Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in statsman's InsaneJournal:

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Monday, June 20th, 2011
4:42 pm	Calculating the Correct Net Present Value using Excel Calculating the Correct Net Present Value using Excel June 20th, 2011 In Six Sigma we are always wanting to be able to show a return on investment to management. Most of the time in Dollars. To do that we need to consider both the cost and the benefits the project will obtain. But costs and benefits do not happen in one lump sum. Usually they fluctuate over time. This is referred to as a cash flow or a cash flow stream. The best tool to look at both the cost and benefits to see what the return would be is calculation what is called “Net Present Value” (NPV). Definition of Net Present Value (NPV): The difference between the present value of cash inflows and the present value of cash outflows. NPV is used in budgeting to analyze the profitability of an investment or project[1]. In Excel there is a function [NPV(rate,value1,value2, ...)] to calculate NPV, but this formula can be misleading if you do not understand what it is doing. The function help on this function explains it all be rarely do we read these unless we really don’t know what goes where. In this functions case most people need to read it. In the above formula the rate is applied to every value listed. That is OK but in many projects the first value is costs/benefits obtained before the end of the first year (or period of the rate) so the rate should not be applied. That why in many projects we list the first year as “year 0”. These cost/benefits should be added to the above formula thus eliminating the rate from being applied. Example: Lets say you have a project that will cost you $10,000 this year and $2000 next year to implement, but next year you will see a benefit of $500 and the year after that 5,000, Then in the third year $10,000 benefit and in the last two years $15,000 each year in benefits. Lets also say management want to see a rate of return of 10% over a five year period. You want to know if you can meet that with these figures. Below is the table in Excel I would create to show these figures and calculate the NPV. You can see that the formula calculating NPV has year 0 being added to the formula so the interest rate is not applied to calculating the present value of it this year (year 0 is the present). But year 1-5 we did have the rate applied as we what to make sure that the expected rate of return is met by year five. This show we have meet managements expectations because it is a positive number. The reason for doing this is because not all investments have cost/benefits in year 0. Take for instance the purchase of a new piece of equipment that the purchase price is not paid for 12 months. In this case year 0 maybe to delivery and setup of the machine which is included in the cost of $12000. Let say on this example we have the same benefits and expected return. Here is the table and calculations for this one: You can see that this can be big if you do it wrong, so make sure that you apply this formula correctly. In most, not all, Six Sigma projects you will use the first way. But if you make sure to include always a year 0 and put it in the formula even the lower table will be correct using “=NPV(C2,C4;C8) + B3 + C3”. Well there you have what to look out for in using the NPV formula in Excel. If you have questions or comments please feel free to contact me by leaving a comment below, emailing me, calling me, or leaving a comment on my website.   Bersbach Consulting Peter Bersbach Six Sigma Master Black Belt http://sixsigmatrainingconsulting.com peter@bersbach.com 1.520.829.0090 (Comment on this)
4:42 pm	March 22nd, 2011 As practitioners of Six Sigma you may have caught this, but there are two important elements that the NFL talks have missed and I feel will lead to poor results or none at all. These two important elements are the concept of Customer Value, or some may say “stakeholder” value. Second is the concept of Teamwork. This second one I would think they would get since Football is a “Team” sport, but maybe not. Customer Value Customer or stakeholder value in solving an issue, involves insuring we know who the customer and or stakeholders are. Generally speaking you look at where the money comes from, Customers (fans). This is why in most places we talk about “customer Value”.  I also like to expand the “customer” to be all stakeholders because without all stakeholders a product can not be produced. So I define Stakeholders in three. Those three groups are: 1.      Customers – Where the income (money) comes from. 2.      Stockholders/owners – Who’s money is invested in the business and that investment is being spent to produce the value for the customer. Yon this group because in all businesses you have to spend money to make money. Customer pay for product at delivery usually not in advance. 3.      Employees/ Players – Who perform the “manufacturing of the product” for the customer. Both the Stockholders/owners and the Employees/Players are investing time and/or money to create a value for the customer. So where is the customer in the NFL talks? In businesses that are working similar issue this point and input would not be left out of the discussion, where clearly it is in the NFL talks. Businesses include them because the solution may not even be focus on increasing value to the customer. Which means insuring that the change will increase customer value thus increase profits.  When customers are left out ( even though they don’t know they are) they go some where else. That is what happened in the steel industry. That is also what was and may still be going on in the automotive industry. By the way value can be defined (Seen) by asking three simple questions and you are creating value IF and only IF you answer yes to all three. They are: Does the Customer Care ( Is the customer willing to pay for this change) Did the “thing” in the process change. (With all the step you go through in changing a Flat tire ONLY removing the flat and placing the new tire on the car are value added. Last was it done right the first time. Customer do not like to pay for repairs or rework. Teamwork Teamwork in not decision making by concession or compromise it is decision making by consensus  or accord. To do that you have to pick you team members carefully. They need to come from all three stakeholder groups and each member needs to have the following qualities: Wants to make a difference by improving the process creating a better working place. Is willing to work on and support the team “project”. Is willing to take the risk of offering “Wild” ideas Is willing to withhold judgment Can “Piggyback off other’s ideas Is willing to LISTEN (no side talks)   As you can see not all the stakeholders are on the team and those that are there do not or will not agree with the 6 items above. In the six sigma world of problem solving this will only lead to disaster. Well there you have my thoughts on the NFL talks. If, you have questions or comments please feel free to contact me by leaving a comment below, emailing me, calling me, or leaving a comment on my website.   Bersbach Consulting Peter Bersbach Six Sigma Master Black Belt http://sixsigmatrainingconsulting.com peter@bersbach.com 1.520.829.0090 (Comment on this)
Saturday, March 26th, 2011
