The DMAIC methodology for completing quality improvement projects divides project work into five phases: define, measure, analyze, improve, and control. It’s also probably the most well-known and most used project methodology for projects that focus on improving an existing process. (Many other methodologies exist, such as DMADV, which focuses on using quality improvement techniques to create a new product of process design.)

Franciscan Hospital for Children, a hospital in Brighton, Mass., that specializes in the care of children with special health care needs, recently completed a project...

I recently had the opportunity to talk with Ken Jones, professor of operations and supply chain management at Indiana State University, about a business process improvement course he teaches at the university. The course covers a variety of Lean Six Sigma tools and techniques and gives students the opportunity to team with local businesses to complete real quality improvement projects. Upon successful completion of the class, students even become certified green belts.

One item we talked about was how valuable the experiential component of the projects can be for students, especially...

by Alex Orlov, guest blogger

While it has been called the "million-dollar methodology" for the significant investment sometimes required to deliver results, Six Sigma has a wealth of practices that can be adapted to small and medium industries, home businesses and even personal finances. 

Organizations have used Six Sigma as a reliable part of the quality improvement process since 1986. And while a large Six Sigma project could cost anything from $1,000 to $1 million in work-hours and other resources, the results of such projects often far outweigh the investment. In addition to the direct...

For providers like Riverview Hospital Association, serving Wisconsin Rapids, Wis. and surrounding areas, recent changes in the U.S. healthcare system have placed more emphasis on improving the quality of care and increasing patient satisfaction. “In this era of healthcare reform, it is even more essential for providers to have a systematic method to improve the way care is delivered,” says Christopher Spranger, director of Lean Six Sigma and Quality Improvement at Riverview Hospital Association. “We have had a Lean Six Sigma program in place for four years, and we are continuously working on...

We usually think of games as a distraction—just something we do for fun. However, growing evidence suggests that games can do much more, especially when it comes to learning in a classroom setting.

Because statistics is a topic that doesn’t come easily to most, using properly designed games to teach statistics can become a valuable tool to spark interest and help explain difficult concepts.

So what kinds of “properly designed” games are we talking about here? Not traditional board games like Monopoly or Chutes and Ladders, but interactive computer games—the types of games younger generations...

The 2013 ASQ World Conference is taking place this week in Indianapolis, Indiana, and it's been a treat to see how our software was used in the projects highlighted in many of the presentations. As a supporter of the conference, a key event for quality practitioners around the world, Minitab was proud to sponsor one of the presentations that seemed to get a lot of attendees talking. Scott Sterbenz, a Six Sigma leader from Ford Motor Company, delivered a presentation entitled "Leveraging Designed Experiments for Success," which explained how to make designed experiments succeed with examples...

Human resources might not be a business area where you’d typically expect to conduct a Six Sigma project. However, Jeff Parks, Lean Six Sigma master black belt, found the opportunity to apply Six Sigma to human resources while leading quality improvement efforts at a large manufacturer of aerospace engine parts.

The manufacturer was suffering from high employee attrition, or turnover, and struggled to understand why. With a DMAIC Six Sigma project, Parks set out to work with the HR department to investigate and reduce the high turnover rates.

In 2009, the manufacturer had normal attrition rates...

Due to recent comments on this blog post (scroll down to view the comments section), I want to acknowledge that the definition of Lean in this post is incomplete. The goal of this post wasn't to offer definitions of Lean, Six Sigma, or any other methodology, but was rather to state that the focus of improvement efforts should be on using all the available tools, whether those be Lean or Six Sigma tools or both, to make the necessary improvements. Thank you to those who left comments and opinions. I appreciate your viewpoints and discussion on this topic. -Carly Barry

When I first started working...

I had the privilege of talking with Sue Schlegel, Lean Six Sigma black belt and quality improvement mentor at White Sands Missile Range, which is located just outside of Las Cruces, New Mexico. Schlegel and an improvement team at White Sands recently conducted a Lean Six Sigma project to streamline surveillance processes and they used Minitab to analyze the data. We found Sue’s story an interesting case study for a LSS project, so I thought I would share it with you here on the blog, too.

Reducing Work Hours

When clients request classified video surveillance missions, the White Sands Missile...

Whether you're a quality improvement veteran or you're just starting to do research about what quality improvement methods are available today, you've seen headlines and articles that explain why Six Sigma and other data-driven quality improvement methods don't work.

Typically these pieces have an attention-grabbing headline, like Six Sigma Initiative Fails to Save the Universe, followed by a dissection of a deployment or project that failed—usually in spectacular fashion—to achieve its goals. 

"There!" the writer typically crows. "See? It's obvious Six Sigma doesn't work!" What makes these...

While value stream mapping, or VSM, is a key tool used in many Lean Six Sigma projects for manufacturing, it’s also widely used in healthcare.

