projects evolve. The IQPC did an excellent job keeping the quality of the conference at an A+ level despite wrangling with the effects of a down market and near zero travel budgets for many companies. This conference has earned it place as one of the premier Six Sigma events of the year. Edward Biernat is the president of Consulting With Impact, Ltd., a training, coaching, and consultancy located in Canandaigua, NY that he founded in 1998. CWI’s client list includes companies ranging from the Fortune 100 to post-startups in the medical device, food and food packaging, steel, automotive, healthcare, and service sectors. He is a graduate of Clarkson University with bachelor degrees in Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, and has held positions in engineering, quality, and management at several New York companies. He is the author of numerous training programs and articles, and has presented at national and international events including the Institute of Industrial Engineers’ Annual Conference and the European Organization for Quality in Brussels, Belgium. Ed also developed part of the curriculum for and presents at the Lean Six Sigma Black Belt certification course at a local college.
The article mentions AOL had shown improvements over the previous years. This goes to show us, they had a good idea, but took many years to sort out the bugs and for them to position themselves correctly. At the time of initial development they probably didn’t utilize Design for Six Sigma or another Critical Parameter development methodology, but it appears they may have implemented Lean Six Sigma principles to improve their “inexcusably poor customer service,” “inaccessible dial-up numbers,” and what I’ll call “flawed billing practices.” Please know I am not necessarily agreeing with the article, or being an advocate for AOL, I’m simply pointing out how the company has appeared to have improved its product and service over time.
I recently tripped over a very good and interesting article written by Marcia Gulesian, titled Six Sigma, Monte Carlo Simulation and Kaizen for Outsourcing.
Despite its seemingly complex title, the article touches on the basics of Six Sigma and decision analysis where Six Sigma basic quantitative calculations are discussed - such as process capability calculations (Cp, Cpk) are used in an example for the outsourcing of a critical component. The example utilizes a Monte Carlo Simulation a model to illustrate her point.
The example model simulates the outsourcing of a critical component to 3 different vendors, and demonstrates the critical information that a Monte Carlo Simulation model can provide to make informed decisions regarding cost, volumes, supplier capabilities and internal resources. As we all know, having multiple vendors is necessary, but knowing how to distribute your demand across them and knowing the risks and costs involved is critical.
If you would like to experiment with the model, you can download it, But please know you'll need @RISK to run it, you download the @RISK free trial to run the simulation.
The over-arching topic of the article is that any process can be scrutinized for variation and cost reduction, and in my opinion should be. Companies will continue to outsource more and more so that they may focus on their core competencies. But as this happens, it becomes more imperative that a sound strategy is used to manage the potential outcomes.
I’m very happy to have found this article. Maria obviously understands the power and value of Six Sigma and Monte Carlo Simulation and look foward to future articles from her.
I’ve heard of Six Sigma being used in every industry from manufacturing, banking, even 
baking, but now . . . wine making?
Just the other night I found out a winery is using Six Sigma principles to ensure they are producing the highest quality wine available.
Yes, that’s right . . . Six Sigma Ranch and Vineyards have combined the old-world art of wine making with the science of data driven Six Sigma principles. Why not! Isn’t the origin of Design of Experiments from the agricultural world? That’s where (is that right?) RA Fisher introduced the concepts of replication, randomization, blocking and devise analysis of Variance to separate the sources of variation in the 1920s.
How many times have we read the reviews from a single winery, how some years are better than others, etc., and wondered why they can’t make the quality more consistent? Why not apply Six Sigma to wine making?
I think it makes perfect sense!
Six Sigma Ranch and Vineyards is applying Six Sigma principles in all stages of the process:
The next time I am in California or the local wine store, I’ll have to investigate this further.
As part of Palisade’s membership in the ISSSP, we get to participate in what are called Focused Sessions. For these webcast-like sessions, we are sponsors and exert no editorial control over their content . . . but we decide who the speaker is.
So we’ve decided to put the attendees in good hands! Jeff Slutsky, Global Director of Design for Six Sigma for Bausch & Lomb, will be giving a presentation on September 17th called Probabilistic Project Estimation Using Monte Carlo Simulation.
Registration for the event through the ISSSP is free. This presentation will feature @RISK for MS Project. If you ever wanted to find out more about @RISK for Project in Six Sigma and project estimation, this would be a good venue.
Last summer Jeff presented an excellent free live webcast: DFSS-based Design Optimization using Design of Experiments and @RISK. This is also something that can be viewed for free.
As for recommended reading in the future, Jeff is also the coauthor of Design for Six Sigma in Technology and Product Development. I'd highly recommend it, it is an excellent resource that is often used as the corner stone in many DFSS and Critical Parameter Management courses
Ed Biernat’s Consulting With Impact recently used Palisade’s StatTools in a two-week training session for Six Sigma Green Belt candidates as part of their certification. Ed said the response from the candidates was very positive, so he decided the software tool would be a good addition to all his Green Belt training. Also, he thought it would be a good subject of a Palisade Free Live Webcast.
