How to use candy to teach or learn Six Sigma

During our Yellow Belt (beginner Six Sigma) class, we have found lots of success teach statistical concepts using candy.

It is a fun way to make statistics less “scary” for those who don’t have a strong math background.

We start out the class by opening up the bags, and counting out the number of pieces in each bag. Each student separates the pieces into colors, and creates a Pareto chart of their bag (see image below).



Next, we inspect the pieces to see how many have defects, so we can calculate a sigma level based on defect rates.

Next, we collect the total number of pieces by bag from each student, and calculate a mean (average), median and estimate variation using the standard deviation for the number of pieces per bag. Yes, we calculate it all by hand, not using Excel or Minitab.

In the next exercise, we create a histogram of the pieces, to look at the distribution of the class data (it comes out looking like a normal distribution, no surprise there).

We calculate capability indices (Pp and Ppk) from the data, using specification limits that might represent wasted money for the company, or customer dissatisfaction from insufficient pieces in a bag.

During some of our classes, we conduct a gage R&R study by measuring the size of candy pieces, to see how well we can get consistent measurements. Other times, we opt to use an attribute gage R&R study, and check to see how well people can determine the difference between different types of soda or brands of bottled water).

Finally, we calculate control limits for an Individuals chart, and plot the results to look for “out of control” conditions (based on Nelson Rules, an updated version of the Western Electric Rules).

If you'd like to see the class live and in-person, we have a Six Sigma Yellow Belt training class taking place in Portland >>> 

If Six Sigma is new to you, this is the best class to get started. If you are already trained or certified in Six Sigma, you should also attend, so you can see how to take this fun class back to your company to teach your employees or clients.

If you know someone who might be interested in this course, please forward this webpage to them. 

Employee engagement that will make you jealous!

One of the most difficult things for business owners and managers is to engage their employees in continuous improvements every day. Even the most advanced companies have struggled with this.

The problem is that companies focus too heavily on the tool side of process improvements. It’s actually more important how these tools are applied.

The secret is to focus on your employees and make them as successful as possible. When your employees are happy, they want to do a better job for the company. When they do a better job, your customers notice and are happier. Happy customers buy more stuff from you. Most companies don’t make this connection.

Rather than dictate improvements you would like your employees to make, you need to ask those who do the job day in and day out for their ideas, and help them implement them as quickly as possible.

Sadly, only a handful of companies have been able to break through and accomplish this.

One of them is FastCap, a small manufacturer of woodworking products and tools. The owner is Paul Akers, who has transformed his company into highly motivated employees that drive their own efficiency into their daily work.

Paul learned the culture of improvement from experts in the Toyota Production System. He wanted to share what he learned with all his employees, so he came up with a simple and easy approach that everyone in his company could understand and participate in, called “2 Second Lean”. Employees are encouraged to reduce time in their work by 2 seconds. That’s it! Who in your company would not be able to do that?

Luckily for all of us, Paul has documented and recorded his lean journey at FastCap on his YouTube channel and in his book. If you want to be motivated, inspired and amazed at their success, check out his videos at Youtube.com/user/fastcaptv

If you want help with the technical tools, check out our website at BIZ-PI.com.

If you want help engaging your employees, it starts with you! We would suggest watching at least 5 of Paul’s videos, and sharing them with your management team.

Online statistics training from Minitab has great animation and examples

Minitab statistical software is one of the most powerful and popular programs around, especially for those in the Six Sigma realm.

They recently released a suite of online training courses called Minitab Quality Trainer.

The training is very good, much better than what can be done by an instructor in a classroom. That is because the words have been streamlined, and the animation enhances the concepts being discussed. Online training can reduce the training time by 50% or more compared to traditional classroom training. Minitab has a lot of experience teaching these concepts, so it's no surprise. You can view a sample of Quality Trainer on their website.


There are nine chapters, covering the following topics:


Chapter 1: Descriptive Statistics and Graphical Analysis (60 mins)
Chapter 2: Statistical Inference (60 mins)
Chapter 3: Hypothesis Tests and Confidence Intervals (180 mins)
Chapter 4: Control Charts (75 mins)
Chapter 5: Process Capability (100 mins)
Chapter 6: Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) (60 mins)
Chapter 7: Correlation and Regression (60 mins)
Chapter 8: Measurement Systems Analysis (150 mins)
Chapter 9: Design of Experiments (120 mins)



One of the issues with their training is that there aren't any estimated times for each chapter. We like to solve problems, so we took the time to breakdown the chapters and sections, to give you and your employees a better idea how to schedule and plan for the training courses (see above). Completing all nine chapters takes about 15 hours, with some chapters as short as 50 minutes, while others are as long as 3 hours. For a detailed breakdown of each chapter section, download the estimated times here (.XLSX file).

