 500. I would suggest only the number of variables in your data set, so you don’t use up too much memory or storage space in your file, as it will take longer to save and open in the future.

This number will be saved as the default setting for Minitab going forward, so you don’t need to change it every time.

There are other options for dealing with graphs that you can change on this page. I would leave the default settings until you become more familiar with Minitab and know what changes you are making.

Do you have any other Minitab tips you'd like to share?

What if you can't find a Green Belt project for certification?

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Fri, 14 Feb 2014 03:42:00 +0000

When promoting Six Sigma certification, we rarely have difficulty getting people interested in the idea. With opportunities to increase your salary $4000 to $7000, get promoted, improve your problem solving skills, and boost your resume or C.V., most are willing to put in the hard work to obtain a certification, especially at the Green Belt level.

The biggest problem we run into is helping people find a project to work on.

"Do I have to do a project, can't I just take the training and take a test?"

Projects are important to allow you to get an opportunity for hands-on experience applying what you have learned in the training. The real world is much different than the textbook examples, so it's important to learn how to take the concepts and figure out how they fit into your company, job function, and industry. This also provides you with an opportunity to explain these concepts and ideas to your co-workers and management, who may know nothing about Six Sigma. This also helps the learning process when you have to explain it or teach it to someone else.

In addition, the training you receive will not make complete sense until you are analyzing your own data that you are very familiar with. This allows you to compare your current approach to analysis against the training, to see how the analysis confirms or conflicts with your initial interpretation. That is where true learning takes place.

To help you brainstorm some ideas for defining a project, we put together a few example projects we found online. Most training classes show manufacturing examples, but the majority of the opportunity in the world is outside manufacturing (service processes). It can be difficult to figure out how to select a service related project, so these examples should give you a few ideas.

Hopefully you see the value in doing a project along with the training.

"But I can't find a project to work on"

What if you can't get support for a project from your current company? Is that fair that you are stuck with no options? You want to learn the tools to help you with your day-to-day problem solving, and enhance your chance for promotion, but if your company won't give you the time, direction or support for a project, now what?

There is a Green Belt certification option through Lean Sigma Corporation that does not require a project. Instead of a project, you complete 17 modules, go through examples and exercises using Minitab or SigmaXL, take interactive quizzes, and complete tests at the end of each phase. You also need to get a score of 80% or higher on the final exam (150 questions over 2.5 hours) in order to become certified.

The certification is recognized globally, and covers the body of knowledge from both ASQ and IASSC. It is accredited by The Council for Six Sigma Certification. They also have an option to have a Master Black Belt mentor and guide you through the training and your project (if you choose to have one), reviewing each phase and your artifacts, to make sure you're ready to move on, and understanding the tools and concepts correctly.

A demo of the online training system is also available on their website

We still feel that a real project is the best way to go to get the most out of your learning experience. Even though the online certification program does not require a project, you should still try to get one defined and completed, so you have some true improvements to show your employer (or future employer). However, we know that isn't always possible, especially if your company does not support your training and certification. It can be a catch-22 if your company doesn't give you the time or support to take training and get certified. You might feel stuck, in that you want to be able to do more process improvement projects in your future job, but you can't get hired into a position to do that without a certification. The online Green Belt certification option can help address this dilemma, and get you moving in the right direction.

Let's summarize the information in this article:

1) Green Belt certification is an excellent skill set to have. Find general information about Six Sigma certification

2) Training is highly recommended along with an improvement project. See examples of projects

3) If you can't get a project, but want to move forward with a project, check out the online Green Belt certification. At your earliest opportunity, apply your new skills to an actual project.

If you don't like this option, we also compiled a list of other Green Belt certifications that might meet your needs, budget or schedule.

Good luck! The journey is challenging but the majority of people find it rewarding and they were glad they went through it.

Ideas for airlines on how to make lines and wait time shorter for passengers

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Fri, 27 Dec 2013 07:32:00 +0000

As an avid airline passenger, I’ve flown on many different airlines (most major airlines) and visited many different US airports (and a few international airports). What I've noticed is that the process of how to get checked-in, through security, and loaded onto the plane seem to be ripe with opportunity.

Let’s break this down into three major processes:

Checking in
Going through security
Loading the plane.

