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2011 Management Blog Roundup: Stats Made Easy

Posted on January 8, 2012  Comments (0)

The 4th Annual Management blog roundup is coming to a close soon. This is my 3rd and final review post looking back at 2001, the previous two posts looked at: Gemba Panta Rei and the Lean Six Sigma Blog.

I have special affinity for the use of statistics to understand and improve. I imaging it is both genetic and psychological. My father was a statistician and I have found memories of applying statistical thinking to understand a result or system. I also am comfortable with numbers, and like most people enjoy working with things I have an affinity for.

photo of Mark Anderson

Mark Anderson

Mark Anderson’s Stats Made Easy blog brings statistical thinking to managers. And this is not an easy thing to do, as one of his posts shows, we have an ability to ignore data we don’t want to know. Wrong more often than right but never in doubt: “Kahneman examined the illusion of skill in a group of investment advisors who competed for annual performance bonuses. He found zero correlation on year-to-year rankings, thus the firm was simply rewarding luck. What I find most interesting is his observation that even when confronted with irrefutable evidence of misplaced confidence in one’s own ability to prognosticate, most people just carry on with the same level of self-assurance.”

That actually practice of experimentation (PDSA…) needs improvement. Too often the iteration component is entirely missing (only one experiment is done). That is likely partially a result another big problem: the experiments are not nearly short enough. Mark offered very wise advice on the Strategy of experimentation: Break it into a series of smaller stages. “The rule-of-thumb I worked from as a process development engineer is not to put more than 25% of your budget into the first experiment, thus allowing the chance to adapt as you work through the project (or abandon it altogether).” And note that, abandon it altogether option. Don’t just proceed with a plan if what you learn makes that option unwise: too often we act based on expectations rather than evidence.

In Why coaches regress to be mean, Mark explained the problem with reacting to common cause variation and “learning” that it helped to do so. “A case in point is the flight instructor who lavishes praise on a training-pilot who makes a lucky landing. Naturally the next result is not so good. Later the pilot bounces in very badly — again purely by chance (a gust of wind). The instructor roars disapproval. That seems to do the trick — the next landing is much smoother.” When you ascribe special causation to common cause variation you often confirm your own biases.

Mark’s blog doesn’t mention six sigma by name in his 2011 posts but the statistical thinking expressed throughout the year make this a must for those working in six sigma programs.

Related: 2009 Curious Cat Management Blog Carnival – 2010 Management Blog Review: Software, Manufacturing and Leadership

2011 Management Blog Roundup: Lean Six Sigma Blog

Posted on December 29, 2011  Comments (1)

For my contribution to the 4th annual management blog roundup I am taking a look at 3 management blogs. In this post I look back at the year that was at the Lean Six Sigma blog.

We are lucky to have so many great management blogs to read all year. They provide inspiration and great advice to managers. Though, one of my frustrations is how few good six sigma resources there are online. In this area we are unlucky. The disparity between the amazingly high number of very high quality lean blogs and agile software development blogs compared to almost nothing of similar quality for six sigma content is dramatic (and unfortunate).

photo of Ron Pereira

Ron Pereira

Ron Pereira is the managing partner of Lean Six Sigma Academy and the Gemba Academy which provide high quality online lean manufacturing training. One of the ways Ron stands out are his posts that make continuous improvement a family affair (which I appreciate given that I grew up in such an environment).

In Let’s Dance he looks at understanding psychology as it relates to working with groups/teams (in this case his daughters soccer team): “my coaching style and my assistant coach’s style had become a bit too intense and, as a result, the girls were playing tight and scared to make mistakes… We kept this ‘dancing’ theme alive for the rest of the season. During warm-ups before games I, and the girls, would dance like fools. The other teams watched us like we were nuts… but we didn’t care. We kept right on laughing and dancing.” Take a look at this post, it really packs in a ton of great thoughts for managers.

Another way Ron stands out is with his webcasts on discussion lean terms (the gemba glossary). In this webcast he looks at the topic of standardized work processes.

One of the great things about blogs is the focus on what people really deal with day in and day out. It is nice to read about a great management system in a book like the Leader’s Handbook by Peter Scholtes. But what do you do when you are in a much more common situation, where others don’t share your desire to reshape the management system into something new and better? Ron took a look at this in his post: 3 Things You Can Do When Your Manager Doesn’t Support Continuous Improvement: “The best way to combat this is to demonstrate the value without them asking you to. In other words, make something better and let them know about it. And when I say make it better I mean it. Do something to positively impact the business.”

