3 Ways to Speed Up Data Collection in Financial Service Processes
In any financial service process that is being studied for the first time, it's common for Six Sigma teams to spend one-third to one-half of their project time on data collection alone. Here are three...
View ArticleUse Cases and Measures: Strengthening the Six Sigma Link
“Use cases,” a term coined by Ivar Jacobson early in the evolution of object-oriented thinking, have been widely accepted as a helpful way to understand and document the functionality that is important...
View ArticleWhy You Cannot Depend Totally on Statistical Software
The proliferation of do-it-yourself statistical software can give some Six Sigma practitioners, who may not be strong in statistics, a false sense of confidence. For the most accurate results, follow...
View ArticleEstimating Sample Size for Process Capability with Special Causes (with...
Six Sigma team members often ask, “How much data do I need to establish the baseline?” for a process that is unstable. There is no valid statistical calculation for sample size in this situation, but...
View ArticleUsing Vector Analysis for Turbo-Charged Data Mining
Data mining via vector analysis is a powerful, flexible process observation tool. With due regard for the possibility of correlation/causation fallacies, data mining can be used by almost anyone. The...
View ArticleMargin of Error and Confidence Levels Made Simple
A survey is a valuable assessment tool in which a sample is selected and information from the sample can then be generalized to a larger population. Surveying has been likened to taste-testing soup – a...
View ArticleHelp for Project Leaders: Advanced Data Door Worksheet
At the Measure phase, improvement project leaders are confronted with the question: What is the most effective, efficient way to identify the data needed and to perform analysis of the data during the...
View ArticleUsing Lean Six Sigma Measurement Tools in Maintenance
Lean Six Sigma is widely used in production, but it can just as easily be applied to maintenance. Here's how to implement a measurement system using data to identify root causes, prioritize workloads...
View ArticleData Management Plans Can Improve Collection/Validation
Companion Article This is one of two articles by David Wetzel that explore the value of developing a data management plan as the intial step in the Measure phase of the Six Sigma DMAIC methodology. The...
View ArticleData Management Plans Can Reduce Project Cycle Times
Companion Article This is one of two articles by David Wetzel that explore the value of developing a data management plan as the intial step in the Measure phase of the Six Sigma DMAIC methodology. The...
View ArticleImplementing a Data-Driven Methodology Without Data
Six Sigma is a data-driven approach for eliminating defects in any process. The use of data is a key foundation of Six Sigma. Yet, when Six Sigma is being implemented organization-wide, the use of data...
View ArticleAnalytical Treatment of Discrete Ordered Category Data
Ordered category data is discrete data representing appraiser or client perception against a rating scale such as a survey or questionnaire. Black Belts learning to apply the Six Sigma methodology to...
View ArticleSix Sigma Tools Still Fit in Projects Lacking Data
No data? No problem! The Lean Six Sigma process provides an excellent framework for all types of projects, even when there is little or no data. The post Six Sigma Tools Still Fit in Projects Lacking...
View ArticleStratification Leads to Specialized Improvements
Many times Six Sigma practitioners start projects or analysis at a broad level. These projects may include processing a patient through a clinical procedure, transferring medical records, registering a...
View ArticleAttribute Data: Making the Most of What’s Available
Many times in software development and information technology, attribute data is what is available. Thus, it is valuable to look closely at the nature of attribute data and explore some tips for making...
View ArticleSample Correctly to Measure True Improvement Levels
Many companies spend considerable amounts of money on customer surveys every year. They then use those survey results to amend strategies, design new products and services, focus improvement activities...
View ArticleStatistics Do Three Things – Describe, Compare and Relate
Fear of statistics is often a barrier to learning and applying Six Sigma methods. One way to minimize this fear is to remember that only three things can be done with statistics – describe, compare and...
View ArticleBasic Sampling Strategies: Sample vs. Population Data
Information is not readily found at a bargain price. Gathering it is costly in terms of salaries, expenses and time. Taking samples of information can help ease these costs because it is often...
View ArticleImproving Staff Scheduling at Providence Health System
As with most hospitals, labor is the largest budget expense at the Providence Alaska Medical Center (PAMC) in Anchorage. But benchmarking indicated that staff utilization at PAMC, a part of the...
View ArticleHow to Determine Sample Size, Determining Sample Size
In order to prove that a process has been improved, you must measure the process capability before and after improvements are implemented. This allows you to quantify the process improvement (e.g.,...