Checking In

This area has been steadily improving over the past few years, especially with online check-in and electronic ticketing. I actually don’t have many complaints with this process (unless the airline is not using these options). The best situation is when the check-in kiosks are separated from the line. I dislike when you have to wait in a line that has both people waiting for kiosks, and those with questions for the attendants. It gets confusing, and slows down the process for those only needing the kiosks. There are also people who aren't paying attention when a kiosk opens up, so you have to try to get their attention. I also prefer when the airline takes your checked bag after you weigh and tag, instead of giving it to you to give to security. I think that has gone away now, but it was a bunch of wasted steps.

Going through security

My observations and experience with going through the security line is that the line slows down due to the natural variation (common cause) in the time it takes passengers to get organized and loaded onto the conveyor belt. Each passenger is quite different on how long it takes to remove their clothing items (coats, belts, watches and shoes), take out their liquids, take laptops out of bags, take out coins and money, and get their baggage placed on the conveyor. Today, it's a high pressure race to get things off and out of bags with no room to maneuver, and no place to set things. It’s the most stressful part for me when I fly. People are constantly pushing to get their bags on the conveyor behind me. While under pressure, you will ultimately forget your belt or something in your pocket, and have to go back through (rework).

I'm guessing that the scanning process of the bags is most often times the bottleneck, so if we apply the theory of constraints to this issue, the baggage scanning should never be waiting for any bags, yet it is often times idle, due to this variation in passengers getting prepared for the scanner.

I would like to see a staging area after you get your ID and ticket checked, where you can take as long as you want to get all your stuff organized into the trays. I would like to see a big open area with table and chairs where you can sit down, open your bags and pull out the liquids, take off your shoes and laptop, and go at your own pace. Similar to the seating you have after the security line. This would be helpful for all travelers, but especially elderly, those with children, or those with lots of carry-ons.

When you are done, then you get in line for the X-ray scanning (could be multiple lines to choose from), and it's much less stressful. The only downside is moving your bags and trays back to the conveyor, but hopefully it could be placed close enough to the conveyor where that would not be a huge issue.

By the way, the new pre-check TSA system (keep on your shoes and belt, your laptop in its case, and your 3-1-1 compliant bag in your carry-on.) is awesome, and I hope they roll that out as the standard process in the future!

Loading the plane

I like the idea of loading the window seats first, then the middle seats, then the aisle seats, starting from the back of the plane, and working forwards.

A variation of that was developed by Dr. Jason Steffen, where the rows and sides of the plane are alternated, to create more space between passengers to allow for maneuvering and room to store bags in the overhead.

You can see Steffen’s method in the video below.

When the airlines started charging more for checked bags, this made the loading time much longer. I don’t understand why they did this, other than it was less costly for them (although I’m not quite sure why).

One possible reason for this change is that it will force people to reduce their total amount of luggage. I’d be curious to see if this has happened, or if everyone has just tried to cram their luggage into a carry-on. This has definitely increased the time to load a plane, and now more people are forced to have their carry-on luggage checked at the gate instead, since there is no more room on the plane. This leads to delays while they roam the overhead units looking for space once they are already in the plane, then it leads to rework where passengers finally realize it is full, and have to get their bag back up to the front of the plane to get it checked. I think they should require us to check all our bags, so you only get a personal bag. Let the baggage handlers do their job (which they probably do pretty efficiently), and reduce the amount of time needed for loading the plane.

The only other option I can think for this rule change is that the airlines are saving money with the baggage handlers, therefore if less bags go through the checked bag process, then they will need less workers. This seems to be the most logical reason to me. Unfortunately, this kind of solution is typical of many companies we work with, who try to save money in one area, and it makes the problem worse in another area. The worst part is that they are pushing the problem to their customers, which is the last thing you want to do. This has to impact the airline’s ability to turn around flights with the longer loading times, which could reduce how many flights occur per day ($$$).

If you're trying to save fuel by reducing baggage, I like Samoa Air’s approach of charging airline ticket cost based on the total weight of the passenger, which includes their own weight and the weight of their baggage. If weight is indeed a big driver of airline fuel spending, then this makes the most sense.

It might be controversial when people are individually being weighed, but I think it’s the most fair from a price perspective. Then it doesn’t matter how many different bags you bring, you are responsible for the total weight.

One other issue I have with loading the planes is when they call out the group numbers. I like the group number idea, but there are two issues:

1) I am never sure what group number was called (audio is poor quality, wasn't paying attention, etc). There is no visual indicator about the current group number. I'm not the only one either, since I always see people asking each other what group number was called. A simple group number on the display boards would make a big difference.

