Lean Six Sigma Bursts — E36: Two main types of kaizen or kaikaku events
When describing the methodology of a kaizen or kaikaku event, I often break it up into two main types: Working session – traditional approach where 80% of the work is …
Lean Six Sigma Bursts — E35: What to do if management doesn’t support Lean or Six Sigma?
A common question I hear is “what if my company doesn’t support process improvement?” I share 4 main approaches you can take to deal with this situation, instead of feeling …
Lean Six Sigma Bursts — E34: Analyzing my COVID-19 vaccine experience
I share my experience getting my first COVID-19 vaccine shot, and how I analyzed that process from a lean perspective. I found that there was only one second of value, …
Lean Six Sigma Bursts — E33: What is the history of PDCA vs PDSA?
I was recently asked about the difference between PDCA and PDSA. I had heard some new information from another podcast, and dug into one of the references to learn more …
Lean Six Sigma Bursts: E32: How Lean Events Accomplish More Than Process Improvement
A recent Value Stream Mapping event was held virtually, and we received some positive feedback from the event attendees. I wanted to share some of the comments to show how …
Lean Six Sigma Bursts: E31: Why a Structured Problem Solving Approach is Important
Does your organization use a structured problem solving process, like DMAIC, 8D, or PDSA? If no, why not? I share my views on what challenges are created when you don’t …
Lean Six Sigma Bursts: E30: Using a Prioritization Matrix to Select the Best Projects
Are you trying to decide how to select the best projects to work on, but have many stakeholders and customer needs to consider, and too many project ideas? Check out …
Lean Six Sigma Bursts: E29: How to decide on the right number of people for your lean event?
I received a question today that I thought would be helpful to everyone: “Imagine you are getting ready to kick-off the value stream workshop and you start to receive emails …
Lean Six Sigma Bursts — E28: Don’t combine financial data together, separate into these 3 buckets
When making improvements to a process, cost savings and avoidance is a common outcome that is estimated and reported. A common error is to combine the data together into one …
Lean Six Sigma Bursts — E27: Calculate cost of nonconformance to get management’s attention for Lean
One of the most impactful quality initiatives I was involved with was the creation and deployment of the Cost of Nonconformance (CoNC) report. It was a method to assign a …