View ArticleEliminating the Fear About Using Confidence Intervals
One of the pleasures of teaching Green Belts is helping to eliminate the fear of statistical analysis. One technique is to place an emphasis on not only when and why a tool or methodology is used but...
View ArticleEnlist Process Owners to Survive an Absence of Data
The beauty of Six Sigma, over other decision-making strategies is that it is, by nature, data driven – it involves making decisions backed by evidence. In the absence of data, then, what good is Six...
View ArticleBuilding a Sound Data Collection Plan
Black Belts and Six Sigma practitioners who are leading DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, Control) projects should develop a sound data collection plan in order to gather data in the...
View ArticleDigging for Data: Insurance Companies Strive to Improve
Based on experience with property and casualty insurers (P&C), one of the biggest profitability drivers is the expense incurred staffing and settling claims. Many P&C insurers struggle with...
View ArticleHow To Turn Process Data Into Information
A repeated series of actions and variables is a process. A collection of processes is a system. Virtually perfect Six Sigma quality results from an optimal interaction of all the variables in a given...
View ArticleActionable Information from Soft Data
Engineers, Six Sigma practitioners and other researchers often work with “hard” data – discrete data that can be counted and legitimately expressed as ratios. But what of “soft” data, things like...
View ArticleGE’s Six Sigma Focus On Span
We have heard about GE being one of the biggest proponents of Six Sigma, both for their own processes and for their customers. We’ve also heard how much GE has saved by implementing Six Sigma. This...
View ArticleRounding and Round-off Rules
When performing statistical data analyses, quality professionals are always challenged to maintain data integrity. When should you round up the answer; when should you round down? How many significant...
View ArticleIs There Bias In Your Random Sample?
By definition, a sample of size n is random if the probability of selecting the sample is the same as the probability of selecting every other sample of size n. If the sample is not random, a bias in...
View ArticleReducing Sampling Costs: Implementing a Variable Sampling Interval Strategy
Most manufacturing processes are controlled by sampling a product at some regular interval. Often, when a process is running normally, this interval is once every shift. It is not too surprising that...
View ArticleProcess Data Mining: Partitioning Variance
Manufacturing facilities can be faced with major challenges when it comes to process improvement, largely because practitioners don’t always know enough about the underlying process factors (x’s) are...
View ArticleMind Mapping: A Simpler Way to Capture Information
Reducing wait times is a perennial challenge for the service industry, particularly if you haven't rooted out all the causes for the delays. The mind mapping visualization tool can help you make sense...
View ArticleVOC: Comparing Reactive Data and Proactive Data
Collecting data – be it voice of the customer or otherwise – requires a plan. Details of the plan should include what data to collect, how to get the information, where the information will come from...
View ArticleHow to Avoid The Evils Within Customer Satisfaction Surveys
When the Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company won the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award for the second time in 1999, companies across many industries began trying to achieve the same level of outstanding...
View ArticleTaaG Analysis – Fast and Easy for Comparing Trends in Large Data Sets
TaaG (trends at a glance) analysis is a fast way to compare trends of subsets of data across large data sets. It is an ideal tool to use in the Measure and Control phases of DMAIC (Define, Measure,...
View ArticleUsing Censored Data in Transactional Processes
Censored data is commonly used in reliability studies to determine the mean time to failure in order to establish warranty and maintenance periods for products. A large number of samples are subjected...
View ArticleUse a Classification and Regression Tree (CART) for Quick Data Insights
In the Analyze phase of a DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, Control) Six Sigma project, potential root causes of variations and defects are identified and validated. Various data analysis tools...
View ArticleA Study of Estimates of Sigma in Small Sample Sizes
This paper looks at some of the methods of estimating standard deviation (which I will usually refer to as ‘sigma’). Additionally, I propose a new formula for estimating sigma for small sample sizes...
View ArticleRandom Sampling: Key to Reducing Bias and Increasing Accuracy
Random sampling is a statistical method of selecting a sample of data from a larger set in such a way that each data point has an equal chance of being selected, so that the sample represents the...
View ArticleImproving Accuracy with Sampling: Techniques and Strategies
When doing statistical analysis, it is impractical and often impossible to gather all the available data. That is when you would seek to sample the data to analyze it and make decisions about your...
View ArticleThe Importance of Sample Size
What do Goldilocks and statistical analysis sample size have in common? A razor-sharp focus on "just right." A sample size that is too big or too small leads to inaccurate data and wasted resources...
View ArticleSampling
It is often not possible or practical to collect all the data from your process. It can be too costly or take too much time. It may not be possible to access all the data. If this situation exists in...
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