2) The bigger issue is that everyone clusters right near the ticket agent, so often times I think I'm in a line heading towards the front, when in fact the people ahead of me are not in my group, and are blocking the way. When I realize the line at the ticket agent has cleared and the people ahead of me aren't moving, it's too late to get through the cluster, and they quickly call the next group number. Now I'm in the middle of the next group.

United Airlines actually has a good visual control to solve both of these problems...

They have markers for each group number (including first class and preferred boarding), so you simply get in the line associated with your group number, and there is no confusion as to which group is being loaded currently. They are the only airline I have seen doing this.

Finally, a quick note about unloading the plane. It would be nice to require everyone to stay in their seats, to allow "pre-authorized" passengers with short layovers to get off the plane first. This was done during one flight I was on, and it seemed to work really well. There were probably some people who didn't have short layovers that got off in the early group, but I think it worked for most of the people trying to catch their next flight. I think they set the cut off for those with a layover of 30 minutes or less. This would reduce the number of missed flights and reschedules, plus increase customer satisfaction. The rest of the passengers seemed to be OK with this idea, since they probably wished someone had done that for them when they were in the same situation. They only had to wait a couple minutes, so it really wasn't much of a delay for everyone else. We'll see if this idea catches on...

Many of you are avid travelers. Do you agree with our ideas? What are your recommendations?

Update: Here is an article from Portland International on some of their efficiency improvements in different aspects of the airport >>>

Top 3 things to validate before removing test or inspection steps

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Tue, 24 Dec 2013 05:08:00 +0000

A process with excellent capability usually means there is a very small probability that the natural variation of the process will exceed the specification limits. Without getting into a detailed discussion, let's assume you are calculating Ppk for this process. We will discuss Cpk and Ppk confusion at another time, but PQ Systems does a good job of explaining why we will be using Ppk for this discussion:

Estimated sigma and the related capability indices (Cp, Cpk, and Cr) are used to measure the potential capability of a system to meet customer needs. Use it when you want to analyze a system's aptitude to perform.

Actual or calculated sigma (sigma of the individuals) and the related indices (Pp, Ppk, and Pr) are used to measure the performance of a system to meet customer needs. Use it when you want to measure a system's actual process performance.

Most customers would like Ppk to be 1.33 or greater (4 sigma), where the probability of having a failure is less than 1% (99.38% success), even with a process shift of 1.5 standard deviations. If you improve the process even further, you might even achieve 6 sigma, which would be a success rate of 99.99966%. This also depends on your industry, as some lower volume industries might accept a lower Ppk, while higher volume production may require Ppk greater than 2.0.

For the purpose of this article, let's assume the process has been in place for some time (full rate production levels), not a discussion during design and development of a new process or product. In addition, even if your process has a 100% yield does not mean it has good capability. Therefore, a pass/fail step should switch from attribute to variable data collection if possible, so Ppk can eventually be calculated.

At some point, the chance of having a failure is so small, that the question comes up from management: "Why are we still testing or inspecting this characteristic, if it is unlikely to fail?"

Can the test or inspection be eliminated completely? Can we reduce it from 100% down to 50% or 25% or 10%? From a lean perspective, inspection and test are non-value added but necessary (avoiding problems from getting to the customer or further into the process), but perhaps these steps are not even necessary because the process is so good.

In most cases, the end customer will have some say in this matter, especially if they provide the requirements to you. By default, they will be highly resistant to any test or inspection removals. It adds risk to their processes, and they usually don't see any benefit.

Given this resistance, what evidence is required to alleviate their concerns, and allow approval of a reduction or elimination in a test or inspection step?

We have not found any formal documentation on how to deal with this situations. If someone has some guidance (any industry), please let us know so we can share with our clients.

Here is our typical response when asked this question...

There are three areas to look at to prove test or inspection reduction to a customer: Stability, Capability and Risk Mitigation.

Stability: Consistent process data results (no outliers and no trends or shifts on the control chart) that have been happening over a "long" period of time (varies by industry). Ppk calculations assume a stable process, so stability provides confidence that the calculation of Ppk will be maintained in the future. This also implies a sufficient sample size has been obtained, that clearly shows the underlying distribution of the data (normal, weibull, lognormal, etc).

