Understand Your Style to Practice Better Six Sigma

Kaizen Culture Compatible With Pace of Business Change

Does the kaizen culture position an enterprise to deal with the high-pace of business change? Leadership coach discusses managing meaningful change in an organization and the commitment necessary to endure successive waves of change.

... "What is so striking in today's workplaces is the sheer volume of those continuous improvement changes and the rate of change to the changes. " ...

Via Seattle Post-Intelligencer: Leading change

Executive Sponsorship of Six Sigma Education

Company CEO publicly recognizes his employees on their achievements in Six Sigma. ...

... "Batelco Chief Executive Peter Kaliaropoulos congratulated and rewarded 10 employees who have been certified as Six Sigma Black Belts, following their successful completion of the required professional training, through Juran Institute, USA. " ...

Via Batelco: Employee Recognition

Wausau Paper Lean Six Sigma Cultural Approach

Wausau Paper discusses its lean and Six Sigma approach in the enterprise during its earnings call with analysts. Its Lean Six Sigma implementation varies across the lines of business. ...

... "Where we have technical problem solving issues as it relates to high performance grades and specialty, you might see a Six Sigma approach with respect to broader cost reduction opportunity, you might see a lean approach being used and sorry to tell you it somewhat differs necessarily from one business to the other but it tends to be a continuous and intense cultural approach within the corporation. " ...

Via Seeking Alpha: Wausau Paper Corp. Q4 2007 Earnings Call Transcript

Kaizen Small Improvements Accumulate

Philosophy of workforce harmony is supported with a foundation of kaizen improvement to enable success of the enterprise. ...

... "They call it kaizen, or continuous improvement. ... Every employee of a company is focused on making many small improvements wherever they may be. It could be as simple as always maintaining a clean workplace, which reduces confusion and allows workers to remain focused. " ...

Via Grand Forks Herald: Wind turbine blade manufacturer

Toyota Production System Highlights

TPS reviewed in this vid. ...

Innovative Thinking Integrated With Culture

Innovation is needed to differentiate corporate and product performance in the global economy. Lean principles can be extended to the growth agenda to support building an innovative culture and workforce. ...

... "What is really needed today is what I call systematic and lean innovation. That is, you have to make innovative thinking part of the entire corporate culture. " ...

Via Oakland Business Review on MLive: Lean Innovation Summit

TQM Total Quality Across the Organization

Total quality management requires a rethinking of the organization. The workforce should be enabled through training and mentoring. Roles should be defined to monitor quality in the process. And, the organization should understand how the customer values quality. ...

... "Put simply, Total Quality Management (TQM) is the process of instilling quality throughout an organisation and its business processes. " ...

Via Economic Times: Quality management

Six Sigma Reward System Scales With Benefits

Fort Leavenworth responds to Six Sigma adoption barriers with a scalable reward system. ...

... "So, the Garrison's Lean Six Sigma Tiger Team formulated a reward system for civilian, military and contract employees. The reward corresponds with the success of the idea. " ...

Via Leavenworth Lamp: Incentives

Lean Principles Leadership Culture Empowers Employees

Wisconsin manufacturing company sees success from lean principles. The company's leadership committment creates an empowered culture of continuous improvement. The company will be recognized with a manufacturing award this week. ...

... "Lean manufacturing principles, in combination with our strong leadership culture, have allowed PCMC to flourish. We have created a unique environment based on continuous improvement and employee empowerment ... " ...

Via Green Bay Press-Gazette: Wisconsin Manufacturing Success

Six Sigma Internship Provides Insights at Grainger

Intern at Grainger shares experiences from Grainger which included survey on the company's Six Sigma performance management system. ...

Jack Welch on Six Sigma Customer-focused Company

Jack Welch offers his perspective on how Six Sigma will make the enterprise more customer focused. ...

Six Sigma Data Quality Requires an Architecture

Better and more insightful decision making can offer a competitive advantage to a company, provided the underlying foundation is built on data quality. Improved data quality requires an architecture, a culture, and a process. ...

... "Using this architecture, it is even possible to progress systematically toward a Six Sigma level of quality management. This design is in response to the current lack of a published, coherent architecture for addressing data quality issues. " ...

Via DMReview: Data Quality

Six Sigma Culture Incompatible at GE Division

Even in the bastion of Six Sigma, GE, there exists barriers to cultural adoption. ...

... "frequently called for the sale of NBC Universal because of its declining revenue and GE's Six Sigma discipline not being compatible with Hollywood sensibilities. " ...

Via BloggingStocks: GE Volatility

Process Depends on Culture

3M challenged by balancing disciplined process execution with flexibility needed to sustain creativity and innovation. It is difficult for an enterprise to sustain cultures necessary to be successful at both initiatives. ...

... "Buckley, a PhD chemical engineer by training, seems to recognize the cultural ramifications of a process-focused program on an organization whose fate and history is so bound up in inventing new stuff. " ...

Via Business Week: 3M Six Sigma

Quality Role in Six Sigma Organization

Quality needs to be repositioned in a Six Sigma culture and organization model. Quality leader(s) can create a strategic view of quality in the business. The quality team has a role in operations to ensure focus on those variables that are critical to quality from a customer perspective. Don't ignore the opportunity to rethink the quality organization as Six Sigma is implemented. ...

... "Strategic quality work begins with an understanding of where the company and its products fit in the marketplace. The vice president of quality or the quality manager must join top management in setting the strategic direction of the company. " ...

Via Qualilty Mag: Quality Evolution

Kaizen Learning, A Way of Life

Want a better life? ... learn (or kaizen) ...

... "In the Japanese culture, continuous learning (they call it kaizen) is a key part of their lives. It's a belief that life is a journey and that knowledge can and should increase with every step taken. " ...

Via Community Press: Lifetime Learning

Award Recognizes Leader of Lean Organization

Company president recognized for lean manufacturing achievements. ...

... "I attribute this recognition to the many Ariens employees who have embraced lean manufacturing in creating a culture of continuous improvement, says Ariens. In the process they have driven the company's annual productivity gains. " ...

Via Lawn & Landscape: Manufacturing Award

Six Sigma Thought Process Pervades Employee Culture

Small companies can have success with Six Sigma through using its DMAIC process to guide employee behaviors and thought process. ...

... "Your company may be math-challenged and the thought of doing anything with statistics may put you to sleep, but don't throw out the baby with the bathwater. Through the Six Sigma DMAIC thought process, you can involve employees in reaching company goals. " ...

Via Inc: Six Sigma

3M Six Sigma Culture: Risk Averse ?

3M adds manufacturing capacity to drive growth. Six Sigma focus may have clouded its judgement with regards to investing for growth. ...

... "In the past, a 3M culture that viewed new investment with circumspection and an over-reliance on the Six Sigma management technique made it shy of building some needed capacity, Buckley said. " ....

Via MarketWatch: 3M