Another wonderful family related post by Ron this year was Training Wheels – “Like most young people my boy was itching to take the training wheels off his bicycle… The best part of all is he’s learning to solve his own problems. He’s not waiting for people to hand him things on a platter… How many times do we continuous improvement practitioners moan and groan about the lack of management support when, in actuality, even though they may not care they won’t stop you from making things better?”

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One factor at a time (OFAT) Versus Factorial Designs

Posted on May 25, 2011  Comments (2)

Guest post by Bradley Jones

Almost a hundred years ago R. A. Fisher‘s boss published an article espousing OFAT (one factor at a time). Fisher responded with an article of his own laying out his justification for factorial design. I admire the courage it took to contradict his boss in print!

Fisher’s argument was mainly about efficiency – that you could learn as much about many factors as you learned about one in the same number of trials. Saving money and effort is a powerful and positive motivator.

The most common argument I read against OFAT these days has to do with inability to detect interactions and the possibility of finding suboptimal factor settings at the end of the investigation. I admit to using these arguments myself in print.

I don’t think these arguments are as effective as Fisher’s original argument.

To play the devil’s advocate for a moment consider this thought experiment. You have to climb a hill that runs on a line going from southwest to northeast but you are only allowed to make steps that are due north or south or due east or west. Though you will have to make many zig zags you will eventually make it to the top. If you noted your altitude at each step, you would have enough data to fit a response surface.

Obviously this approach is very inefficient but it is not impossible. Don’t mistake my intent here. I am definitely not an advocate of OFAT. Rather I would like to find more convincing arguments to persuade experimenters to move to multi-factor design.

Related: The Purpose of Factorial Designed Experiments – Using Design of Experiments – articles by R.A. Fisher – articles on using factorial design of experiments – Does good experimental design require changing only one factor at a time (OFAT)? – Statistics for Experimenters

Factorial Designed Experiment Aim

Posted on April 25, 2011  Comments (2)

Multivariate experiments are a very powerful management tool to learn and improve performance. Experiments in general, and designed factorial experiments in particular, are dramatically underused by managers. A question on LinkedIn asks?

When doing a DOE we select factors with levels to induce purposely changes in the response variable. Do we want the response variable to move within the specs of the customers? Or it doesn’t matter since we are learning about the process?

The aim needs to consider what you are trying to learn, costs and potential rewards. Weighing the various factors will determine if you want to aim to keep results within specification or can try options that are likely to return results that are outside of specs.

If the effort was looking for breakthrough improvement and costs of running experiments that might produce results outside of spec were low then specs wouldn’t matter much. If the costs of running experiments are very high (compared with expectations of results) then you may well want to try designed experiment values that you anticipate will still produce results within specs.

There are various ways costs come into play. Here I am mainly looking at the costs as (costs – revenue). For example the case where if the results are withing spec and can be used the costs (net costs, including revenue) of the experiment run are substantially lower.
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Problems with Management and Business Books

Posted on April 18, 2011  Comments (9)

We really need to change how we improve the practice of management. Far too often management strategies are just the latest fad from some new book that successfully marketed an idea. The marketing effectiveness of a book, or consultant, has very limited correlation to their ability to improve management, in my experience. It is often true that they make very good keynote speakers, however. So if you want an entertaining keynote speaker looking at the authors of the best selling business books may make sense. But if you want to improve management, I don’t see much value in doing so.

Year after year we have the same basic business books repackaged and marketed. They present a magic bullet to solve all your problems. Except their bullet is far from magic. Usually it does more harm than good.

They amazingly oversimplify things to make their bullet seem magic. This also fails miserably in practice. There are usually not good management options that are simple and easy. Usually the answers for what should be done is a lot of “it depends,” which people don’t seem to like.

Authors fail to place their book (or their trademarked strategy they hope turns into a movement/fad) in the appropriate context. Most books just take a few good ideas from decades old practices add a new name and leave off all references to the deep meaning that originally was there. I guess quite often the authors don’t even know enough about management history to know this is the case; I guess they really think their minor tweak to a portion of business process re-engineering is actually new. This also would make it hard for them to place their ideas within a management philosophy.