Capability: Good capability results (Ppk > 1.33 minimum, but preferably over 2.0, which equates to Six Sigma performance). Ppk calculation is also based upon an assumption of normality, so if that's not valid, the Ppk results may be incorrect.

Risk Mitigation: Clear documentation of how the process will not produce defects, shift, trend away from the average, or increase in variation in the future. Typically this involves evidence of mistake proofing, SPC knowledge, and operator training.

Even if there was some clearly defined process for making this decision, an agreement between customer and supplier will always be required. We recommend you have this discussion as early as possible before preparing a package, to make sure the customer will consider this option, and the amount of evidence is agreed upon ahead of time. There may be very high severity characteristics (safety critical or operation critical) that will be difficult to justify for sampling, even with high Ppk values, due to the severity of even one escape.

Example

Let's look at a generic example, and see how we compare against the three criteria. Let's assume you have an inspection process that measures the gap between two parts. The gap is recorded into a database, and the results are tracked on an Individuals and Moving Range chart (SPC control chart).

Stable?

As you can see, there is no out of control conditions identified on either chart, so we feel confident that the process has been stable during the time period of this chart. Let's assume this is a six month history of 100 data points.

Capable?

Since we've already shown a stable process, we next check the normality of the data. The chart looks good, but technically it fails the normality test. However, this is due to the resolution of our data. If we go one more decimal point, the normality test passes. Therefore, our data is normally distributed.

Next, we look at the capability histogram compared to the customer requirements, and look at the Ppk calculation.

Clearly, the data falls well within the lower and upper specification (tolerance) limits of 15 +/- 0.20.

Ppk is calculated at 2.40, which is better than a six sigma process. There would be a very remote chance of a failure due to random chance. Therefore, the process is considered capable.

Risk Mitigation?

Now that we have capable and stable performance, we still need to give the customer confidence that we can maintain this performance into the future.

We recommend including the following information in your discussions and proposal:

List of past defects and outliers, along with root cause corrective action that includes a mistake proofing device implemented to prevent recurrence.

Operator and engineering records on SPC training classes completed.

Documentation showing how the operator enters data, reviews charts for out of control conditions, and takes action when required.

Updated PFMEA with a history of completed actions that reduced the highest RPN scores, and regular meeting minutes showing updates to the PFMEA with a cross-functional team.

History of SPC charts on this process, to prove that the SPC charts are not brand new, and that the common and special cause variation has been improved over time.

Operator training program, to show how new employees are properly trained and supervised with regular oversight until skill competency is proven.

Good documentation and work instructions on the process (mainly pictures, clear explanations, cautions, color-coding, etc), to give confidence that a new operator would not produce defects.

Key parameters that have been flowed to the supplier to help control variation on this measurement.

History of a stable supply chain (no recent supplier changes or disruptions).

Not every single one of these will be required. Some customers might ask for more than this. However, the more you can complete and provide with your proposal, the higher the probability it will be approved. Want to improve your chances even more? Show the customer what cost savings you can provide to them by reducing or eliminating the step!

Most likely, the first request for elimination will be rejected by your customer, but hopefully they will agree to a reduced sampling plan (check every other part, instead of every one). After a few months of success, maybe every 4th or 10th part will be checked, until eventually the test or inspection is eliminated.

Conclusion

Without any clear industry documentation or guidance on how to reduce or eliminate inspection or test in your process, we hope this provides you with a starting point, to see if your process is eligible or not. The more evidence you can share with your customer regarding stability, capability and risk mitigation will increase the chance that they will agree to a reduction or elimination of a test or inspection step. Giving the customer a financial incentive to approve doesn't hurt either...

What are your experiences with this? Have you been successful? Does your customer refuse to accept any evidence?

How to calculate time savings after reducing distance traveled

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Mon, 18 Nov 2013 07:39:00 +0000

One of the goals of a lean kaizen event is to reduce the overall lead time, from when an order is officially placed by your customers, until you deliver the order to the customer. The longer the lead time, the more money your company needs to have in cash flow and inventory to account for this delay.

Typically, the lead time is significantly longer than the actual time to produce the product or service, often times 10-20X longer than the cycle time (only 5-10% of the lead time is spent working on the order, the rest of the time it sits or gets moved around the facility). For example, if your process is 5 steps, and each step takes one hour to complete, it is not surprising that it can take 50 hours or longer to process an order through the system (5 hours of cycle time x 10 = 50 hours).