The cost is also very reasonable. For an individual, they can have access to the training for only $30 per month (or $300 per year). If you have a network version of Minitab at your company, you can also add unlimited access to Quality Trainer for only a couple hundred dollars per licensed user.

To learn more about Minitab Quality Trainer, visit their website at http://www.minitab.com/en-US/products/quality-trainer/default.aspx

How many of the 50 Best Practices for Process Excellence has your company implemented?

Lee Pollock and Mark Kiemele are authors of a new book, Reversing the Culture of Waste – 50 Best Practices to Achieve Process Excellence. The book provides a list of best practices that companies use to become stronger in process improvement. Not every company excels at all 50, but the companies that apply most of the suggestions are much further ahead. You can even assess your company, to see how mature your process improvement approach is today.




The book is divided into 10 chapters, and each chapter identifies a few best practices. Where you see the term "process excellence" you can replace it with your company's initiative (Lean, Lean Six Sigma, Continuous Improvement, etc). Explanations of each best practice are provided in a concise summary, usually 1-2 pages in length.

Chapter 1 - Executive Ownership and Leadership Alignment
1. Establish ownership at the executive level.
2. Develop and communicate the need, vision and plan.
3. Train leadership first.
4. Link compensation to involvement and success.
5. Continuously assess what is working and what is not and adjust.

Chapter 2 - Effective Support Infrastructure

6. Designate a well-respected Deployment Champion early.
7. Commission and use a guiding coalition.
8. Partner with a capable and reputable service provider.
9. Integrate key stakeholders into the plan.
10. Create position descriptions that mandate a pull for excellence.
11. Quickly attain a critical mass of practitioners.

Chapter 3 - Integration with Existing Business Improvement Initiatives

12. Maximize the synergy of multiple initiatives.

Chapter 4 - The Right Projects and Studies and People to Lead Them

13. Establish criteria for project selection and prioritization.
14. Use quick-hitting studies to accelerate results.
15. Select top-tier candidates for first waves of training.

Chapter 5 - Integrated Training and Software

16. Use motivational and experienced instructors and coaches.
17. Keep the software simple and easy to use.
18. Use a blended approach to learning.

Chapter 6 - Financial and Implementation Responsibility

19. Use a consistent, simple and straightforward approach.
20. Generate successes early and communicate them.
21. Plan the service provider's exit strategy.
22. Develop internal subject matter experts.
23. Manage the expectations of every practitioner.
24. Define and use a meaty certification process.
25. Train all ares of the organization.
26. Apply the training immediately.
27. Provide expert coaching on all projects and studies.
28. Scope projects carefully.
29. Establish and follow rules for assessing benefits.
30. Publicize and use savings wisely.
31. Regularly review projects and act based on the assessment.
32. Conduct refresher sessions for leaders and practitioners.
33. Connect and use Champions to upgrade the initiative.
34. Make everyone aware of what is going on.
35. Design and use standardized templates.
36. Anticipate and manage position loss resulting from projects.
37. Include team-oriented "soft" tools.
38. Develop transfer functions to predict, optimize, and assess risk.
39. Make innovation systematic.
40. Solve new problems using trained resources and trumpet successes.
41. Make process excellence part of the human resource succession plan.
42. Integrate process excellence into all mergers and acquisitions.
43. Update the implementation plan based on feedback and results.

Chapter 7 - Reward and Recognition
44. Recognize people who execute successful projects.

Chapter 8 - Enterprise-Wide Knowledge Sharing

45. Establish a project-tracking database and keep it current.
46. Schedule benchmarking sessions.

Chapter 9 - Customer and Supply Chain Involvement

47. Involve suppliers and customers early on.
48. Implement a fact-based process for assessing the Voice of the Customer.

Chapter 10 - Change Management: Leveraging Cultural Strengths and Managing Its Weaknesses

49. View process excellence as a mindset, not just a toolset.
50. Leverage cultural strengths that promote change.




To assess your company on their maturity in process excellence, determine your ranking from 0-2 for each item.