On a related note, I find it interesting how different the lean manufacturing and six sigma communities are online (and this has been going on for more than a decade). One of the problems with six sigma is there is so little open, building on the practices of six sigma. Everyone is so concerned with their marketing gimmick for six sigma that that don’t move forward a common body of work. This is a serious problem for six sigma. Lean manufacturing benefits hugely from the huge community of those building openly on the body of knowledge and practice of lean. You can find 10 great lean manufacturing blogs without trouble. You will have difficulty finding 3 good six sigma blogs (and even those spend most of the time on other areas – often lean thinking).
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Good Process Improvement Practices

Posted on November 8, 2010  Comments (2)

Good process improvement practices include:

  • standardized improvement process (pdsa, or whatever)
  • Going to the gemba – improvement is done where the work is done. You must go to the where the action is. Sitting in meeting rooms, or offices, reading reports and making decisions is not the way to improve effectively.
  • evidence based decision making, data guides decision making rather than HiPPO
  • broad participation (those working on the process should be the ones working on improving it and everyone in the organization should be improving their processes)
  • measurable results that are used to measure effectiveness
  • pilot improvement on a small scale, after results are shown to be improvements deploy standardized solutions more broadly
  • visual management
  • Standardized work instructions are used for processes
  • one of the aims of the improvement process should be improving peoples ability to improve over the long term (one outcome of the process should be a better process another should be that people learned and can apply what they learned in future improvements)
  • quality tools should be used, people should be trained on such tools. The tools are essentially standardized methods that have been shown to be effective. And most organization just ignore them and struggle to reinvent methods to achieve results instead of just applying methods already shown to be very effective.
  • the improvements are sustained. Changes are made to the system and they are adopted: this seems obvious but far too often process improvements are really just band-aids that fall off a few weeks later and nothing is done to sustain it.
  • goals, bonuses and extrinsic motivation are not part of the process
  • The improvement process itself should be continually improved

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Management Improvement Internal Experts

Posted on November 3, 2010  Comments (0)

Having a group of internal experts in Deming, lean thinking, six sigma, etc. can be an good way to help the organization transform but they must 1) practice respect for people and 2) focus on building organizational capacity. Having, for example a few experts that are very focused on lean thinking and can be tapped by others in the organization I think can be very useful.

That group might well also serve as “change agents” which can make some people get mad at them. They can help push the organization to change. While it might be nice to think you can just show the wonderfulness that is lean thinking and everyone will immediately drop all their old habits and embrace lean thinking that often doesn’t happen. You might well have to push middle mangers (and others) outside their comfort zone. And you might well have to push people to really try this stuff and they have become so disheartened over the years by promises of new, better, ways to work. They just see this as one more lame pointy haired boss attempt and they may well not want to play.

A big focus should be on making improvement in the performance of the organization, obviously, but also on making it clear that this new way of doing things is helpful and will make it a better place to work. The role of internal management improvements efforts is to build the capacity of the rest of the organization to improve. Six sigma efforts often instead put the emphasis on six sigma experts doing the improvement instead of coaching and providing assistance to those who best know the processes to improve, which I see as a mistake.

Response to The “Lean Group” Syndrome
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Six Sigma Interview with Jack Welch

Posted on October 4, 2010  Comments (0)

The short video includes some interesting points by Jack Welch on six sigma. GE was a huge company and did plenty of things that could be criticized. But often those criticizing take it much to far and disregard the sensible things GE understood and was doing well.

Quotes by Jack Welch: “variation is evil” “Will six sigma companies get more valuation in the marketplace? Not unless they produce results. You can’t put up a slogan that says we are a six sigma company and think the pe is going to move.”

Related: 3M CEO on Six Sigma – Management Advice Failures – New Rules for Management? No! – Has Six Sigma been a failure?

Statistical Engineering Links Statistical Thinking, Methods and Tools

Posted on June 3, 2010  Comments (0)

In Closing the Gap Roger W. Hoerl and Ronald D. Snee lay out a sensible case for focusing on statistical engineering.

We’re not suggesting that society no longer needs research in new statistical techniques for improvement; it does. The balance needed at this time, however, is perhaps 80% for statistics as an engineering discipline and 20% for statistics as a pure science.

True, though I would put the balance more like 95% engineering, 5% science.