One of the first improvements you can make to your process is to reduce the time spent BETWEEN the process steps, in order to reduce the amount of delays and excess transportation in the process.

This can be measured by using a distance measuring wheel to follow the flow of products or people through the process, or measured by AutoCAD or tape measure. The total distance traveled can be calculated before and after the improvements to determine time savings.

According to the book Making Materials Flow, each step of walking is equivalent to 2.5 feet. Each step (2.5 ft) is equivalent to 0.6 secs. If you use the metric system, one step equates to 0.762 meters. Said another way, for every 4.166 feet traveled (1.27 meters), one second of time is wasted.

Therefore, if your process distance traveled is 10,000 feet per day, let's look at the calculations:

10,000 ft / 4.1667 ft/sec = 2400 seconds = 40 minutes = 0.67 hours

3048 m / 1.27 m/sec = 2400 seconds = 40 minutes = 0.67 hours

Next, you can multiply your labor rate x the number of hours of travel. For example, if the labor rate is $30 per hour (including all benefits), then $30 x 0.67 hours = $20 of wasted time per day. If you work 20 days per month, then the cost is $400 per month wasted due to travel.

Any other calculations you've used to capture walking distance savings?

Zero defects does not mean the problem is solved

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Wed, 02 Oct 2013 03:19:00 +0000

One of the common mistakes made by companies is the assumption that the lack of defects means the problem has gone away.

Especially in low volume companies, when a particular problem does not reoccur in a small sample, it is easy to claim victory and move on to a new problem. However, without adequate sample size, that can be a mistake.

Determining adequate sample size depends on two factors: how confident you want to be, and how big the problem was prior to the improvement.

Let's assume a defect was occurring in a process approximately 20% of the time. The team comes up with a solution and implements it. 10 more units are produced from the process with the "new solution" and there are zero defects. Success! Actually, not so fast...

How likely were we to get zero defects, if nothing was improved? It turns out, the odds are pretty good. We can calculate that exactly using Minitab.

Go to Calc --> Probability Distributions --> Binomial (Pass/Fail data)

Let's say the failure rate is 20%, so enter 0.2 for Event Probability and 10 for # of trials, with a input constant = zero (number of failures)

Binomial with n = 10 and p = 0.2
x P( X <= x )0 0.107374

This output means that there is only a 10-11% chance of seeing zero failures in 10 samples, if we still have a failure rate of 20%. We ideally would like to see less than 5% chance.

If the failure rate is higher at 50%, then the chance of seeing zero failures would be much lower (since it's pretty likely to have a failure show up under normal conditions).

Binomial with n = 10 and p = 0.5
x P( X <= x )
0 0.0009766

If the failure rate is only 10%, then the chance of seeing zero failures would be higher (since it's less likely to have a failure under normal conditions)

Binomial with n = 10 and p = 0.1
x P( X <= x )
0 0.348678

34% is too high of a risk to conclude that the problem went away. If you get a probability less than 5% (such as with a failure rate of 50%), then you can conclude that the problem likely has gone away. If greater than 5% (such as with failure rate of 10% or 20%), then we don't have enough samples to "claim victory". We would need to collect more samples. You can keep adding trials to Minitab until it gives you a sample size that shows a probability less than 5% (less than 0.05).

In this example, with 10 samples and zero failures observed, the original failure rate should have been at least 25% before the problem was fixed, in order to statistically say that the problem has been resolved. If your previous failure rate was less than that (say 15%), then you will need more samples (trials) before you can feel confident the problem has been resolved.

Minitab has another method for figuring out the correct sample size and confidence. We will cover that in a later discussion (or email us if you need help).

Don't have Minitab? The calculations are easy manually for zero defects...

Probability of zero defects with 10% failure rate = (0.9 * 0.9 * 0.9 * 0.9 * 0.9 * 0.9 * 0.9 * 0.9 * 0.9 * 0.9) = 0.3486

Probability of zero defects with 20% failure rate = (0.8 * 0.8 * 0.8 * 0.8 * 0.8 * 0.8 * 0.8 * 0.8 * 0.8 * 0.8) = 0.1073

Next time you are reviewing your data, make sure you have the statistical confidence to say that the problem has gone away, so you don't get embarrassed later when it returns.

What do all the lines and boxes mean on a boxplot?