So on September 3rd, please join Ed for his StatTools and Six Sigma. This session will cover the attributes in StatTools that apply to Six Sigma, with examples from Ed’s recent training session for his Green Belts. Registration for the webcast is free. Also, 
the webcast will be archived and viewable by anyone at anytime for free.
But why StatTools? "It’s a flexible, powerful statistics tool," Ed says. "The Green Belt students were able to jump right in with it!" Of course the Green Belt Candidates have some body of knowledge that made them ready users of the tool, perhaps we’ll have more knowledge too, after Ed’s webcast. And even though I know a lot about it, I’ll be there!
Andy Sleeper, President of Successful Statistics LLC, will present a case study at the 2009 Palisade Conference: Risk Analysis, Applications, & Training. The conference is set to take place on 21 - 22 October at the Hyatt Regency in Jersey City, 10 minutes by PATH from Manhattan's Financial District.
Yesterday I had an interesting conversation with a colleague who is a Six Sigma and DFSS Master Black belt who just returned from Europe where he conducted a Black Belt Training session. He pointed out how much different the Europeans are to the Americans when it comes to their expectations and commitment they show for new initiatives, particularly quality. He said when the European’s decide to introduce a program like Design for Six Sigma, they stick to it, even through the early failures and trials and tribulations. This is in contrast to many American manufacturers, who rattle through process improvement programs and philosophies like subscribing to the book of the month. (I have witnessed this firsthand, unfortunately.)
The moral of the story is do your research and make intelligent decisions on what tools you need to employ to make the necessary improvements to your company, for both its products and processes. Train your employees, implement and stick to it through good and bad. Give it the time and effort to be effective before abandoning it for another program.
Look at these programs as hiring employees - we all know hiring employees is a time consuming and costly endeavor, so by nature we don’t want to rehiring for the same position every month or year.
A recent article on isixsigma content zone called Delight Customers: Reduce Defects in Service Delivery by Shivprasad Kandiraju deals with Six Sigma practitioners looking at how customer surveys revealed crummy customer service at a call center in India, and how they approached fixing it. The practitioners collected and analyzed benchmarking data from various companies, and data on their call center’s performance. With this information, (and using the principles of Six Sigma,) they were able to make valuable improvements. 
Stochastic modeling and Monte Carlo simulation have become accepted tools in financial professions. However, engineers working on the development of new products have been slow to adopt these important tools, opting instead for deterministic approaches such as worst-case analysis. These deterministic tools answer some questions, but they are unable to predict process capability, which is the key to success in a Six Sigma environment. Monte Carlo simulation is now an essential tool for every engineer involved in product and process development. Stochastic tools can predict and prevent performance and capability problems before the first prototype is built. What once required months or years to discover now takes only minutes to prevent. In a recent report The Innovation Imperative in Manufacturing - How the United States Can restore its edge, produced jointly by The Boston Consulting Group, the National Association of Manufacturers and the Manufacturing Institute, The United States ranked #8 out of 110 countries in innovation leadership. 
The Top Ten List (overall)
The first half of this report painted a pretty bleak picture for the US. Among the depressing statements:
“The United States is losing its distinction as an innovation leader and may be under-investing in the future.”
“The United States is disadvantaged in several key areas, including workforce quality and economic, immigration and infrastructure policies.”
Some companies are even “moving R & D centers abroad to capitalize on leading-edge talent and lower cost scientists and engineers or to better meet local market needs . . .”
This information is difficult to swallow, but it clearly makes the point:
It’s time for change.
In the article, they actually used the quote “innovate or die!”
Even without the current economic crisis, we know we have issues and challenges at many levels, and if this report helps revitalize our companies and government into action, then all for it.
The second half the report does a nice job detailing what they considered to be the Four Key Factors for Success, which they felt are:
The research feels the US Government plays a vital part in encouraging innovation, and their role is to boost Company payback on innovation through consistent programs, like supporting innovation activities through government-funded laboratories and research labs. Tax credits are also a common way, but this deemed to be more of “thank you” then a motivator, and is often inconsistent from year to year.
Although they stated that some recommendations were beyond the scope of the report, they suggest the US make concrete improvement in six areas:
To reiterate, we know that innovation, quality and jobs in the US have been on the decline for past years. It’s time to act, Adopt an innovation, product development, or quality program such as Design for Six Sigma (DFSS), Design for Lean Six Sigma (DFLSS), Critical Parameter Management, (CPM)or whatever you want to call it, deploy it and stick to it! As I have may have mentioned before, many companies I have worked with who indicated successful deployment really never got off the ground floor.
You can read the entire report at www.nam.org/~/media/AboutUs/ManufacturingInstitute/innovationreport.ashx
During these deteriorating economic times, it is more important than ever for organizations to be more vigilant about cutting costs and boosting the bottom line. An option is to instill a Lean and Lean Six Sigma culture when tackling projects to save money. The American Society for Quality (ASQ) is once again hosting the 2009 Lean Six Sigma Conference, March 2–3, 2009, in Phoenix, Ariz., to teach professionals needed skills to take back to their organizations.