There is a good discussion on LinkedIn:

Davis Balestracci: Unfortunately, we snubbed our noses at the Six Sigma movement…and got our lunch eaten. Ron Snee has been developing this message for the last 20 years (I developed it in four years’ worth of monthly columns for Quality Digest from 2005-2008). BUT…as long as people have a computer, color printer, and a package that does trend lines, academic arguments won’t “convert” anybody.
…
Recently, we’ve lost our way and evolved into developing “better jackhammers to drive tacks”…and pining for the “good ol’ days” when people listened to us (which they were forced to do because they didn’t have computers, and statistical packages were clunky). Folks, we’d better watch it…or we’re moribund

Was there really a good old days when business listened to statisticians? Of course occasionally they did, but “good old days”? Here is a report from 1986 the theme of which seems to me to be basically how to get statisticians listened to by the people that make the important decisions: The Next 25 Years in Statistics, by Bill Hunter and William Hill. Maybe I do the report a disservice with my understanding of the basic message, but it seems to me to be how to make sure the important contributions of applied statisticians actually get applied in organizations. And it discusses how statisticians need to take action to drive adoption of the ideas because currently (1986) they are too marginalized (not listened to when they should be contributing) in most organizations.
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Soren Bisgaard

Posted on December 22, 2009  Comments (1)

photo of Soren Bisgaard

Soren Bisgaard died earlier this month of cancer. Soren was a student of my father’s who shared the commitment to making a difference in people’s lives by using applied statistics properly. I know this seem odd to many (I tried to describe this idea previously, also read his acceptance of the 2002 William G. Hunter award). Soren served as the director of the director of the Center for Quality and Productivity Improvement at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (founded by William Hunter and George Box) for several years.

Most recently Soren Bisgaard, Ph.D. was Professor of technology management at Eugene M. Isenberg School of Management at the University of Massachusetts – Amherst. He was an ASQ Fellow; recipient of Shewart Medal, Hunter Award, George Box Medal, among many others awards.

I will remember the passion he brought to his work. He reminded me of my father in his desire to improve how things are done and allow people to have better lives. Those that bring passion to their work in management improvement are unsung heroes. It seems odd, to many, to see that you can bring improvement to people’s lives through work. But we spend huge amounts of our time at work. And by improving the systems we work in we can improve people’s lives. Soren will be missed, by those who knew him and those who didn’t (even if they never realize it).

Contributions in honor of Søren may be made to The International Mesothelioma Program or to the European Network for Business and Industrial Statistics. Read more articles by Søren Bisgaard.

The Future of Quality Technology: From a Manufacturing to a Knowledge Economy and From Defects to Innovations (pdf) by Soren Bisgaard

Related: The Work of Peter Scholtes – Management Improvement Leaders – The Scientific Context of Quality Improvement by George Box and Soren Bisgaard, 1987 – Obituary Søren Bisgaard at ENBIS – Obituary: Soren Bisgaard, Isenberg Professor in Integrative Studies

Highlights from Recent George Box Speech

Posted on November 16, 2009  Comments (4)

The JMP blog has posted some highlights from George Box’s presentation at Discovery 2009

Infusing his entire presentation with humor and fascinating tales of his memories, Box focused on sequential design of experiments. He attributed much of what he knows about DOE [design of experiments] to Ronald A. Fisher. Box explained that Fisher couldn’t find the things he was looking for in his data, “and he was right. Even if he had had the fastest available computer, he’d still be right,” said Box. Therefore, Fisher figured out how to study a number of factors at one time. And so, the beginnings of DOE.

Having worked and studied with many other famous statisticians and analytic thinkers, Box did not hesitate to share his characterizations of them. He told a story about Dr. Bill Hunter and how he required his students to run an experiment. Apparently a variety of subjects was studied [see 101 Ways to Design an Experiment, or Some Ideas About Teaching Design of Experiments]
…
According to Box, the difficulty of getting DOE to take root lies in the fact that these mathematicians “can’t really get the fact that it’s not about proving a theorem, it’s about being curious about things. There aren’t enough people who will apply [DOE] as a way of finding things out. But maybe with JMP, things will change that way.”

