Todays Six Sigma

CKGygi client wins Shingo Prize

admin — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 22:48:07 +0000

I am extremely pleased to announce that one of my clients, US Synthetic, won the 2011 Shingo Prize. The Shingo Prize is considered the Nobel Prize for operations. You can read about US Synthetic receiving the Shingo Prize here or you can watch a US Synthetic-produced video describing their receipt of the award:

US Synthetic began their continuous improvement journey several years ago. My consultative role was to integrate Six Sigma problem solving methods into their Lean foundation. The result was a new ability to solve quality and efficiency and cost problems that had hindered their diamond tooling manufacturing for years; it gave them the improvement horsepower they needed beyond the standard level provided by Lean. They were finally enabled to conquer these persistent problems.

Rob Galloway, US Synthetic’s CEO, had this to say about CKGygi’s contribution: “Our company has sincerely appreciated the teaching and expertise of Craig Gygi on our road to winning the Shingo Prize. He made significant contributions in the advancement of our capabilities toward problem-solving and improvement. I would recommend Craig Gygi as a great source of knowledge to companies desiring to improve the capabilities of both their people and operations.”

US Synthetic’s Shingo Prize award is definitely well-deserved. I’m honored to have been an instrumental part of them winning this prestigious award.

“Ruined by ‘Best Efforts’”

admin — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 13:42:55 +0000

When W. Edwards Deming famously said, “We are being ruined by ‘best efforts,’” he was conveying the idea that simply striving to improve—even with laudable effort—can actually have the opposite outcome. How can this be? How could good intentions and diligent work ever possibly sabotage us? Well, they do all the time. (more…)

Product Innovation Through Powerful Problem Statements

admin — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 05:39:05 +0000

Last week I had the opportunity to present a webinar at the Project Management Viewblog. I spoke on how Six Sigma-powered problem statements can actually improve innovation in a project. Interestingly, that’s contrary to what many product managers believe. (You can review a full audio-video playback of the webinar presentation by clicking here.) (more…)

Answers to Frequently Asked Questions

admin — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 17:18:41 +0000

When companies consider the merits of Six Sigma or consider embarking on a Lean Six Sigma effort, concerns and questions always arise. Many companies have heard of Six Sigma, but most have no idea what it actually is or how it works. Here’s a helpful list of the basic questions companies get wrong most frequently.

Q: Lean Six Sigma only fits large companies, right?

A: Not at all. Companies as large as GE have saved billions using Six Sigma. But small companies have actually proven to achieve similar results more quickly than larger companies. Lean Six Sigma is a key component of improvement for any size business. (more…)

Guidelines for Successful Projects

admin — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 17:11:11 +0000

Newcomers to Six Sigma often struggle to pre-emptively recognize improvement projects that are ill-formed and bound to languish. This ability to spot problem projects develops with time and experience. But after seeing and reviewing thousands of projects, I have found that there are some key indicators—some telltale clues—that allow even inexperienced reviewers to know it’s time to stop and take a closer look at a project’s viability. (more…)

Quality Beliefs Determine Improvement Behavior

admin — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 18:40:17 +0000

Over the last few months, I have been helping an international holding company assess the operations of their portfolio of companies. They want to know things like, “How Lean are the operations at each company?” “How far along is each company in its Six Sigma improvement journey?” And, “What are the common opportunties and strengths we can build upon?” I’ve visited company sites, reviewed operation activities, collected data, and interviewed executives and staff. I have found that, in many ways, the foundation for excellence in operations can be boiled down to a single, simple question: “How do you define quality?” (more…)

The Pareto Principle: A Breakthrough Principle For Business and Life

admin — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 00:02:12 +0000

Vilfredo Pareto (1848-1923) was an Italian economist who proposed that 80 percent of an economy’s wealth is held by 20 percent of its population. Since Pareto proposed his famous principle, it has been confirmed that this 80-20 rule of thumb also applies to many other phenomena, including the distribution of product/process quality. For example, it has been found that 80 percent of the observed defects on a product or in a process can be attributed to 20 percent of the possible causes.