4:18 pm	The NFL Talks Missing some Six Sigma Rigor March 22nd, 2011 As practitioners of Six Sigma you may have caught this, but there are two important elements that the NFL talks have missed and I feel will lead to poor results or none at all. These two important elements are the concept of Customer Value, or some may say “stakeholder” value. Second is the concept of Teamwork. This second one I would think they would get since Football is a “Team” sport, but maybe not. Customer Value Customer or stakeholder value in solving an issue, involves insuring we know who the customer and or stakeholders are. Generally speaking you look at where the money comes from, Customers (fans). This is why in most places we talk about “customer Value”.  I also like to expand the “customer” to be all stakeholders because without all stakeholders a product can not be produced. So I define Stakeholders in three. Those three groups are: 1.      Customers – Where the income (money) comes from. 2.      Stockholders/owners – Who’s money is invested in the business and that investment is being spent to produce the value for the customer. Yon this group because in all businesses you have to spend money to make money. Customer pay for product at delivery usually not in advance. 3.      Employees/ Players – Who perform the “manufacturing of the product” for the customer. Both the Stockholders/owners and the Employees/Players are investing time and/or money to create a value for the customer. So where is the customer in the NFL talks? In businesses that are working similar issue this point and input would not be left out of the discussion, where clearly it is in the NFL talks. Businesses include them because the solution may not even be focus on increasing value to the customer. Which means insuring that the change will increase customer value thus increase profits.  When customers are left out ( even though they don’t know they are) they go some where else. That is what happened in the steel industry. That is also what was and may still be going on in the automotive industry. By the way value can be defined (Seen) by asking three simple questions and you are creating value IF and only IF you answer yes to all three. They are: Does the Customer Care ( Is the customer willing to pay for this change) Did the “thing” in the process change. (With all the step you go through in changing a Flat tire ONLY removing the flat and placing the new tire on the car are value added. Last was it done right the first time. Customer do not like to pay for repairs or rework. Teamwork Teamwork in not decision making by concession or compromise it is decision making by consensus  or accord. To do that you have to pick you team members carefully. They need to come from all three stakeholder groups and each member needs to have the following qualities: Wants to make a difference by improving the process creating a better working place. Is willing to work on and support the team “project”. Is willing to take the risk of offering “Wild” ideas Is willing to withhold judgment Can “Piggyback off other’s ideas Is willing to LISTEN (no side talks)   As you can see not all the stakeholders are on the team and those that are there do not or will not agree with the 6 items above. In the six sigma world of problem solving this will only lead to disaster. Well there you have my thoughts on the NFL talks. If, you have questions or comments please feel free to contact me by leaving a comment below, emailing me, calling me, or leaving a comment on my website.   Bersbach Consulting Peter Bersbach Six Sigma Master Black Belt http://sixsigmatrainingconsulting.com peter@bersbach.com 1.520.829.0090 (Comment on this)
Saturday, January 29th, 2011
1:55 pm	Comparing Non-Numeric (Discrete)Data January 29th, 2011 In reality this is only non-numeric in the sense that it is data we collect about the presence or absence (nominal data) of some characteristic or attribute of an item. Usually we take this data and transform it into a count of the characteristic;  like the number of “naughty” or “nice” kids on Santa’s list. Or, more practical to some, the number of red cars going through an intersection; the number of order forms with mistakes in them, etc. These counts are all called nominal scale measurements.  This scale of measurement gives us the least amount of information of the four types of measurement scales (Nominal, Ordinal, Interval, Ratio). The question I’d like to address here is once you have the data how can you compare it to a standard or another collection to determine if there is a significant difference between the two. An example of this is with order forms. Say you made, what you think is an improvement in the way you handle orders but you really want to know if there actually is an improvement. How do you do that? You can use what is called the Chi Square Test. Chi Square Test Chi Square Test is used to evaluate count data presented in 2-dimensional tables (rows and columns) to answers the question: “Do the groups differ with regard to the proportion of items in the categories?” In our order form example we might have these three categories: No Errors, Minor Errors, and Major Errors. We would collect data from these three categories, before and after the improvement. Lets say before the improvement we had 60% error free, 30% minor errors and 10% major errors. After the improvement we looked at 136 orders and found that 93 were error free, 33 had minor errors, and 36 had major errors. Our two dimensional table would look like this ( In this table Chi Squared is the value marked X2): For those who want to calculate the Chi Square value the formula is below: BUT !!! there is an easier way using Excel formulas. To do this we need to use the “CHITEST”formula in Excel. The “CHITEST” performs the comparison for you and calculates the probability that the two are the same. So in our example I entered the formula: =CHITEST(Actual Range [new process], Expected Range[old process]) OR =CHITEST(B2:B4,D2:D4) As you can see this gives us a formula result of 0.0000004152 or 0% [.00004152%]. This says the probability that the new and the old process  are the same is 0%. The two processes are different! Looking at the counts you can see the new process improved minor errors but increased major errors. Go back to old process! Well there you have my thoughts on comparing non-numeric data. If, you have questions or comments please feel free to contact me by leaving a comment below, emailing me, calling me, or leaving a comment on my website. Bersbach Consulting Peter Bersbach Six Sigma Master Black Belt http://sixsigmatrainingconsulting.com peter@bersbach.com 1.520.829.0090 (Comment on this)
Tuesday, November 23rd, 2010
4:14 pm	Tools to look at Ordered (Ordinal) Data November 22nd, 2010 Ordinal data is information that you collect on items that you can rank order some characteristic or attribute.  Examples of this type of data scale is the count of food items on a table that taste excellent, good or bad. Another would the count of dress that are very attractive, look OK, or are ugly. You can see with this type of count data you can arrange the counts in order of best to worse. This scale of data gives us  more information than Nominal scale but not as much as the other types of measurement scales (Interval, Ratio). Scales are ways we collect data. So once we have done this data collection how can we look at the data to see better what we found? Well for this scale there two types of correlation tools one can use are Pearson correlation, Chi Square which are some what complicated. But one of the simplest is Spearman’s Rank order correlation. In this correlation you are comparing how two people/inspectors/groups  correlate with each other. This will let us know if the two saw things the same way or not.  This could be anything like rating several wine, movies, cars, TV’s etc. For example if you had two friend (x and y) rate 5 movies (A, B, C, D, E) from best(1) to worst(5). you would create the below table and chart to compare your friend results and tell if they look at these movies the same. Well there you have my thoughts on tools to measure the Ordinal Scale. Next time I am going to discuss the different statistical tool used for the Interval scales of measurement. If, you have questions or comments please feel free to contact me by leaving a comment below, emailing me, calling me, or leaving a comment on my website. Bersbach Consulting Peter Bersbach Six Sigma Master Black Belt http://sixsigmatrainingconsulting.com peter@bersbach.com 1.520.829.0090 (Comment on this)
Tuesday, November 16th, 2010