George Box is a great mind and great person who I have had the privilege of knowing my whole life. My father took his class at Princeton, then followed George to the University of Wisconsin-Madison (where Dr. Box founded the statistics department and Dad received the first PhD). They worked together building the UW statistics department, writing Statistics for Experimenters and founding the Center for Quality and Productivity Improvement among many other things.

Statistics for Experimenters: Design, Innovation, and Discovery shows that the goal of design of experiments is to learn and refine your experiment based on the knowledge you gain and experiment again. It is a process of discovery. If done properly it is very similar to the PDSA cycle with the application of statistical tools to aid in determining the impact of various factors under study.

Related: Box on Quality – George Box Quotations – posts on design of experiments – Using Design of Experiments

Finding Savings with Six Sigma

Posted on September 19, 2009  Comments (0)

I don’t see any evidence six sigma is making a comeback but magazines like to talk about new ideas rather than just explore what continues. They like to discuss common cause variation as though it were special cause. Six Sigma Makes a Comeback

Unlike in the 1990s, when such executives as General Electric’s Jack Welch embraced Six Sigma with missionary zeal, consultants say today’s converts generally are looking for a fast way to save money.

How sad. Six sigma has always been hampered by a lack of core values (like respect for people, constancy of purpose) and a focus on cost cutting but the direct desire to pursue a deadly disease (short term focus) is sad indication of where some have taken what can be very useful tools.

Still, Six Sigma is finding new life, especially in retail. Target (TGT) claims more than $100 million in savings over the past six years from the program. Mike Fisher, Best Buy’s (BBY) senior director of Lean Six Sigma, says projects like streamlining appliance installation have helped the company save up to $20 million in some cases. “Without a doubt, it put us in a better position to muscle through the recession by getting all of those inefficiencies out,” says Fisher.

Six sigma and quality management other efforts can be very useful. But many of the efforts (as many of any management efforts) are executed poorly and do little good and much that is rightly ridiculed.

Related: Quality and Innovation – Six Sigma Much More than Common Sense – Process Improvement and Innovation

Best Places to Work for Six Sigma Professionals

Posted on November 3, 2008  Comments (0)

iSixSigma has created a list of the Best Places to Work for Six Sigma Professionals. To be eligible to participate, companies must have been actively engaged in using Six Sigma for at least two years and must employ a minimum of 30 full-time Six Sigma practitioners in either Black Belt, Master Black Belt or Deployment Leader roles.

Sixteen companies met all the entry requirements and completed a two-part online survey. The senior Six Sigma leader submitted answers to an employer survey, and the full-time Six Sigma personnel at each company submitted answers to an employee survey.

Companies were ranked 1 through 10 by totaling the scores from the two surveys. The greatest weight was given to the employee survey, which asked questions in five main categories: job satisfaction, culture, compensation/rewards and recognition, training and career development, and net promoter score (NPS). Of these categories, the most weight was given to job satisfaction, as that is what employees said was the most important factor to them when it comes to a working environment. The companies, in alphabetical order:

  • Chevron
  • EMC
  • Masco Builder Cabinet Group
  • McKesson
  • NewPage
  • Rio Tinto Alcan
  • Textron
  • Volt Information Sciences
  • Vought Aircraft Industries
  • Xerox

The rankings will be revealed later. The details are from from convincing to me that these are indeed the top 10 organization for six sigma professionals. However, it does seem a good list for someone looking for a new job working with six sigma to consult.

Related: Deming and Six Sigma – Six Sigma Success – Agility vs. Six Sigma – posts on management careers – Seduce Them With Six Sigma Success

Six Sigma v. Common Sense

Posted on October 20, 2008  Comments (1)

Response to LinkedIn question: “Whether Six Sigma as a quality tool really delivers the benefits ? How does it makes difference from a common sense approach ? (Where the process wastes and the required solution is known / can be easily identified just by applying common sense)”

Six sigma (or another management improvement method) can help in several ways. First, lots of things that are sensible are not done. A method to assure that more sensible things are done is useful.

Second, many things are sensible, but are not sensible when looked at in isolation (sub-optimization). Six sigma can (not does, can – sometime this won’t happen) assist those in the organization to evaluate from a larger context than they normally do. So instead of say the IT department forcing everyone to use some poorly designed software because it is the cheapest thing for the IT department to support the added costs to the rest of the organization are more fully considered.