0 = No implementation of that best practice whatsoever.
1 = Some areas exist where it is done
2 = We do that very well  

You can use decimals (like 0.5 or 1.5), but they suggest using integers only. Next, sum up the total score for each chapter, and enter the results on the Air Academy website: http://www.airacad.com/bestpractices.aspx  

Your total points will give you an idea where you rank against 500+ companies involved in a 2011 study. For example, if you scored a 32 or less, you are in the 10th percentile. If you scored a 48, you are in the 33rd percentile. If you scored a 59, you are the 50th percentile. If you scored an 82, you are in the 90th percentile. There were very few companies scoring above 90 (maximum score is 100 points). Exact percentiles are provided in the book.  

After reviewing your scores, we would recommend determining which best practices could provide your company with the biggest gains, and develop an action plan to address the gaps.  

Leave us a comment if you filled out the assessment, and how your company scored.

Reducing your time might seem like lean, but you can easily anger your customers

Lean is about increasing value to your customer. Often times, this requires you to eliminate waste in the process. However, if you don't understand your customer needs, you might sub-optimize the process in an attempt to make your work easier. However, if you are not careful, you can actually ADD waste to your customers, thus decreasing the value you provide. That is the complete opposite impact you intended, even though you had the right intentions.

Here are some good examples of sub-optimization that you can share in training classes or conversations. I'm sure you have some good examples of your own. Please share them in the comments section below. 

Example #1 - Scrap Report
The Finance department provides a weekly and monthly scrap report to the production managers. The data is in a single spreadsheet file, with filters on the top of key columns (work center and manager). Each manager goes in and searches the report to filter by their name, look at the scrap items, and review them. Some of them create their own pivot table to be able to sort and filter all the data. Each month is separated into unique tabs (pretty common in finance reports), which makes it difficult to look at data over the whole year. The finance person did not want to spend an extra 10 minutes each time creating the pivot table report and combining the new data with the existing data for the entire year in one spreadsheet. However, when we look at the full impact of time for the entire company, each production manager is required to create their own pivot table (5 minutes each), or they spend extra time filtering the data (not as efficient as a pivot table), or they completely ignore the report, since they find it hard to analyze. So the finance person saves themselves ten minutes each week, but this time adds at least an hour to the entire organization, and not everyone is taking action on the data, which is an even bigger waste.

Example #2 - Procedure Updates
Each month, an email is generated from the document control group with a list of procedures that were revised recently. At least 1000 people are sent this list. They were asked to provide a quick summary of the change made in each document, so we could decide if it was something we needed to investigate or read in more detail, or if we could ignore it. He said it would add about an hour's worth of his time to do that, so he refused. However, if we assume that 10% of the distribution is actually interested in these changes, that means at least 100 people are clicking each of the procedures and scanning through to find the revision change summary. If we assume that takes 5 minutes to complete, then 500 minutes (8 hours) have been wasted in the company. So the document control group saved themselves one hour of work, but added 8 hours of work to the company, and many people did not get the updates they needed, which is a huge waste. If they did provide a summary, they might actually increase the number of people on the distribution who learn about the revisions, and therefore proceed to click the links to read the updates.

Example #3 - IT help desk ticket
I needed to have a website updated, so I contacted the information technology (IT) person responsible for the task. I have this task performed a couple times per year, so it is infrequent. The individual said they could take care of it, but I need to submit a ticket for them to work on it. I agreed, and called the help desk line to submit the ticket. After 30 minutes of discussion with the help desk support person, I finally got the ticket submitted. I was very frustrated. The company wasted 30 minutes of my time, and 30 minutes of the help desk's time to get the ticket entered correctly. This was due to the complex nature of the work being done. The person who was going to be doing the work could have probably entered the ticket themselves in about 5 minutes, since they knew exactly what was needed to be done. So they saved themselves five minutes of work, but added one hour of waste to two other individuals.

As you can see, the key message is to understand what things you do that are valuable (value added) to your customer, and what things are not valuable (non-value added). Only eliminate the non-value added, or you could make your customer's upset and frustrated.

We don't need any help, we are already lean!

"Lean and Six Sigma are only for manufacturing organizations!"
"Our processes/company is unique, so that won't work here!"
"We're already lean because we're working so hard and so many hours!'