10:57 am	Tools to look at Counts (Nominal) Data Just to refresh your mind Nominal Data (Count Data) is information that you collect about the presence or absence of an attribute (characteristic).  Like the number of “naughty” or “nice” kids on Santa’s List. Or, more practical to some, the number of red cars going through an intersection; the number of Order forms with mistakes in them. These counts are all, what we call, nominal scale measurements.  This scale of measurement gives us the least amount of information of the four types of measurement scales (Nominal, Ordinal, Interval, Ratio). Scales are ways we collect data. For instance here we are counting the occurrence of something which is what is called a nominal scale. So once we have done this counting how can we look at the data to see better what we found. Well for this scale there are a few good tools. Percentage (%) – This gives you a feel for of all the things you saw, how many were what you were looking for. For example lets say you sat at an intersection and counted red cars going through that intersection in one hour. And during that hour you saw 300 cars go through that intersection and 30 were Red. That would mean that for that hour  10% of the cars that went through it were red. (30 red cars/300 cars through the intersection*100=10%). Proportion (1/10, 1 in 10) – This, like percentage, gives you a feel for of all the things you saw, how many were what you were looking for. This gives you one other piece of information and that is out of how many you looked at. This, if you are doing the study for yourself, may not be important, but if you are convincing others with a percentage they may want to know how many in the total count. A good example where I like this best is on the internet when looking at customer ratings (those stars showing you that customers really liked the product.  I always want to know how many customers actually rated the product at all. When you see 1 to 5 I am not impressed. But if there was 100 now I feel better about the rating. Remember that 100% liked something out of 1 (1/1) customer is different that 100 (100/100). Chi-square Test (X2) – There are many times where we want to compare the percentages of items in several different categories. For instance, instead of just red cars we want to collect the number of all cars by color (not just red). It might be, instead of cars, operators, materials, TV channels, Hospitals or any other grouping we might have in mind. In any of these groups your could collect data and place it into different categories (Colors, Sizes, Ratings). The results can be put into what is called a Chi Square Table to answer the question ”Do the groups differ with regard to the proportion of items in the categories?” An example that one could use Chi-square test would be: (The following example is from Narrella(1963) and the Six Sigma Handbook [Pyzdek, 2003]). Rejects of metal castings were classified by cause of rejection for three different weeks. The question that the Chi-squared test would help answer is: “Does the distribution of rejects differ from week to week? Well there you have my thoughts on tools to measure the Nominal Scale. Next time I am going to discuss the different statistical tool used for the ordinal scales of measurement. If, you have questions or comments please feel free to contact me by leaving a comment below, emailing me, calling me, or leaving a comment on my website. Bersbach Consulting Peter Bersbach Six Sigma Master Black Belt http://sixsigmatrainingconsulting.com peter@bersbach.com 1.520.829.0090 (Comment on this)
Thursday, October 21st, 2010
10:05 am	Measurement Measurement October 20th, 2010 [Note: Most of the information for this article comes from “The Six Sigma Handbook”[i]] Why do we measure things? To see how things are, or if change has occurred or to understand something. Measurement is just looking at something and describing it in numbers. The rules (mapping functions) that we use to describe the “thing” in numbers provide us with a model of reality. If this model is correct (valid) we can learn about the real world by studying the model and the numbers that it predicts. Without these measurements systems astronomers could not describe the make up of galaxies billions of light-years away from us. Every questions we have starts in the real world But to understand the question and come up with the answer we use mapping functions (rules) to describe the real world question using numbers. There are times when we map to a non numeric entities in the real world, Like a question about color but we convert these into numbers like the number of red things in a room. These characteristics (elements) are X’s. The “numbers” are Y’s derived using the mapping function as a transfer function of the elements into numbers. A good example of this we all can relate to is the fuel tank on your car. It would be nice to know how much fuel is in your tank? That would be a measurement of the amount of fuel in your tank. Real World – Your fuel tank with some amount of fuel in it. Mapping function – A float with a sensor on a spindle connected to a fuel gage. The gage marked off in numerical intervals. Plus YOU reading the indicator. Numbers – The gage needle pointing to a numerical value on the gage (like the 1/8 mark just above Empty (0)) Usage – Time to get gas! Measurement Scales Not all data (numbers we collect) are created equal. That does not mean some are better than others is just means that some tells us more information than other. You will find that our numbers fall into one of four scales. In teams that I have worked with I always bring up the discussion of measurement scales because not everyone looks at how they would measure something in the same way. Some may look at the fuel tank about as fuel empty or half full, other may talk in gallons of fuel. With that said we need to understand the scale we are going to measure the real world in. The scale of the data to be collected in the measurement process. .So here are the four measurement scales. Nominal Scale – These are numbers that only indicate the presents or absence of an attribute. All we can do here is count items with or without this attribute. Ordinal Scale – This scale gives us a little bit more information. With this scale we can say if an item has more or less of an attribute With this scale we can rank order items. Interval Scale – This scale is use when we are measure the differences between observations. Interval scale numbers that are equally different represent differences of equal magnitude. The zero vale of an interval scale is arbitrary. Ratio Scales – This scale is like Interval Scale except it has a true zero point. In other words you can have nothing less than zero. Well there you have my thoughts on Measurement and the importance of your scale of measurement. Next time I am going to discuss the different statistical tool use for different scales of measurement. If, you have questions or comments please feel free to contact me by leaving a comment below, emailing me, calling me, or leaving a comment on my website. Bersbach Consulting Peter Bersbach Six Sigma Master Black Belt http://sixsigmatrainingconsulting.com peter@bersbach.com 1.520.829.0090 (Comment on this)
Tuesday, September 28th, 2010
10:30 am	Understanding Variation Understanding Variation September 28th, 2010 There is variation everywhere. Look around there are no true clones of anything, everything is at least slightly different. Even in identical twins there is a difference that the parents can see to tell them apart. It is variation in the world that feeds evolution. It is this variation that allows life to survive on this planet. Not everything survives but those that adapt (change/ vary) to the changing world do survive. So as a society we tend to classify things at any given moment. Classification gives us an ability to take a look at things and figure out what makes them “tick” (survive). These classification come in one of two types. Those two types are categorical (discrete) information (data) and numerical (continuous) information (data). Variation Classifications: Let’s take a good look at these two types of classification of information I call data. First there is Categorical (discrete) data. Definitions: Categorical – Belonging to a category. Categorize – To describe by labeling or giving a name to a group of characteristics. Discrete – Apart or detached from others; separate; distinct. Categorical data can only be one of a limited number of non-numerical choices. It is sometimes, in numerical terms (becomes numerical data), called count data because the only way to measure it is by counting. Examples of this type of data are: Best/better/worse Small/Medium/Large Restaurant $$ ratings Movie ** ratings Pass/Fail Yes/No Red cars Doctors Broken Repaired Second is Numerical ( continuous) data. Definitions: Numerical – of  or pertaining to numbers; of the nature of a number. Continuous – uninterrupted in time; without cessation. Numerical data is from a measuring process. Examples of this type of data are: Height Weight Length Depth Voltage Time Business and Variation: In businesses we compensate for variation to try to meet customer needs and expectations. This compensation cost money. In Six Sigma we try to understand and deal with this variation. We use statistics to help recognize and thus assess the variation by organizing it in a meaningful way. Statistics help change assumptions to conclusions about where the errors (variations) are and how bad it is affecting our business. Statistics help “Picture” the variation we feel or think is happening. Definition Statistic – a numerical fact usually computed from a sample. Well there you have my thoughts on understanding variation. Next time I am going to discuss measuring that variation and the proper scale of measurement to use depending on the type of  variation you are trying to measure. If, you have questions or comments please feel free to contact me by leaving a comment below, emailing me, calling me, or leaving a comment on my website. Bersbach Consulting Peter Bersbach Six Sigma Master Black Belt http://sixsigmatrainingconsulting.com peter@bersbach.com 1.520.829.0090 (Comment on this)