Third, many things that are sensible are not evaluated based on their sense but instead based on internal politics… A standard methodology can help focus people on the merits of a proposal instead of who said it (again six sigma can do this, often it fails as the organization continues to cling to old patterns of power over sense).

Fourth, many of the tools, go beyond what sensible people alone see (design of experiments, understanding variation, PDSA, systems thinking, root cause analysis). Using the tools can often lead to valuable discoveries that were not obvious without using the tools.

If the solutions were obvious why were they not done last year? It is true that there are often plenty of simple improvements waiting to be adopted because management has done such a poor job that obvious improvement are left undone. But once sensible management is in place, eventually those obvious improvement will be done and a more structured approach to finding improvement is valuable. Even simple concepts like letting those that work on the process improve the process are often ignored by organizations (even those saying they are doing six sigma, unfortunately). So I see a strong value in adopting management improvement principles and tools.

Related: Management Advice Failures – Improvement Tools and Improving Management – Six Sigma Pitfalls – Why Isn’t Work Standard? – European Blackout: Not “Human Error”

Department of Defense Lean Six Sigma

Posted on June 5, 2008  Comments (0)

Gordon England, the Deputy Secretary of Defense, signed a directive establishing policy and assigning responsibilities to institutionalize the effort throughout DoD. See a webcast of his speech on lean six sigma to a DoD conference on continuous process improvement.

Leading Business Transformation the “Lean” Way

Since it began employing LSS, the Department of the Navy (DON) has completed 1,700 Black Belt/Green Belt projects and over 2,000 Kaizen events (i.e., action-oriented events designed to improve existing processes). Initial projects were designed to build confidence and gain momentum for success in high-impact core business value streams. The DON’s total of 3,399 trained LSS Green Belts exceeds the Secretary’s goal of 2,000 by the end of 2006, and of the 935 trained LSS Black Belts in the DON, 93 have attained American Society for Quality (ASQ) Black Belt certification.

Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) joined with Raytheon to complete an LSS project, which ultimately saved $133.5M across the 2006 FYDP and $421M over the life of the Joint Standoff Weapon (JSOW) Block II program. The integrated product team developed a three-tier approach to reducing weapon unit cost over a two-year period. Success of the JSOW program has led to development of a follow-on Block III weapon system.

The Marine Corps is applying LSS concepts, analytic techniques, and tools to improve the process for identifying, evaluating and acquiring critically needed warfighting equipment. Initial analysis focused on the evaluation stage, where improvements reduced the time required for this step by 35% – from 131 days to 85 days – and identified savings valued at $135K per year.

The first LSS initiative for Army aviation scheduled maintenance was deemed a success and signals a more efficient future for maintaining the Fort Rucker helicopter fleet. More than 32 days of scheduled maintenance were saved during the first LSS effort for Aviation Unit Maintenance involving UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter scheduled maintenance. The first helicopter inducted into the newly developed process was returned to flying status in just 18 days, which included a four-day break for the Fourth of July weekend. That is a 67% improvement in phase flow efficiency from the previous average time of more than 50 days of phase cycle maintenance for the UH-60.

See: online six sigma resources and lean manufacturing resources from the Curious Cat management improvement web site.

Related: Government Lean Six Sigma – Public Sector Continuous Improvement Site – Transformation Through Lean Six Sigma – Army Business Transformation – History Of Quality Management Online – More Lean Government – Army Lean Six Sigma
Doing More With Less in the Public Sector: A Progress Report from Madison, Wisconsin by William G. Hunter, Jan O’Neill, and Carol Wallen, June 1986.

Six Sigma In New York Local Government

Posted on January 3, 2008  Comments (2)

New Erie County Government Executive, Chris Collins, discusses the director of six sigma position that will drive their new six sigma efforts.