The Pareto Principle is a principle because, by definition, it holds true across a broad range of situations and applications. The Pareto Principle describes the behavior of much more than just the usual distribution of product or manufacturing defects. Here are some other areas—from both business and life—where I’ve found the Pareto Principle provides the key to understanding and improvement: (more…)

10 Statistical Concepts Everyone Should Know

admin — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 05:03:10 +0000

Bill Kappele, technical director and instructor at consulting company Objective DOE, does a great job of teaching individuals and organizations how to use experiments to reach a powerful level of improvement knowledge. He’s compiled a list of 10 statistical concepts that every engineer should know.

Bill’s list is excellent. In fact, I believe his 10 key concepts should be known by everyone tasked with making process or system improvements. But because Bill’s audience is primarily engineers, the language he’s used may be hard for some to get through. Here’s how I would tweak Bill’s list to extend it’s value to a larger audience: (more…)

Hospital Errors and Accountability Continued — “Medicine Mix-Ups Harm Hospitalized Kids”

admin — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 23:32:31 +0000

Fox News ran a story today that shines further light on the problem of healthcare quality: Medicine Mix-Ups Harm Hospitalized Kids. This is just more data characterizing the magnitude of problems in today’s healthcare (see earlier post: Hospital Errors and Accountability - The Beginning of a Six Sigma Journey?)

It is amazing to me to see healthcare struggling with such basic issues. Here’s a telling excerpt from the Fox News story:

“Researchers found a rate of 11 drug-related harmful events for every 100 hospitalized children. That compares with an earlier estimate of two per 100 hospitalized children, based on traditional detection methods. The rate reflects the fact that some children experienced more than one drug treatment mistake.

“The new estimate translates to 7.3 percent of hospitalized children, or about 540,000 kids each year, a calculation based on government data.

“Simply relying on hospital staffers to report such problems had found less than 4 percent of the problems detected in the new study.”

Wow! Just from the numbers perspective, healthcare-caused mistakes are near the very top of the Pareto diagram of things negatively impacting society. There’s no question that healthcare needs drastic improvement. The question is how and where.

W. Edwards Deming asserted that in every system quality is the result of the collective procedures, policies, and systems of the organization. Deming’s assertion directly opposes the notion that quality originates from the built-up good/bad efforts of individuals. Decades of time and countless examples from the world over have cemented the truth of Deming’s principle, so much so that anyone in today’s world wishing to argue against Deming might as well kid themselves that they can compete in the global economy using rocks and sticks.

Since quality is the result of the collective procedures, policies, and systems of an organization, the lasting solution to quality can reside in only one place—with those that plan, implement and manage the system! In other words, better doctors, nurses, and patients will not solve these problems in healthcare. A solution can only be achieved by those managing today’s healthcare—hospital administrators, insurers, politicians, etc. (Ironically, it is those same decision-makers that are the root cause of the problems experienced today. Take, for example, the unintended problems caused by the choices of Massachusetts’s healthcare managers, as reported by the New York Times: In Massachusetts, Universal Coverage Strains Care )

Hospital Errors and Accountability — The Beginning of a Six Sigma Journey?

admin — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 02:31:53 +0000

For nearly a decade, data has shown that almost 100,000 deaths occur each year due to preventable hospital errors. Accounts of botched medical services pepper news outlets. Even celebrities are reporting ill effects: Dennis Quaid, Glenn Beck.

Today, CBS News reported on what some hospitals and some state and federal government organizations are doing to begin to address the problem.

Providing care and medical services to a person in a hospital is a process—just as much as assembling a product or completing a financial transaction are processes. (The only difference being that a human being is the object that goes through the process.) For those reading who know a bit of Six Sigma, Lean, or BPM—imagine how much opportunity there is within the domain of healthcare to undertake process improvement work! And because healthcare directly affects the wellbeing of people, imagine the direct benefits to individuals and communities. This news story from CBS begs questions like: why haven’t hospitals started improvement efforts sooner? And: what factors in our society (doctor/nurse practices, economic pressures, government regulations, hospital procedures, insurance constraints, education, news media, etc., etc., etc.) allow poor quality to reach such deadly levels in the first place?

At least, in some quarters, healthcare providers are hopefully starting to approach the very basics.