Friday, September 24th, 2010
5:01 pm	The Element of Time As we all know there is variation everywhere and in everything. This includes people pencils, traffic at an intersection, customer needs, goods, services, and of course processes. If you can not predict this variation, I can bet you are compensating for it and that compensation is costing you money!! In Six Sigma we use statistics to recognize and thus assess and understand that variation so we can predict it ahead of time. This reduces our costs and increases customer satisfaction. Statistics can help you “Picture” variation. Many times we look at data that we gather in various ways but some times we forget about the element of time. At any given point things may look great but over time many times things vary. This variation can not be seen in what we call a histogram of all the data or any other kind of plot that does not use time on one of the axis. For example below (Figure 1) is a plot of Systolic blood pressure of one individual over four months. This plots shows where the average Systolic Blood Pressure would be if it was Normal, Marginally High, or High. In this individuals case it does not look that great. As you can see this individuals Systolic pressure is all over the place and does not look like a normal distribution. It may be Bi or Multi modal (two or more things effecting the results making several peaks in the Histogram).  From this we can not draw to much of a conclusion but to tell him to see a doctor. Or should we?? If I take that same data and plot over time we get the following graphic. Now clearly you can see a shift in the blood pressure over the 4 months. All for the better. We might not want the person to see the doctor but find out what might have cause this improvement. A different solution just because we looked at the data in a time sequence chart. What these two graphs tell us is that if you have collected data over any given time period I’d suggest that you plot it in what is called an x or individuals chart (Figure 2 above) over time and see what you see in patterns there. In fact many times I plot the data in several different ways just to see what I can find. What kinds of patterns I see that can lead me to why the data varies so much. If, you have questions or comments please feel free to contact me by leaving a comment below, emailing me, calling me, or leaving a comment on my website. Bersbach Consulting Peter Bersbach Six Sigma Master Black Belt http://sixsigmatrainingconsulting.com peter@bersbach.com 1.520.829.0090 (Comment on this)
Tuesday, August 10th, 2010
4:42 pm	Another form of muda - An Article review Another form of muda – An Article review August 9th, 2010 August 6th, 2010 Number Nine[1] I have written several articles on the seven types of waste that have been read by a lot of folks. Well now I’d like to expand those seven to nine. As you will see in this article in Six Sigma we are continuously trying to improve even Six Sigma’s tools and techniques. Here a user finds a need to define another type of waste. Why? Because, as Mr. Navetta puts it, categorizing another form of  muda/ waste can help you eliminate it. So my articles talked of seven and Mr. Navetta now has create number nine. What happen to eight? Well eight is a Toyota developed one called unused employee resources that I included in a category I called Inventories and/or other resources. Number Nine is: “Material underutilization” Mr. Navetta describes it as leftover material once the material has been used. His example is the “skeletons” from a stamping machine which an excellence example. He says you may not know if it is truly a waste but tag it and find out. He mentions that the spacing could be due to closer would cause stress within the part. But I am with him, ask the question. It maybe that with a re-layout of the die one could get more pieces from the sheet. But stamping is not the only place. Think about forms where we have multiple copies that are sent out. Many times processes get changed where fewer copies are needed and the number of copies is not changed. It is material that is under utilized and a waste.  We will tend to throw the extra copy away rather than get the form changed. Can you think of other situations that fit into this category of waste? Leaving a comment below, emailing me, call me, or leaving a comment on my website. Great article kudos to Mr. Navetta As always if, you have questions or comments please feel free to contact me by leaving a comment below, emailing me, calling me, or leaving a comment on my website. Bersbach Consulting Peter Bersbach Six Sigma Master Black Belt http://sixsigmatrainingconsulting.com peter@bersbach.com 1.520.829.0090 [1] Jim Navetta, “Number Nine – Categorizing another form of muda can help you eliminate it,” Quality Progress, Vol. 43, No.8, August 2010, pp. 64, http://www.asq.org/qualityprogress/departments-columns-current/i,ndex.html?ssUserText=&column=15&mode=nav&lst=hp Note: The website above is on the American Society for Quality website and to access it you need to be a member. But there are way to purchase the article from ASQ. (Comment on this)
Saturday, August 7th, 2010
4:11 pm	Reviving Healthcare - An Article Review Reviving Healthcare[1]- Article Review This article[1] talks about Don Berwick M.D. who is being considered to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid services. Through his work at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement he has advanced quality in healthcare. His feelings is that clinicians simply do not think about the delivery of healthcare as happening with in a system. Doctors give great diagnosis. But that diagnosis is only as good as the system that brought him the data to review. There are labs and technicians that get sent materials to analysis. What if things get mixed up or not done well. Those are all part of the system that the clinician does not think about. Berwick’s long time vision as a solution to Americans healthcare is a three pronged systems approach. These three prongs, called the Triple Aim, are: “Improve the individual experience of care.” “Improving the health of populations.” “Reducing the per capita costs of care for populations.” The Barriers he sees to this success include: “Supply-Driven Demand.” “New technologies, including many with limited impact on outcomes.” “Physician-centric care.” Little or no Foreign competition to spur domestic change.” If we agree that the current U.S. healthcare system is unsustainable and that the Triple Aim is the right approach there are three design components needed to reach success: “Recognition of a population as the unit of concern.” “Externally supplied policy constraints.” “An integrator to focus and coordinate services to help the population on all three dimensions at once.” I really do feel that the US healthcare industry can not be sustained and needs major changes. This article make me feel that Berwick would be a great head for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and at last some one might start fixing this industry. I hope he succeeds. As always if, you have questions or comments please feel free to contact me by leaving a comment below, emailing me, calling me, or leaving a comment on my website. Bersbach Consulting Peter Bersbach Six Sigma Master Black Belt http://sixsigmatrainingconsulting.com peter@bersbach.com 1.520.829.0090 [1] Charles Kenney, “Reviving Healthcare,” Quality Progress, Vol. 43, No. 7, July 2010, pp. 30-35, http://www.asq.org/quality-progress/2010/07/innovation/reviving-healthcare.html (Comment on this)
Friday, July 23rd, 2010