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Tue, 27 Aug 2013 05:59:00 +0000

The Boxplot is one of simplest graphical tools to look at, and a tool I use very frequently when first reviewing my data sets. It is a great visual tool for showing the variation and average of a data set, that is not sensitive to outliers (nonparametric approach). The chart shows how the data breaks down by categories, to help you identify areas of concern or potential causes of your problem.

However, it is the most confusing chart to explain how each piece of the box is calculated. When teaching a basic statistics class, I actually avoid discussing the boxplot, because it brings about many questions and becomes a distraction for the class attendees.

When we look at the boxplot simplistically, it gives us a quick understanding of our data. Let's look at an example from Minitab.

You should be able to draw some simple conclusions from the chart

The boxplot for the paint data shows that paint blend 4 has both the highest median and least variability, with an interquartile range of only 3.10.
Blends 1 and 3 appear to have roughly similar medians and variability.
Blend 2 has the lowest median and greatest variability, with an interquartile range of 11.72. The short whiskers indicate clumps of data near the box endpoints.
There are no outliers in the data

Ultimately, the very next question is always "how are the box and lines calculated?"

Let's breakdown the chart to help clarify it.

Determine Median (50th percentile) = 146
Determine 1st quartile (25th percentile) = 141.5
Determine 3rd quartile (75th percentile) = 150
Calculate outlier range “whiskers” as (1.5 * (Q3-Q1)) = 12.75 from median (133.25 to 158.75)
Calculate Interquartile Range (IQR) by taking Q3 – Q1 = 150 – 141.5 = 8.5
Draw line through median
Add asterisks if data outside outlier range

You can also download the Boxplot guide below for future reference.

Hopefully this helps you understand box plots, and you see the need to use them prior to analyzing
any data set.

8 ways why batching is bad for your business

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Fri, 23 Aug 2013 01:04:00 +0000

One of the most common questions we get when reviewing a process:

"What's wrong with batching? I can produce so many more widgets when I do it this way?"

When I first started out in Lean, I had the same questions. It seems more efficient to the worker, and therefore it doesn't make sense to them that someone would want to change that. It took a few improvements before things started to sink in for me.

Just so everyone is on the same page, when you batch, you don't complete tasks one item at a time, you wait until you have a few items, then complete the task all at once. Usually this is because the time to get setup to complete the task takes a while, so it's more efficient to do the task all at once. However, the time waiting for a large enough batch to complete causes the next step to wait, then it generates a large amount of inventory all at once, which is unable to deal with the inventory and therefore it will need to be stored or will sit waiting to be worked on.

Don't believe us? Check out this video of envelope stuffing, and you'll understand why one at a time is better.

Here are a list of reasons why batching and inventory is bad:

1) Delays in detecting problems - The parts are not allowed to move to the next process until the whole batch is complete, so any problems found later in the process are delayed, adding to the number of items with problems that will need to be reworked or thrown away, increasing costs.
2) Taking up resources - Any items being produced that are not needed right now are taking up time at that process step, that could be better spent on things that are needed, which delays deliveries to customers.
3) Inventory cost - The labor and cost to process the items has been spent, but since it's not needed yet, it will take longer to get paid by the customer, which reduces cash flow and the cost of capital (money that could be getting a return on investment).
4) Cost to store inventory - Inventory needs to be stored, so there is a cost to process and record it, package it to protect it from damage, put it somewhere out of the way (requiring more floor space, which adds to the cost of utilities for lighting, heating and cooling).
5) Potential for problems - Once the inventory is stored, there is an increased chance that it gets damaged, deteriorates, corrodes, etc. This requires it to be redone or reworked or discarded, which costs money.
6) Loss of customers - If a customer cancels the order, or asks for a different version, or the part is no longer made available for sale, then the inventory becomes worthless, so the expense of buying and purchasing the items is lost.
7) Cost to dispose - There may be additional costs to deal with the scrap or unneeded items beyond the wasted labor and material costs, such as landfill disposal costs, cost to transport or pickup the items, fill out paperwork, or even properly recycle it.
8) Perception differs from reality - As seen in the video, the perception of batching may not actually result in faster processing.

Don't get me wrong, there are situations where batching is a better option in the short term (large setup times, low cost of inventory, inconsistent deliveries, etc). There are other situations, especially when ordering from a supplier, where travel and bulk discounts come into play. For these situations, an economic order quantity can be calculated that considers all these extra costs, to decide how large the batch size could be. However, in general the goal is to minimize the size of batches as much as possible by making the setup times less.