What "lean" looks like to people who don't get it yet.

Have you heard these comments before? That's the first sign of a company in desperate need of process improvement. 

I'll admit, there is some difficulty in getting people in a transactional or office environment to embrace lean and six sigma concepts. The biggest issue is that they can't SEE their workflow, so they cannot easily translate a manufacturing example (often used in training materials) to their own jobs.

I'll also admit, I can lean out anyone else's process, but when I decided I needed to lean out my own work, I ran into some difficulties.

After some serious evaluation of what I actually do (when not training or consulting, those are easy), I realized that I provide "items" to my customers. Items could be book summaries, templates, training material, procedures, guidelines, reference material, examples, recommendations, graphics, just to name a few. My clients take these items, and turn them into action, which should result in an increase in value or reduction in waste or reduction in life cycle costs to their business. Therefore, I indirectly help my clients improve their processes, or directly help them (when they get stuck).

I figured out I used a very simple process to convert a request from a client into an "item".

1. Obtain needs from clients
2. Gain approval to proceed (based on cost and time frame)
3. Create draft of item
4. Review draft with colleagues/experts
5. Make revisions
6. Review revision with broader audience and client
7. Make 2nd revision
8. Release item to client
9. Follow-up with client to determine usage
10. Review success and modify process

For example, one client asked for a summary powerpoint document of basic lean tools, that they could give to their employees, to let them read through prior to a lean event. We had some of it created already, but not in one single presentation, so it needed some work.

Here is what I did:

Step 1. Discussed how many slides, what kind of detail they wanted, which tools and concepts to include, how to navigate between slides, etc.
Step 2. I came back with how long it would take, and how much it would cost. We agreed to proceed after some discussion. I also provided some sample slides, and a basic framework for the presentation.
Step 3. I created a rough draft of the training. It's easy to get 80% done, then want to start something new (get sick of working on the same thing), but this is where you need to step it up to reach 100% completion.
Step 4. I next sent it to my consultant friends and former co-workers for feedback. Some provided better slides, challenged the intent of the presentation, and gave me some ideas on what to improve.
Step 5. I made most of the revisions, and ignored those that were minor, but would add significant time.
Step 6. I next sent it out to the client and some non-expert friends, to see if they could follow along with the presentation. They would better represent my target audience.
Step 7. After getting some of their feedback, I made some final changes.
Step 8. I sent the final "item" to the client for approval, and an invoice was provided.
Step 9. After the training, I asked for feedback on how it was received, and what additional changes to make.
Step 10. If I got hung up in the process, or missed a requirement, or the item didn't get used very much, I determined what I should do better next time.

Bottom line, until you actually reach step 8 above (release product to client), you have not provided any value to your clients. You don't get "credit" or get paid until you deliver. This is my "production", which connects me back to the training material that was too "manufacturing" focused before. If you can show this connection to clients, you'll see their eyes widen, and they will start thinking of all kinds of ways to apply lean to their processes.

What I want my office to look like...

Now, in order to apply lean to this particular process, I need to gather data on the following:

1) How long does it take from step 2 to step 8 (cycle time)?
2) How many items do I complete per month (output/deliveries)?
3) How well did the item get received or used (quality)? If it was good training, I would expect it to be reused over and over again. If they never touched it again, maybe it was considered low quality. Did I have to revise the item after releasing to the client? On a 1-10 scale, how happy was the client with the item?
4) Did I complete the item when they wanted it (on-time delivery)?

Once I have this data, then I can start to apply lean and six sigma concepts to the process. Create a whiteboard and display these metrics near your desk. Include a status board for the items you are currently working on, along with a visual of which step in the process each item is located. 

When reviewing the data, if it took longer than I planned, I need to look at my other activities, to see how they impacted it. The more items I'm working on at once (work in process), the longer it will take me to deliver to my client. This has really kept me focused on working on one or two items at a time (single piece flow). I like to jump around and "multitask" but I know that slows down my process, and it takes me longer to pick up where I left off. Once I start step 2, I need to stay committed to reaching step 8, so I can minimize the time between customer request to delivery to customer without any errors. This is the heart of lean.

Quality can be a little difficult to measure in the office. I mentioned some approaches above. When I go to step 9, and look at how often my items are being used, I feel this is a true measure of how good the item is. If I send out a well-written book review, but no one reads it, then did I actually provide value that the client could take and convert into improvements to their business? If not, then I didn't succeed in my task. If I create a template, and it gets sent around the company, and 50+ employees use the template, then I feel like that item was higher quality than the book review.