Lean Six Sigma projects are performed in many areas of business. There are a few that require an estimation of future performance when there is no chance to test or evaluate the new process. On February 26, Rick Haynes of SmarterSolutions will share his expertise in a free live webcast that documents a case where a reliability testing effort provided a reliability model that needed to be extrapolated in order to estimate the total impact on warrantee costs. 
About Six months ago, Palisade started its Six Sigma Webinar series. We have had many experts in Six Sigma, Lean, and Design for Six Sigma give presentations on topics ranging from DFSS Design Optimization, Using Monte Carlo Simulation in LSS, to Creating a high performance culture. All of these webinar's were hugely successful and highly attended. If you would like to view any of the past archived webcasts please do so, we have them posted for your convenience.
Next week, one of the industry’s largest and best events will take place in Orlando, Florida. That is IQPC’s Lean Six Sigma Summit. Every year it is one of the few events that I look forward to attending. The IQPC does a great job gathering industry experts from around the world to share their thoughts, experiences, and wisdom.
This year will be a challenging year for all, so it is particularly necessary to spend travel and education funds wisely, should you be lucky enough to still have a travel budget. If you do, I would highly recommend considering this event.
There will be a cross-functional group of experts such as William Kimbrell of Blue Ocean Strategy, who will share his growth strategies in today’s over-crowded industries. Tina Huesing of Motorola and JD Sicilia, Director, Department of Defense, Lean Six Sigma Program Office will address the what I call “ Doing more with less. “ Ms. Huesing’s focus will be streamlining processes, timely execution, and waste elimination. Mr. Sicilla’s focus will be on Strategic Alignment, Consistency of Approach, Integration and Human Capital. Also, George Turner of Rock-Tenn will be speaking on professional development.
These topics have always been at the root of Lean Six Sigma but now more than ever they are very important in today’s business climate. I am looking forward to learning from these experts next week at the Summit.
Palisade will be demonstrating the latest and best in Monte Carlo Simulation for Six Sigma. If you are attending, please stop by and say hello! If you don’t attend, please contact me and I will be happy to provide you with a free trial and web demo.
In a recent article called Six Sigma Speak in iSixSigma Magazine, Craig Gygi does a very nice job articulating one of the barriers to Six Sigma, and that is the terminology that we use. We are laden with terms from other languages such a poka-yoke, “same letter lists,” as well as synonyms and acronyms galore. As he describes, this is caused because each organization that adopts Six Sigma then adapts words to reflect the specifics to their organization’s culture and priorities.
To name of few of the more common synonyms in Six Sigma:
The one thing he doesn’t address in the article head on, are the sheer number of acronyms we use. Below I have named just a few:
To add to the list are the process capability and statistical acronyms such as Cp, Cpk, Pp, PpK, ANOVA, ANOM, DPPM etc . . . As we all know this is a very small example of the special terminology that we have either created or adopted over time. It’s no wonder that the people outside of the Six Sigma world are intimidated and bewildered before they even get into learning the tools to develop or improve a process.
Craig Gygi is also the co-author of Six Sigma for Dummies which I have to admit was one of the first Six Sigma books I purchased when trying to make sense of it all.
Lastly, I learned a new acronym on iSixSigma.com while writing this post, BAU (Business as usual.) I don’t know if it’s truly a LSS term but what the heck!
Just a couple of months ago when gas cost over $4/gallon, Americans were scrambling maximize their fuel economy and buying hybrid electric vehicles to save money, cut our dependency on foreign oil, and to save the earth. At that time, a very wise friend said, “Wait and see, gas prices will come back down and we (Americans) will forget all about it.” What happened over the next few months is exactly as he predicted. If it were not for the domestic automakers being on the brink of economic collapse, there would not have been any recent talk of innovation, reform, or the need for more efficient automobiles.
As we all know and feel, the gas crunch as been replaced by a much larger and serious worldwide economic down turn that threatens all. There are many speculations to how we got here and even more on how we get out. Lean Six Sigma is a proven methodology to remove waste and variation from our business processes and is receiving a lot of attention to do just that. Many companies are - but many more should - be scrambling to implement a Lean Six Sigma program to save what is left of their businesses. I hope that they will be successful.
Now let’s look ahead 2, 3 maybe 5 years . . . once our economy has stabilized and “returned to normal.” Have the experiences of the past changed us for the better? We will continue to apply sound Lean Six Sigma principles and risk analysis to our business, making them stronger and more efficient. Or will this too fade as a distant memory until the next time?
I do not feel there is not a business or process that would not be benefited by applying the tools and principles of Lean Six Sigma in many aspects of their businesses. Let us use this opportunity as a catalyst for business and government reform and increased efficiencies in order to provide the best products and services for our customers, and to avoid a repeat of the current state of affairs.
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