What examples do you have that helped you understand inventory and one piece flow? What other problems does inventory and batching create?

8 steps for passing the ASQ Six Sigma Green Belt or Black Belt exam

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Fri, 31 May 2013 01:46:00 +0000

We have taught many students how to prepare for ASQ exams. I've even taken (and passed) the Certified Quality Engineer (CQE) exam once, and the ASQ Black Belt exam twice (do not let your certification expire, or you will need to re-take the exam!).

We often get asked what the best approach for passing the exam should be.

I'm going to assume that you have some prior Six Sigma or statistics training, and you are looking for a way to refresh yourself on the topics.

Since many people are now taking the Certified Six Sigma Green Belt (CSSGB) exam, I will focus a little more on that exam, but many of the tips apply to the Black Belt (CSSBB) exam.

If you have not taken any Six Sigma training, I would recommend checking out our webpage on getting free online Green Belt training

1) Order the Certified Six Sigma Green Belt Primer (QCI) and Solution Text - This will provide you with almost everything you need to know to pass the test. If you know the material in this book, there is a really good chance you will pass. You don't have to sign up for the exam yet, we will discuss that later on...

2) Read every word of each chapter once. I would start at the beginning and work your way through the book in order. This will get you familiar with every topic and definition.

Are you limited by time, or want to be more strategic in your efforts? Since they provide you with the percentage of questions by section (according to the 2nd Edition of the CSSGB primer), start from the top of this list, and work your way down, focusing on the sections you don't know as well.

3) After taking the sample questions, mark your book with a post-it note or post-it flag/arrow for keywords and topics that you want to retrieve quickly during the exam. There is an index in the back of the book, but some people find the post-its more helpful. The sections do not always seem intuitive based on their name, so don't think that will be much help during the exam.

4) Answer all sample test questions at the end of each chapter. The questions are based on old test questions, That means:

They are a good representation of the type of wording and questions you will get on the actual exam.
They may have been thrown out or poorly worded, so you will get frustrated with some of the answers.

Therefore, don't get too wrapped up in one or two questions. You will notice that reading the question clearly is very important. Don't just skim it and think you understand what they are asking for.

After taking the sample questions, check your answers in the primer, and review the questions you got incorrect. Read the explanation, and see if it makes sense. Go back into the primer and make notes about the question. Often times, there is a similar example in the training material that you can add comments in the margin.

NOTE: You will not be able to bring the practice questions or solution text into the exam. It is open book, so almost everything else you can bring in for reference, except those two things.

If you still aren't sure why the answer was correct, seek out some help from people in your company or network who can help you out. We will be setting up some exam review sessions starting in October 2013, so contact us for dates of online and in-person review sessions.

5) After reading the book, and taking the sample questions, you should feel comfortable knowing if you have a chance at passing. If you feel like you understand most of the content, and are getting most of the questions correct (at least 50% correct on the first time through), then you are probably ready to sign up for the exam. There is no official cut-off or % correct, since it is based on a difficulty rating, but the rule of thumb is around 70% correct. Study and prepare so you will get at least 80% correct, so you don't push your luck.

6) After signing up for the exam, continue working on the problems you struggled with. Some additional training might be helpful, if the primer book is not explaining it very well. Again, check out the free online Green Belt training from BMGi. If you can't find any helpful training on the topic, contact us and we'll point you in the right direction.

7) Read the blog we wrote titled "15 last minute tips before taking an ASQ Green or Black Belt exam" at least one month prior to the exam date. Some of these tips are pretty simple, but it helps to think about everything, and be proactive.

8) Any additional free time should be spent re-reading and reviewing each section, with an emphasis on the sections with the most questions (see Pareto chart above). If you don't know what a Pareto chart is, you should start planning to re-take the exam!

If you feel more comfortable having some reference materials with you (not required), I would recommend borrowing some of the following books from a colleague (or purchase if necessary):

The Certified Six Sigma Green Belt Handbook

The Six Sigma Handbook

Implementing Six Sigma

There is a lot here to remember. Luckily, we have recently developed an "ASQ Six Sigma Exam Reminder System", that will email you as the exam date nears, with these tips and tricks to help you pass the exam.

Good luck!

Let us know if you have other tips or tricks that worked for you!