10:16 am	Six Sigma Success takes a Cultural Change Six Sigma Success takes a Cultural Change July 23rd, 2010 As cited in my Six Sigma Overview session, Six Sigma is a business culture change. You can apply Six Sigma techniques to a single project and you might be successful, but to make a big impact on the bottom line of a company it needs to be a full fledged shift in the way an organization looks at solving issues and problems that keep it from meeting its major business goals and objectives. Using Six Sigma on one project does not make Six sigma successful in a company. Six sigma has to be infused into the company’s  everyday process and everyday thinking. Change is hard for people to deal with because they are afraid of the unknown. The actual change is situational or external: a new policy, a new job, a new supervisor. What we have real trouble with is the transition. The transition is psychological or internal. It is the process people go through to deal with the change. Many of the changes that affect us are events that we can’t control.  Our personal transition, however, is something we can control. Six Sigma is a mind set. A way everyone in the company looks at solving issues. It is a mind set of expected questions to the way a solution was developed and implemented. It is a proven approach that when incorporated in the business culture will result in step function improvements to your business. Six Sigma is not talking about totally changing the way you run your business, but changing the way you solve issues and roadblocks that come up as you are trying to meet your top level goals and objective. A simple and straight forward definition of Six Sigma is: Six Sigma  is  a 5 step process based on facts and data focused on your customer value to grow your business. As  simple and straight forward that this definition is,  one of the hardest cultural changes in this definition is the “based on facts and data”. You think that would be easy, but when the boss says it’s so, it’s so! Or is it? With this new cultural change opinions have to be backed by facts and data. Why? Because what was true yesterday may not be true today. Everyone in the organization needs to understand this. People get very defensive about their opinions. That is because they are hired for their knowledge, skills, and experience. That said Six Sigma does NOT throw out anyone’s opinions but uses them as a starting point to solve the issue then moves on to collect data to verify or validate the opinion. Often I have been given a project to form a team and solve an issue and in the Define step of DMAIC we find that what the boss thought was the issue or cause was not really it but another area was the cause. Everyone has to understand that we always back our statements with facts and data. Another area that becomes a roadblock for making this a cultural change is not having projects aligned with the top level company goals and objectives. This is very important to keeping top management’s commitment to the projects. If you have people working issues that are not focused on these goals and objectives you will find that management will pull resources (people, equipment, money) from the project to help areas of a higher priority. Yes management may be reluctant at first to having Six Sigma projects working key issues but that is what it was designed for. Designed to work on key issues that the company has little or no idea how to solve. Designed to work those areas where people say it cannot be done. With challenging issues you need a process to identify the root cause through facts and data to find the best solution. Six Sigma has that process in DMAIC (D = Define, M = Measure, A = Analyze, I = Improve, C = Control). Well there is a little insight into what is meant by a business cultural change and why it is hard to accomplish. As always, if you have questions or comments please feel free to contact me by leaving a comment below, emailing me, calling me, or leaving a comment on my website. Bersbach Consulting Peter Bersbach Six Sigma Master Black Belt http://sixsigmatrainingconsulting.com peter@bersbach.com 1.520.829.0090 (Comment on this)
Monday, July 12th, 2010
6:58 pm	Elevate the Constraint To elevate a constraint is to make it the number one priority and work on increasing its capacity. Although we have talked bits and pieces of this step in several of the other steps, here we focus on just the constraint. So here are a few ways to elevate the constraint. Add capacity to the constraint. This means adding people and/or equipment. The equipment you add does not have to be new or the same equipment you are currently using, it just has to do the same job even if it runs at a slower rate. This added equipment or personnel increases capacity. Adjust flow to match constraint. We have mentioned this before and restate it now. What this does is decrease inventory and confusion all over the area. It also makes everyone up and down stream from the constraint aware of the constraints rate (beat of process) and thus the importance of keeping it running. Decouple operations if data verifies this can be done. Some things can be done on products that do not go through the constraint. Other things can be done at the same time (in parallel) and later coupled up with items going through the constraint. Implement a flexible work cell. A flexible work cell is an work area that can be easily changed or adapted to do several tasks. This goes along with the decoupling. While an operation is waiting on the constraint (one of the seven types of waste), have it quickly change and do a different task that needs to be done that is not part of the constraints process flow line. Eliminate any non-value added tasks being performed at the constraint. Create a process flow map of the steps that are performed just at the constraint and identify the value added steps and the non value added steps. Totally eliminate the non value added steps or at least remove those tasks from the person working the constraint. Think of the surgeon again, with all the help in the room the surgeon is doing all the value added task while all the help is doing what is considered non value added tasks. These task are now being done in parallel (Decoupled from the flow). Reduce parts handling. Look at the constraint and try to do as much as you can at one holding of an item. Take an item, do what is needed without releasing it and pass it on. If you have to keep turning it over or reloading the item it just adds time and opportunities to create a defect in it. Reduce waiting or storage. Here we want to insure that at the constraint is NEVER waiting for anything. Plus nothing is waiting at the constraint to be used. Now that is near impossible but we want to reduce both of those as much as possible. Reduce or eliminate the process variation. One easy way to do this is by implementing error proofing. Error proofing is a way that when putting two things together there is only one way it can be done. On a form, check boxes are a way of error proofing. Reduce setup at the constraint. Setup is a non value added task and if you can eliminate, reduce or decouple setup you should. Sometimes setup can be done at a step in the process while the step is working. Again look at a surgery room. While the doctor is removing the patients heart, we should be preparing the transplant heart (setup) to be ready for immediate installation. In the pit at the race track, the pit crew does not wait until the car comes in to get the materials that are needed. They have everything laid out ready for the car as soon as it comes in. All this setup is done done while the process (car) is running (still on the track). Reduce Waste – There are seven basic types of wastes that I have talked about in another article. They are: Corrections, Overproduction, Movement of material or information, Motion of employees, Waiting, Inventory, and Processes. One of the best tools to reducing these wastes is the 5S’s: Sort, Simplify, Sweep, Standardize, and Sustain. Reducing these can save you time and money. Well there you have how to elevate a constraint in your process. The last of the five steps in constraint management is to go back to step one; Identify the constraint. The reason you start again at step one is that if you have improved the constraint it probably is no longer a constraint and some other step has become the constraint. You continue to do this until the process has no constraints. In other words until the rate of the process exceeds the demand placed on it. You may, in fact, have a slow step but if you still meet demands it is just that; a slow step and not the constraint. If, you have questions or comments please feel free to contact me by leaving a comment below, emailing me, calling me, or leaving a comment on my website. Bersbach Consulting Peter Bersbach Six Sigma Master Black Belt http://sixsigmatrainingconsulting.com peter@bersbach.com 1.520.829.0090 (Comment on this)
Thursday, June 24th, 2010
