Category Archives: Six sigma

Roger Hoerl’s Perspective on the Future of Six-Sigma

One Perspective on the Future of Six-Sigma by Roger Hoerl. Originally published in the International Journal of Six Sigma and Competitive Advantage 2004 – Vol. 1, No.1 pp. 112 – 119. Six-Sigma has maintained momentum for over ten years now, … Continue reading

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Search for Improvement With Complex Six Sigma

Search for Improvement With Complex Six Sigma [the broken link was removed] by Helen D’Antoni: To understand what companies are doing to curtail costs while improving performance, InformationWeek’s sister publication, Optimize magazine, conducted a survey of 156 business-technology executives, asking … Continue reading

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Management Improvement Articles

Michael Porter’s Big Ideas by Keith H. Hammonds The world’s most famous business-school professor is fed up with CEOs who claim that the world changes too fast for their companies to have a long-term strategy. If you want to make … Continue reading

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Statistics for Experimenters – Second Edition

The classic Statistics for Experimenters has been updated by George Box and Stu Hunter, two of the three original authors. Bill Hunter, who was my father, and the other author, died in 1986. Order online: Statistics for Experimenters: Design, Innovation, … Continue reading

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Six Sigma and Deming Philosophies

My oversimplified view is that the Deming philosophy aims to improve the system and Six Sigma is about improving within the current system. I think several Six Sigma efforts over the past 10 years have improved upon what many organizations tried with TQM, in large part by

1) putting substantial effort (significant training and application) into using statistical tools to improve

and 2) more focus on results (especially short term results) Continue reading

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Management Improvement History

I do believe we need to improve our practice of Quality (and to do that we need to understand what happened in the past and why it was not more successful). The idea that Design of Experiments (DoE) was at the core of some Quality Movement to me is not at all accurate. In my experience only a few Quality professionals today understand what it means and how it should be applied. The idea that it was common place in the 40’s I seriously doubt (though I don’t have first hand knowledge of this). I find it difficult to believe we would have decided to stop using DoE if it was commonly done previously. The understanding I have from those that should know (like George Box and previously my father – Bill Hunter) is that it was not at all common practice and still is not outside of a few industries and even there it is isolated in the domain of a few experts. Continue reading

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New Management Improvement Library Articles

The Curious Cat Online Management Improvement Library includes hundred of online documents that have been individually selected as worthwhile for those interested in improving performance. The articles, reports, files, handbooks and guides touch on many areas of management improvement including: … Continue reading

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