Value stream mapping can help you map, visualize, and understand the flow of patients, materials (e.g., bags of screened blood or plasma), and information. The “value stream” is all of the actions required to complete a particular process, and the goal of VSM is to identify improvements that can be made to reduce waste (e.g., patient wait times).

How is VSM applied to healthcare?

When used within healthcare, one obvious application for VSM is mapping a...

Want to learn more about analyzing data? Try taking a page from Aesop's book. 

Well...really, I'm suggesting taking multiple pages from Minitab's book, but my suggestion stems from an idea that Aesop epitomizes.  

Aesop was no fool. When he wanted to convey even the heaviest of lessons, he didn't waste time detailing the intellectual and philosophical arguments behind them. He didn't argue, cajole, or berate. He didn't lecture or pontificate. 

He told a story. 

Minitab uses the same approach in Meet Minitab, the introductory guide to data analysis and quality statistics using our statistical...

Serving cat food? I sure hope you've set your alpha
level high enough.

"Bad kitty!" That's a phrase you almost never hear, but even we cats make the occasional mistake. I was reminded of this recently as I watched my human trying to analyze some data. People frequently make mistakes when they test a hypothesis with data analysis. Specifically, they can make either Type I or Type II errors.   

When I first started reading my human's statistics textbooks a few years ago, this idea seemed awfully silly to me. We cats appreciate being direct, and you either get the answer correct or you don't. I...

In the past couple of years, I've noticed a new acronym popping up across the Web. In case you've not yet encountered it, "FML" typically appears in social media updates about something gone awry.  As in, "The cat ate my homework. FML!"  Or, "My production line just broke down, and now the company is going to be short on a major order. FML!" 

This acronym reminds me of an abbreviation used in Lean Six Sigma and quality improvement: FMEA.  It's short for "Failure Modes and Effects Analysis," which basically means "look very, very carefully at how and why stuff can go wrong."

FMEA: Failure Modes...

Marlowe the Stats Cat here. Earlier, I showed you how easy it was to set up my statistical software with a personalized menu of statistical tools I use most often. 

The problem is that I share a computer with one of the humans who live in my house, and the statistical tools I use most may not be the ones he needs to use. And I don't want to clutter myinterface with a "Human" menu.    I'm trying to be kind, but I should just be direct about this: as a cat, I have abilities that far oustrip those of my human. That extends to the range of statistical tools I can use effectively.   What I need to...

In previous blog posts, I wrote about quality professional Bill Howell’s diabetes diagnosis and how he managed his disease with Lean Six Sigma. In Bill’s book, I Took Control: Effective Actions for a Diabetes Diagnosis, and later when I spoke with him personally, he mentioned the importance of Hemoglobin HbA1c in diagnosing diabetes and how informative this single blood component can be.

What is Hemoglobin HbA1c?

Hemoglobin HbA1c is a lab test that shows the average amount of sugar in blood cells over a 2-3 month period. The test can also be used to diagnose diabetes and can help diabetics...

The Minitab Fan section of the Minitab blog is your chance to share with our readers! We always love to hear how you are using Minitab products for quality improvement projects, Lean Six Sigma initiatives, research and data analysis, and more. If our software has helped you, please share your Minitab story, too!

Growing up, I had little or no interest in math. In Africa we had little or no manufacturing; therefore, I had no idea about manufacturing processes, quality improvement, and so on. There was nothing there to motivate me play with numbers. I used to be terrified to see charts and...

The Minitab Fan section of the Minitab blog is your chance to share with our readers! We always love to hear how you are using Minitab products for quality improvement projects, Lean Six Sigma initiatives, research and data analysis, and more. If our software has helped you, please share your Minitab story, too!
 

When I was student at the Indian Statistical Institute (ISI), in Kolkata, India, my project had a requirement of accurate data analysis for some critical data.

My adviser suggested I use Minitab Statistical Softwarefor data analysis in that project, and since then I have used it for...

It’s common to think that process improvement initiatives are meant to cater only to manufacturing processes, simply because manufacturing is where Lean and Six Sigma began. However, many other industry segments, such as healthcare and banking, also rely on data analysis and Lean Six Sigma tools to improve processes (even if those processes are more service-based).

For example, it’s increasingly common for healthcare professionals to conduct projects to help them investigate and understand certain clinical outcomes for patients, such as the incidence of a certain disease developing after...

Design of experiments, experimental design, or just "gathering some data." Whatever you want to call it, your approach to doing it will affect the results you get.

Have you ever wondered about all those contradictory studies in the news, especially regarding what's good and bad for you? Coffee is good for you, one headline says. It's bad for you, says the next. And if you read beyond the headlines, each study seems to have been conducted in a reasonable manner. 

Experimental design may be the explanation. 

Designing Experiments Begins with Questions

Science and health writer Emily Anthes recently...