3:22 pm	3rd Step - Subordinate all other Tasks to the Constraint In constraint management after you have identified and exploited the constraint, you must subordinate all other tasks to the constraint. If you do not do this all you will have is people wasting time and materials creating parts of a completed product that no one wants. Then you have to spend money keeping track of all the excess inventory until you can use it. It is better to move those resources to helping the constraint task complete its works as quickly as possible. Think of your constraint as the surgeon of the process. All other tasks being performed in the operating room are subordinated to the surgeons work. Materials and tasks are brought in for use right when the surgeon needs them. Here are some helpful hint about subordination. You can decrease the output of all the rest of the tasks in the constraints process. Tasks before the constraint, will just build up inventory that cost you money. Money tied up in materials and labor to create the inventory that is sitting waiting for processing at the constraint. While it seats you have to keep track of it and store it until you use it. This also happens at tasks after the constraint. Here processes build inventory that sits waiting for the constraints task to be completed before they can complete their task. Since the capacity of the other tasks is larger than the constraint you can cut back on the utilization of the resources at those task and even move them to help the constraint. Sometimes these resources may not be as efficient as what is at the constraint but every little bit of output at the constraint helps. Increase the time that the constraint is being run. If the constraint task is only being done Monday through Friday from 8 – 5, then add the weekends or shifts for the constraint, This will increase the overall output of the process. Make sure that everyone know what the constraint is and what is needed at the constraint to keep it working. Put the information in every tasks written procedures. This way everyone will know the importance of keeping the constraint running and will make it their job to see it is working full time. Put in place a way to monitor the constraint so everyone know how it is doing at all times. Monitor Constraints throughput and/ or buffer sizes. Information is a great thing when everyone know what is happening and what is important. Well there you have how to subordinate all the other tasks to the constraint in your processes. Next time I will address how we elevate a constraint. The forth of five steps in constraint management. As always if, you have questions or comments please feel free to contact me by leaving a comment below, emailing me, calling me, or leaving a comment on my website. Bersbach Consulting Peter Bersbach Six Sigma Master Black Belt http://sixsigmatrainingconsulting.com peter@bersbach.com 1.520.829.0090 (Comment on this)
3:21 pm	Exploiting the Process Constraint June 3rd, 2010 Once you have identified your constraints, the next step in constraint management is to exploit them. This mean to utilize them to their maximum extent. To exploit the constraint we have to take a look at a few things first. We need to look at the existing work in process (WIP) and throughput levels and compare them to the goals or proposed levels or TAKT time for the constraint. We need to look at the line flow requirements and compare it to the constraint capacity. These two will give you a feel for how bad things are. Look closely at these comparisons and them do the following things: Develop a layout depicting buffer locations and sizes. Remember that buffers are one of the Seven Types of Wastes so try to maintain them as low as possible, but never let the constraint run out of raw materials to perform its tasks. Determine equipment needs. Here we look at if we can find other equipment to help the constraint move product faster. This may include buying more of the same equipment and creating another parallel operation to increase product flow to meet the demand. Once you have the first two done then adjust the process flow rate to match the capacity of the constraint. This will reduce materials from piling up at the constraint and making thing confusing. Rebalance operations. Not all products you produce require all operations in the process so something may bypass the constraint or can have other thing performed on it before it needs to go through the constraint. Ignore local efficiencies. Building more products at other operations just to keep people busy does not increase sales it only increases expenses. Ensure that an operator is always at the constraint working the product through it. Do this by staggering lunches and breaks, and cross training to ensure multiple people can work the constraint. Treat the person working the constraint like a heart surgeon. Everything is always there ready for them to do their job. They don’t have to go looking or wait for anything!! Establish procedures to ensure the constraint “NEVER RUNS DRY”. This includes material flow management, buffers, inventories, early deliveries, and expediting material so that they are always there at the constraint, ready for use. Every constraint needs to be a planned maintenance #1 priority so when maintenance is preformed it take the minimum amount of time away from running product on the operation. Notice I said a planned maintenance NOT no maintenance. I do not remember how many times I have heard that “we could not afford to stop for maintenance” but they ended up having to stop for repairs caused by no maintenance. Those repairs took, on average, 10 times longer to do. Maintenance is cheap and can be done off hours on constraint equipment. Well there you have how to exploit a constraint in your processes. Next week I will address subordination of a constraint the third of five steps in constraint management. As always if, you have questions or comments please feel free to contact me by leaving a comment below, emailing me, calling me, or leaving a comment on my website. Bersbach Consulting Peter Bersbach Six Sigma Master Black Belt http://sixsigmatrainingconsulting.com peter@bersbach.com 1.520.829.0090 (Comment on this)
Thursday, June 3rd, 2010
3:31 pm	Exploiting the Process Constraint June 3rd, 2010 Once you have identified your constraints, the next step in constraint management is to exploit them. This mean to utilize them to their maximum extent. To exploit the constraint we have to take a look at a few things first. We need to look at the existing work in process (WIP) and throughput levels and compare them to the goals or proposed levels or TAKT time for the constraint. We need to look at the line flow requirements and compare it to the constraint capacity. These two will give you a feel for how bad things are. Look closely at these comparisons and them do the following things: Develop a layout depicting buffer locations and sizes. Remember that buffers are one of the Seven Types of Wastes so try to maintain them as low as possible, but never let the constraint run out of raw materials to perform its tasks. Determine equipment needs. Here we look at if we can find other equipment to help the constraint move product faster. This may include buying more of the same equipment and creating another parallel operation to increase product flow to meet the demand. Once you have the first two done then adjust the process flow rate to match the capacity of the constraint. This will reduce materials from piling up at the constraint and making thing confusing. Rebalance operations. Not all products you produce require all operations in the process so something may bypass the constraint or can have other thing performed on it before it needs to go through the constraint. Ignore local efficiencies. Building more products at other operations just to keep people busy does not increase sales it only increases expenses. Ensure that an operator is always at the constraint working the product through it. Do this by staggering lunches and breaks, and cross training to ensure multiple people can work the constraint. Treat the person working the constraint like a heart surgeon. Everything is always there ready for them to do their job. They don’t have to go looking or wait for anything!! Establish procedures to ensure the constraint “NEVER RUNS DRY”. This includes material flow management, buffers, inventories, early deliveries, and expediting material so that they are always there at the constraint, ready for use. Every constraint needs to be a planned maintenance #1 priority so when maintenance is preformed it take the minimum amount of time away from running product on the operation. Notice I said a planned maintenance NOT no maintenance. I do not remember how many times I have heard that “we could not afford to stop for maintenance” but they ended up having to stop for repairs caused by no maintenance. Those repairs took, on average, 10 times longer to do. Maintenance is cheap and can be done off hours on constraint equipment. Well there you have how to exploit a constraint in your processes. Next week I will address subordination of a constraint the third of five steps in constraint management. As always if, you have questions or comments please feel free to contact me by leaving a comment below, emailing me, calling me, or leaving a comment on my website. Bersbach Consulting Peter Bersbach Six Sigma Master Black Belt http://sixsigmatrainingconsulting.com peter@bersbach.com 1.520.829.0090 (Comment on this)