In summary, making the connection between lean and the office environment can be difficult and you should expect to get push back when discussing it. However, you can practice learning how to apply lean to the office by reviewing this article, and looking at the work you currently do today. It will be easier to convince others how lean directly relates to them when you can give specific examples on how you apply it to your own work. What has worked well for you when dealing with office processes?

Cost savings from process improvements can be misleading

I've been to many conferences, and have seen lots of companies claim cost savings and metric improvements that are very impressive. However, the more experienced I get, the more skeptical I get of these claims.

First off, let's define what process improvement savings should be. It should be the elimination of waste in a process (removing non-value added work), improving quality to the internal and external customers, reducing the time to complete value added tasks, or redesigning a process to provide more value to a customer.

Savings should not be the outsourcing of processes to another country to save money, or cutting heads and expecting them to "be lean" in order to make up the gap in resources. These are usually short-sighted decisions that end up costing the company more money in the long run, and risk negatively impacting the customer. But for this discussion, we will focus on one more incorrect savings: when the bottom line benefits do not actually exist.

Let's talk about one scenario that I've seen. Short term savings.

Let's say the process is tracking the Work in process (WIP) for approving charge numbers, so employees can start work on a new program or project.

Refer to the table below

Starting at Day 15, the number of charge numbers waiting for approval is 108 (red line). Each day, that total grows larger, as the amount of time available to complete these approvals is not sufficient to keep up with the new requests. This means the process will never be able to cut into the existing WIP. At some point, shown at Day 40, the management gets too many complaints about charge numbers not being available, and they work overtime, and add more resources to complete a bunch of them over the next couple days. They complete 350, 400 and 75 over the three days (blue line), compared to a typical day of around 20-30.

If we were to capture the savings from bringing the total number of charge number requests from 772 to 71 by Day 42, you could conclude a huge reduction of 90%, or 601 requests. If we determine that each request is $1000 per day in lost productivity, then on Day 39, we have around $772,000 tied up in the process, and it is reducted to $71,000. A savings of $601,000!

However, we didn't do anything "lean" since we spent additional money on labor to get the number down. We haven't actually addressed the time available or cycle time per request. Of course, the extra labor should be subtracted out of the savings, so we'll take out $10,000 for the extra labor/resources.

Next, we assume that this is actual bottom-line savings. In order to claim this as savings or growth, we would have to assume that all employees are not using any other charge numbers, and are charging to an overhead number, and therefore the company is losing money by employing them without work to do. This is highly unlikely. Let's be conservative and assume that 10% of the employees would be in that situation, so we'll claim around $60,000 in additional sales/work, not $600,000.

The next assumption is that the 772 open requests would have stayed at that level for an extended period of time. It does appear that this number was continuing to climb, so the number of new requests would have to be reviewed, to see if that was true assumption for the future. If the requests drop off, then they might have been able to catch up on their own.

Finally, we must assume that they can maintain the savings at the low level of around 70 requests for an extended period of time. If we look at the data in the future, you can see that the requests climb back up again. Again, this shouldn't be a surprise, since we didn't do anything to address the original problem, that we cannot keep up with the request demand for charge numbers.

Let's assume that they actually "lean" out the process and are able to keep up with the demand now. One final problem with cost savings is the impact of the improvements to the bottom-line financials of the company. For example, if the process was able to keep up with demand, and a resource was able to be freed up to do some other work, then if that resource isn't actually given value-added work, the savings won't actually show up in the bottom-line. You should be able to see an increase in output or work as a result of the freeing up of the resource, which is where the true savings hit the financials. This step is critical, and should be verified after any claimed improvement.

So next time you see some cost savings presented, think about these key points:

1) Did the baseline data represent the true situation if no action was taken, or was it an unusual time period and not representative of the typical situation for that process?

2) Was waste taken out of the process to improve it, or were more resources and cost thrown at it?

3) Were the improvements maintained over a long period of time (6-12 months)?

4) Did the savings actually flow down to the bottom line?

So be careful what you read about lean or six sigma cost savings, and be diligent if you are involved in a project or event to report the correct and most accurate numbers you can.

Start simple before you map your processes

We see a lot of different processes at various levels of process performance. Some are running near six sigma levels, while others don't even think they have a process that they follow.