Related: Six Sigma for Erie County Government – Public Sector Management Improvement Site – Posts on improving management in the Public Sector – management webcasts

3M Cuts Back on Six Sigma for Research and Development

Posted on November 14, 2007  Comments (2)

3M Shelves Six Sigma in R&D

For the past two years, 3M Corp. has been giving back freedom and decision-making to its researchers following four years of Six Sigma mania under former CEO and Chairman W. James McNerney Jr. Six Sigma is a data-driven methodology and associated toolset for eliminating process defects.
…
Under McNerney’s successor, 3M CEO George Buckley has de-emphasized Six Sigma in R&D. At the same time, R&D spending in 2007 has been increased by 11 percent over 2006. “3M is a technology company so it’s essential that we keep investing in and creating new technology and product platforms
…
“George is throttling back in the laboratory and in R&D. At the same time, he’s a very strong proponent of lean Six Sigma in manufacturing and our supply chain,” according to Wendling. “Six Sigma has a place, but more in what I’d call transactional activities as opposed to basic research and product development. The key is to selectively use what makes sense in R&D, but not let Six Sigma become the end. For instance, we use (Six Sigma) design of experiments routinely in basic research

My previous posts on the proper use of six sigma: Process Improvement and Innovation – Six Sigma Outdated? No. – 3M CEO on Six Sigma – Will Six Sigma Fix Bad Management? – New Rules for Management? – Quality and Innovation

Six Sigma for Erie County Government

Posted on November 12, 2007  Comments (1)

Chris Collins proposed bringing six sigma to Erie County government in his campaign for county executive. He won the election. From his web site:

In business, you satisfy your customers or you fail. But in Erie County government, if you fail taxpayers who are your customer, nothing happens. Under Chris Collins, that will change.

As County Executive, Chris Collins will reform county government to make sure it serves its customers: the taxpayers. He will implement new management techniques – Total Quality Management, Continuous Improvement, ISO, Six Sigma and more – to focus on making every government agency and worker more efficient and accountable. These are the same techniques he’s used to turn around failing companies.
Chris Collins will also choose a business management expert as Deputy County Executive – and then make their only duty to fight everyday to make sure taxpayers get the value we deserve for our tax dollar

Where did he pick up this interest in six sigma? He is the founder, owner, Chairman and CEO of Audubon Machinery:

Audubon is a Six Sigma quality company focused on Total Quality Management, Continuous Improvement, and Lean Manufacturing. The operations manager at Audubon is a Six Sigma Black Belt driving continuous improvement with a focus on customer service.

Audubon Machinery is one of the fastest growing companies in the United States and will be recognized on the INC 500 list this year as well as the new Business First list of the fastest growing companies in Western New York.

I wish him luck in bringing management improvement practices to Erie County.

Related: Bringing Deming to the Public Sector – Public Sector Continuous Improvement Site – Six Sigma City Government

Six Sigma and Innovation

Posted on September 1, 2007  Comments (0)

Peter Pande adds his thoughts on how six sigma and innovation can work together. In his podcast, Innovation vs. Efficiency, he makes the argument that innovation and efficiency can work together. As I have stated many times, while bad six sigma efforts may harm innovation but there is no reason good six sigma efforts would. In fact good six sigma efforts help innovation.

Related: Six Sigma Outdated? No. – Fast Company Interview: Jeff Immelt – Better and Different – New Rules for Management? No! – Six Sigma Success
via: Peter Pande’s Take on Six Sigma and Innovation

Six Sigma in Software Development

Posted on August 13, 2007  Comments (0)

Six Sigma makes inroads in software development organizations

“A lot of big companies are developing their own software engineering variance of Six Sigma training,” said Siviy, “putting software-specific examples into the normal Six Sigma curriculum.” However, she said, it’s early in the adoption curve. “In the software world there is a real lack of case studies that show applications of Six Sigma in software engineering,” she said. And those that use Six Sigma in software are often reluctant to share examples because they consider it a competitive advantage.

Still, Siviy said, “At a lot of software conferences now you see a sprinkling of presentations that somehow touch on Six Sigma or Lean, and the quality and depth of questions have evolved tremendously. In general, and not just in Six Sigma, as the [software] industry matures you see a wave of interest in measurement and analytical techniques.”

McKesson is a prime example. “Measurement is key,” Childers said. “What you can’t or don’t measure, you don’t know.”

A couple points. First, you can know what you don’t measure. Do you know your parents? Do you measure them? Manage what you can’t measure.

The Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie Mellon University has great materials. There is a danger in using those materials to become overly bureaucratic but the material was developed out of an excellent understanding of quality management (way back when that was the way this stuff was referred to). David Anderson provides some good insights, see: Stretching Agile to fit CMMI Level 3

Design of experiments is very suited to testing software: Planning Efficient Software Tests – Design Of Experiment For Software Testing.

six sigma does seem to foster a lack of sharing; which is a shame.

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