Thursday, May 27th, 2010
1:11 pm	Identifying your Process Constraints Some times the hardiest thing is to find your process constraint. Remember, a constraint is any resource with less throughput than the demand placed on it. They regulate the output of your whole process. First you need to understand “demand”. Demand is not what the supervisor wants, although many times it feels like it if the supervisor does not understand constraint management. Demand is the rate at which you need to run the process to meet customer needs or demands. If you are not making it for a customer then it is not a demand you really need to meet. Where do we look for possible candidates as possible constraints? We go walk the process and look for: Areas where a lot of WIP (Work In Process) or material is waiting for processing. This is one of the Seven Types of Wastes. Areas that work a lot of overtime. This is not just paid overtime but also unpaid. If your company is good, employees many times will work extra hours just to make things happen sooner, this counts as overtime also. At those operations that you see the above happening review the following: Spaghetti Charts (Physical Process Flow Chart) of these operations. Is there a lot of movement? Line balance at these operations. Is the product balance uneven? Constraint Capacity. Is capacity below the demand? The demand on the operation. Are the demands real? If the answer to any of these four questions is yes this step is a possible constraint. To validate these steps as a constraint we need to use TAKT time to understand the constraint need. TAKT time is the time which should be taken to produce a product based on customer demand. With that said if every step or operation of a process is working at or above that rate then the whole process is meeting the customer demand. It only takes one step of the process to be below that TAKT time to make the whole process fail to meet the demand placed upon it. Once we have the TAKT time we can compare it to the actual throughput and validate the step as a constraint or not.TAKT time is the total net operating time per shift or day, divided by the total customer(s) requirements needed per shift or day. Net operating time is the total time minus breaks and lunch (if things are not running during that time). For example lets say your customer demands are 1000 (parts, transactions, assemblies) per shift and a shift is 8 hours or 480 minutes. Now lets say that we have two 20 minute breaks during the shift and no lunch breaks (employees do take lunch but the operation is still running). That means our net operating time is 440 minutes ( 480- 20- 20= 440). So TAKT time is 440/1000 = .44 minutes or (.44min * 60 seconds) 26.4 seconds per item. That means that in this process every step has to complete their tasks in 26.4 seconds. Once you have the TAKT time for each of the process step that you had identified above then you can list all those steps by TAKT time and actual time. Those that exceed the TAKT time are constraints, those that do not exceed the TAKT time are not constraints. Well there you have how to identify a constraint in your processes. Next week I will address exploiting the constraint the second of five steps in constraint management. As always if you have questions or comments please feel free to contact me by leaving a comment below, emailing me, calling me, or leaving a comment on my website. Bersbach Consulting Peter Bersbach Six Sigma Master Black Belt http://sixsigmatrainingconsulting.com peter@bersbach.com 1.520.829.0090 (Comment on this)
Monday, May 17th, 2010
4:06 pm	Where Oh Where have my Profits Gone? A Discussion on Constraint Management In today’s world we are always looking for ways to improve what we do. But many time we have improved a step of one of our business processes to find no real gains. Yes that step is more efficient but over all we did not improve the bottom line. Why does this happen? Because we have been improving areas that are not the over all bottlenecks of your company. The bottleneck or constraint paces the whole process and if you are improving any other step but the constraint you will find not improvement in the overall process. You need to work the constraint. A constraint is any resource with less throughput than the demand placed on it. The constraint usually regulate the output of the process. It is the “Beat” of the process. What we need to do is manage our constraints. If we manage them then we will be making improvements to the critical parts of our processes and thus we will see improvement in the output. Constraint Management helps recognize and manage constraints that are impacting our performance. It provides: Increased capacity without needing to make capital investments. Flexibility to changing customer demands Reduce or eliminate need for buffers/ Work in process (WIP) Reduces cost through increased output and improved global efficiency. Reduces throughput variability It creates global optimization , not local sub-optimization. There are five basic steps to Constraint Management. They are: Identify the constraint – Look at every step of the process and evaluate it’s capacity and throughput in regards to the demand or Takt Time. Look around at the steps of your process, do you see  a lot of inventory or a large stack in an inbox, people charging a lot of over time, working late or long hours, taking work home to get it done. This usually indicate a constraint. Exploit  the constraint – Looking at the required throughput (Demand or Takt Time) adjust buffers (in baskets) and equipment at the constraint to allow maximum throughput. Then rebalance the process to feed just what the constraint needs no more no less. Subordinate the constraint – This means reduce production so that all operations only produce the quantity that the constraint can handle. This reduction many times frees up equipment and personnel that can help work the constraint step of the process. Make sure everyone know what the constraint is and what that step can handle. Elevate the constraint -  Here we do everything possible to keep the constraint step working.  This is like making sure the step is running 24 hours a day 7 days a week. Adjust employees breaks and lunch to insure this step is always running. Remove or have someone else do tasks that do not create value but need to be done at this step. Treat the employee at this step like a heart surgeon; everything is close by easy to get and ready for use.. No delays. Go back to 1. – You need to go back to step one because if you did you job right on the constraint then you now have a new one to work.. You keep doing this until you have no constraints in the process. How can that be? We can reach that point when the (customer) demand is less than the throughput. You will still have steps that are the slowest but as long as you meet the demand you are ok. By the way those steps still set the pace of the whole process. If you remember that you will help keep cost ( of storing inventory) down. One way to do that is with a “Pull System” which is a good topic for another article. As always if you have questions or comments please feel free to contact me by leaving a comment below, emailing me, calling me, or leaving a comment on my website. Bersbach Consulting Peter Bersbach Six Sigma Master Black Belt http://sixsigmatrainingconsulting.com peter@bersbach.com 1.520.829.0090 (Comment on this)
Wednesday, May 12th, 2010