The maturity of the process should determine the type of tool to apply.

If your process is just getting started with process improvement, has no metrics, have never defined a common process, and doesn't know where to begin, start simple. The two tools we recommend are 5-S and standard work (actually let's call it consistent processing, since standard work is more complex than it seems).

5-S is a way to clean and organize the workspace, so that unneeded items are removed, needed things are well-labeled, easy to find, everything has it's place, so it's easy to see when there are problems in the workspace. To maintain these methods are difficult, but the first couple phases are easy and can gain some quick efficiency gains, along with a pleasing appearance.

Consistent processing is about defining a process that can be followed by everyone involved in the process, so that the problems created by differences in approaches can be reduced, and the new process can be adjusted according to problems that occur going forward. It's too confusing to try and improve a process that doesn't have any repeat performance. When you look for root cause, there are often so many process issues that can "muddy up the waters".

I recently helped with some yield problems at a facility. We had the failed unit hooked up to the test equipment, asking all kinds of questions, testing different scenarios, trying to identify what could be the problem. When we finally decided to open up the unit, it was missing a major part! You end up wasting a lot of your time investigating the simple stuff, and it slows down the improvement process (instead of working on the major issues). Establishing some standards for assembling, repairing, reworking, and verifying processes is a must!

You might also be concerned that workers will feel "confined" by a standard.

Here is what you can do to alleviate their concerns:

1) Involve them in developing the process, so they own the process, and feel a part of its development.

2) Reiterate that the standard is the safest and most efficient way to do a process TODAY, but can be improved or changed at any time.

3) Recognize those individuals who helped establish the best process, and those who improve it, to encourage others to come up with better ways of doing something. If they get some motivation from being recognized by their co-workers and leaders, then they may spend time trying to think of better ways to improve the standard.

If you can instill that kind of thinking in your people, you are really maturing as a company.

Annoying tourist photos have wrong business model with lots of waste!

While on vacation recently, we were overwhelmed by the number of attractions with a photographer service, who make you take a photo and then try and sell it to you afterwards for a ridiculous price. It has gotten so prevalant that you get worried when you don't see anyone waiting to take your picture.

They must be getting enough people to buy these expensive photos, otherwise they wouldn't be so popular at these attractions.

I give them credit for identifying a need and taking advantage of it. Often times, I'm not in a position to have a photo of me and my wife snorkeling, or getting off a boat, or in the middle of a ride. However, when you look at the prices, it is unbelievable how much they charge. The majority of the time we decline on price alone.

My problem is customer value. I think the current model is terrible, and needs to be fixed.

Let's say that I'm in the majority, and only 10% of the customers actually purchase the photos. If they charge $20 per photo, and take 1000 photos, then they make $20x100 = $2000 per day. The other 90% walk away muttering about what a rip-off it was, and disappointed that they couldn't get the photo, and the 10% who bought it try to justify in their heads why it was worth the money to spend for one photo.

Many of these places pre-print the photos in hopes that people will feel guilty and buy them. If they don't buy it, then the photos get thrown away. What a waste! All that effort taking the photo, processing them, printing them, and even time spent trying to sell the customer on them is wasted!

Here is a better option, that could improve the experience for everyone.

What if the price was only $5 per photo, which I think is more reasonable. If this increases the chance of buying a photo to a conservative 50%, then let's look at the business model now. If we use the same numbers as before, $5X500 = $2500 per day. Now 500 people leave the attraction with a good experience, and a photo to go with it. I would also argue that it would cost no additional amount of work to process the 500, then it does currently to handle the 100 people in the prior model. The people who buy can also post or share the photo with family and friends, and provide free advertising for the attraction. Everyone leaves feeling good, since they paid a fair price for something they wanted, and more people were able to take advantage, providing customer value to many more people. I would even argue that the % would be much higher than 50%.

Even if the companies who run this service see no immediate improvement in sales with this model (doubtful), the free advertising and increased satisfaction (part of the whole experience for the customers) would provide long term growth for these companies, which would eventually give them the sales growth they are looking for.

Prevention not as tough as it seems

Often times, we ask our clients what their proactive or preventative activity is. Most of the time, we get a blank stare. Others provide a list of risks, but no real activity geared towards mitigating those risks.