3:50 pm	The Project Charter – A forgotten but an extremely important tool of Define Why create a charter it seems just like busy work? I mean the boss wants this done NOW why waste the time on creating a charter? Good questions, but I can guarantee you a charter is NOT a waste of your time, nor the bosses time either. Do you remember the school yard game where you would line up and tell the person next to you something and have them pass it on. What was said at the end of the line? Was it ever the same thing? I’d say NO. Why is that? Because as much as we think we state things clearly the receiver never gets it exactly like what we said. I see this all the time in training and working in teams. We are such a diverse group of people that our individual picture of what is said gets mixed with what we know and that changes the thought. So we write a charter to capture the “true” reason we are doing the project. It is the best way to capture and pass on what you are doing. With out it your team may get lost very quickly as the direct at the beginning is slightly different in everyone’s mind. The charter is more than a simple statement of the project objective. It hold a lot of information so everyone gets the same “picture” of what we are doing. Some things in a charter may seem redundant but they are not. They are stating the approach to the issue in a slightly different way so other will get the complete picture of what is happening. You will find that you will come back to the charter time and again to bring the team back on task for what they were brought together to accomplish. So lets look at what should be in your charter. The Header Block Project Name or Title Who will be the project Lead and their phone number Who will be the project Sponsor and their phone number Note: A sponsor is ALWAYS needed. The Sponsor will be the manager that the project will impact and help the most . The Sponsor will also help remove road blocks as the team encounters them. Last the Sponsor will be the main conduit to top management that will need to support this project as well. The Project Start and Target End Date. Management will not support a project that we do not have some time frame to complete. The Problem Statement – Here we need to describe the problem as briefly as we can but with enough detail that everyone understands it. Plus here we need to include a business case statement. This statement is what ties this problem to the company goals and objective and defines why we need to do it NOW. In other words it is the “burning platform or need” to do it now. A Vision Statement – Many call this the objective but I like to call this a vision of the future state of the process. Many times this makes it easier for others to “picture” what it will look like when the project is complete. The Metrics – This may seem hard to define right now but believe me when I say management when they saw this problem it was not a touchy feely thing it had hard number associated to it. Numbers they want to see changes in. It could be dollars, volume, time, or number of customers but there are numbers that are the metrics YOU need to improve. Sometimes even management does not quite know what they are but it is your job to ask why they think they see this as an issue and find the metric! The Benefits – Now we take the metrics and align them to stakeholder benefits. Stakeholders are Customers, Stockholders, and Employees. So here we take the metrics and show how they impact our stakeholders. Deliverables – Here is one a lot of folks miss but don’t you be one of them. This will define when you know the project is done. These will be the results of the project. They can be minimum changes in the metrics with stretch goals included. But everyone needs to know not only the date the project will be complete but also what will result from it. Yes, it is hard to know the exact solution at the start of a project but you can set some reasonable goals to accomplish. It does seem scary but in the end you will find that you had been very conservative with these. Scope of the Project – The best way I can describe this is when looking at the process you are trying to improve. What steps of that process will be looked at in this project. This will help you keep the project focus and not have what I call scope creep due to not know what areas of the company this project will cover. It also should be noted that you need to make sure the scope is not to big ( you can not solve world hungry, you may be able to only solve hungry in your neighborhood). Project Team – list here the member of the project team, what roles they will play and how you can contact them (phone). DMAIC Est. Completion Times – I know you have the project Start and estimated completion dates above, but you will need an estimated completion time for each of the five step of DMAIC. These will be milestones to you and management on how well the project is moving. It is better to make adjustment as you go then to find you are way behind and over budget near the end of the project. Well there you have the basic components of a six sigma project charter. At least from my prospective. If you have questions or comments please feel free to leave them below or you can contact me on my website. Bersbach Consulting Peter Bersbach Six Sigma Master Black Belt http://sixsigmatrainingconsulting.com peter@bersbach.com 1.520.829.0090 (Comment on this)
Tuesday, May 4th, 2010
2:02 pm	Is DMAIC needed in Lean Six Sigma In an earlier article I wrote about DMAIC as the roadmap to a successful Six Sigma projects[i]. I implied that DMAIC was “the” method for Six Sigma, but it is not and does not have to be. Over the years I have seen adaptation of the DMAIC process to fit a companies culture. But a good proven method or approach is needed to be successful. In “6 Sigma’s Five Key Elements to Success”[ii] I talked about to have success you need an established method. “An Established Method to improve. Many time people are told to go fix something and sometimes that works, but when the solution is not obvious you need a method to develop and implement a workable solution. In our case Six Sigma IS that method. A five step method (process) based on facts and data focused on your customer’s value to solve the need and grow your business. What happens if you don’t have a method?  You will have false starts. Put another way, have you ever been in a meeting where once again an issue comes up that was suppose to be solved last week, last month or last year? Those are fixes that were done with no method to the solution. When you see this during your project step back and look at your six sigma methodology and see if you have to refocus the team. An Example of this is trying to fix the problem from what was learned during or at the end of the Measure step. This leads to skipping analysis were we do a “Deep Dive” for the real root cause of what we see.” Thomas Pyzdek said it this way, Six Sigma‘s …”focus is on doing. But how do we know what we are doing is correct?”[iii] He goes on to say that we know from gaining the knowledge through learning. DMAIC is one good method for learning and if you do not have one it is an excellent starting point. Remember that Six Sigma is focused on continuous process improvement. In a company I worked for they took the DMAIC process and expanded it to six steps instead of five. They did this to put more emphasis on some steps and less on others. Why change it? Because their culture understood how to do some of the steps of DMAIC very well but they felt that some steps needed extra attention to insure everyone did it right the first time. By the way DMAIC was not the first learning approach used in the quality arena were Six Sigma roots are from. I believe Shewhart  came up with what is know as PDCA or Plan, Do, Check, Act. Deming refers to PDCA as the PDSA or Plan, Do, Study, Act. I believe that DMAIC’s root come from these. Can you see the progression? VCPCIA is another companies adaptation of DMAIC. In the Design arena we have DMADV or Define, Measure, Analyze, Design, and Verify. Well there you have it. DMAIC is not cast in stone but it is a good starting point. Don’t leave anything out but adjust and clarify to make it work for you and then follow it! If you have comments or questions you can post them here or contact me. Bersbach Consulting Peter Bersbach Six Sigma Master Black Belt http://sixsigmatrainingconsulting.com peter@bersbach.com 1.520.829.0090 ________________________________________________________________ [i] The Roadmap to a Successful 6 Sigma Project, By Peter Bersbach, Oct. 8th 2009, http://www.sixsigmatrainingconsulting.com/uncategorized/the-roadmap-to-a-successful-six-sigma-project/ [ii] 6 Sigma Five Key elements to success, by Peter Bersbach, May 14th 2009, http://www.sixsigmatrainingconsulting.com/leading-six-sigma/6-sigma-five-key-elements-to-project-success/ [iii] Thomas Pyzdek, The Six Sigma Handbook (New York 2003), pg241 (Comment on this)