In the past, we would push the use of Process Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (PFMEA) as a method to achieve a prevention or risk mitigation plan. PFMEA is an excellent tool for doing just that, in addition to tying those risks in with the current issues, to figure out what is most important to be worked on. You can learn more about PFMEA's through our training material.

However, we are taking a step back, instead of jumping right into an FMEA approach. There are easier steps that should be taken first.

First, gather up the stakeholders, customers, and process experts, and facilitate a group discussion on what things could potentially cause problems in the near future. This is essentially a brainstorming exercise. If you get stuck, you could look to the Cause and Effect Diagram approach, and talk about the People, Machines, Processes, Environment, and Materials, and how they can bring about new problems. Once a list of risks are generated, the team should try and informally rank them, and develop an action plan for the top 1-3 issues only. Any more than 3, and you shouldn't be surprised when nothing gets done. Another rule of thumb we like to hold to: no more than one action per person at a time. Again, any more than that, and your asking for those items to be deprioritized, so that nothing gets completed.

After the list of risks are identified, the group should look at the list, and decide if they covered most of the risks or not. If they feel they did, and the list is manageable, then setting up a regular cadence to review these items is probably sufficient. If the team feels that there are other risks out there, then it may require additional sessions. Here is where the FMEA approach can help. It is an effective tool because it walks systematically through the process under evaluation, and forces the team to review the ways each process can fail to meet its intended output. This makes it less likely that an issue will "slip through the cracks". Again, after the list is expanded to include these additional risks, the list can be re-prioritized (this time more formally using Nominal Group Techniques, multi-voting, etc).

Finally, if the list identifies many additional issues, and the team is having a hard time prioritizing the top risks, a formal PFMEA may be needed, to iron out the details, and provide a more objective assessment of which risks are the highest ones needing an action. This is also useful if the team feels the risks are not fully captured, and the formal FMEA approach would bring these risks to the surface.

Again, the key to all of this is to align the complexity of the process to the complexity of your risk assessment. If you have a simple process, a simple approach may be sufficient. If your process is complicated and risks are high, then a more formal risk assessment may be needed. We recommend starting small, and expanding as the list of risks expands and gets more complicated.

When you jump right into a formal FMEA event, and want to spend hours of a team's time and energy, it's often difficult to justify the need to go through that much detail of a process. However, when you start small, it's easier to later justify the need to dig deeper, and get more formal with your risk analysis, once the team sees how much risk is out there that is not being managed.

The key to success is that the risks are added into a regular review or cadence process, preferably the same place where the regular activities are being reviewed. For example, if you have a staff meeting, devote 5 minutes to risk actions. If you have a program review, add 2 slides to discuss risks and actions taken on those items. Maybe start by looking at your personal life. Do you own a house? What actions do you need to complete to prevent a major issue at home? Are you keeping up with your vehicle maintenance? Are you anticipating and planning for upcoming or suprise bills?

The only way you can move away from a "firefighting" mentality is to allocate some of your time working on actions that are proactive or preventative in nature, otherwise you will continue to react to everything that comes along. Discussing the risks, assigning actions, and reviewing those actions are the key steps to make that transition happen. Just get started doing something, then worry about whether it is the biggest risk later on...

Don't "check the box" with soft improvement tools

We recently were reminded of a problem that comes up every so often in regards to process improvement tools. The "check the box" mentality.

You train, teach and mentor individuals on which tools to use, and when they finally decide to use the right tool at the right time, they try to shortcut the process just to get it completed, missing the entire purpose of the tool!

Let's use the fishbone diagram. Our clients will identify the need for a fishbone or maybe we'll have to suggest it. Instead of gaining the benefits of the team discussion and brainstorming, someone sits down at their desk and starts to fill out the diagram.

"I worked on that last night, and finished it, then emailed it to everyone. Now which tool do we need to do next?"

Process Improvement tools, like fishbone diagrams, are not the end result. The purpose of the tool is to provide a framework in order for the process of evaluation to take place. When we perform a fishbone diagram, we are actually doing many different things without realizing it:

1) we gather up the right resources from cross-functional areas
2) we clearly define the problem statement (often overlooked)
3) we openly talk about problems and variables that cause the problem we are trying to solve
4) we brainstorm why it could be happening (without fear or insults) using commonly used categories (Man, Method, Material, Machine, etc)
5) we generate a very thorough list of potential variables to go investigate

The REAL output of a fishbone diagram comes down to two main things:

1) a plan to go investigate some of the most likely variables
2) an opportunity to interact with a diverse group of stakeholders in the problem, get to know them, and see their unique perspectives and hear how that problem impacts them

Notice we didn't mention a nice looking fishbone diagram with a fish outline around it, with color-coded labels for each category.

Even if NOTHING is done after the fishbone diagram meeting, there still was value in creating the fishbone. Most likely, you will have actions that come out of the effort, but don't overlook the PROCESS that took place to create it, which is where much of the value came from.

We use the fishbone diagram as an example, but it applies to many of the tools, especially ones we consider "soft" (little to no data analysis involved).

The inspiration for this article came from a group we worked with that was trying to quickly complete a Current State Value Stream Map (VSM) because they were running out of time before the scheduled Future State Mapping event. This event had a hard date due to individuals who were flying in from out of town. The team was suggesting that they could quickly draft the Current state map on their own, then have the actual owners of the proceses review it right before the next event, then jump into developing the Future State.

We politely reiterated that the completion of the current state map is not the end result. It is the PROCESS of developing the current state map where the value is created. The most important part is the time spent with a concurrent group of people defining the process, talking about the issues, understanding that the process is broken, and hopefully building relationships with these other stakeholders. Those relationships are really the key to the VSM. Now when future issues come up, they can be avoided or better anticipated, since the perspective of others are now better understood, and they can include or discuss the impact with them BEFORE a change or issue occurs.

For example, during the VSM, you might discover that leaving off the account number on a form causes 10 minutes of work for a later process run by Judy, who was at the event. After the event, you run into an account number that looks unfamiliar. You call Judy and discuss, and she recommends you return the form to the owner before processing it. You've saved yourself time processing it, and cut the wait time from when you completed the form, until she would find the error, and have also given instant feedback to the form originator that there was an error. You also saved Judy time reviewing the document to find the error. Obviously, you would want to permanently resolve this issue. However, this probably was not even a major issue that came out of the event, yet the benefits are already being seen because of the VSM event. If you and Judy had not gone through the VSM process, you would have never been able to anticipate those kinds of issues.

Spending time in an event will also give people a chance to think clearly about how they do work. It will also allow them time to digest the fact that the process is indeed broken, and that they will have to change the process in order to make it better, especially if their process is the one causing the most problems. If you speed through this process, you'll miss the entire change management process, and you won't have the commitment you need going forward.

We also see people get wrapped up over the format of the template. On an FMEA, they argue over the title of a column (Key Product Characteristic or Critical to Quality), or whether the Severity ranking is a 6 or a 7. The FMEA creates a nice spreadsheet for prioritizing the effort, but the value lies in the concurrent discussion between all stakeholders. After the event, the individuals in the event are much more likely to think differently, and talk directly to each other about other issues they encounter, than they were before the event. The FMEA was just a process developed that forced this group collaboration to take place.

In a perfect world, all processes would be linked together where this communication and discussion was happening constantly between all stakeholders, but we know that's not realistic. Companies get siloed away from each other via departments and budgets and physical locations. These soft tools are necessary to bring thsse groups back together, even if for just a day or two.

The tools that are more about the process, rather than the actual end result include: FMEAs, 5 Whys, Affinity Diagrams, Force Field Analysis, Process Flow Diagrams, Value Stream Maps, and Fishbone (Cause and Effect) Diagrams. This doesn't really apply to the "hard" analysis tools like control charts, histograms, statistical analysis, etc. Those can be performed by an individual without a team, as long as the results are shared and digested as a team.

Bottom line: The process improvement tool is not usually the end result. The process to get there is where most of the value is created and discovered, so don't try and shortcut the process just to "check the box".

New spin (literally) on an old quality tool

I love the Pareto chart. It's one of the simplest quality tools, yet one of the most powerful, and underused tools out there. It's so easy to get buried down into an issue, and forget that it's not the one that should be focused on.

However, when I recently presented a Pareto chart to a Senior VP of an organization we are working with, I noticed everyone in the room had tilted their head to the side, in order to read what each category said underneath each bar.



It quickly occurred to me that anytime you present a Pareto chart with more than a couple words per category, you should flip your Pareto chart on its side, so that the categories are easily legible, and you don't give your customer a sore neck (since you're already a pain in their neck as it is!)



Have any other helpful tips? Let us know...