Lean Six Sigma Bursts

In this podcast, I share the results of a "Lean at Home" project I performed within the last year as part of a training and certification program I piloted with my friends and family.

The project successfully reduced our storage costs per month by over 50%, and then 100% within the past few weeks!

In this podcast, I share the audio from a video of a speech given by former Nebraska governor and current US Senator, Pete Ricketts. He discusses how Nebraska used Lean Six Sigma to improve their services to residents, reduced costs, building space and time. He encourages the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to utilize a similar approach.

The following was a clip from a recent presentation, where I discuss how hypothesis testing can help you draw more statistically valid conclusions from data, and avoid misleading or incorrect conclusions.

I share two examples. The first was a data set from the Denver Sheriff's Department, where they graphed and analyzed intake use of force incidents, but their conclusions don't seem to match the graphic.

The 2nd example was data I pulled for a nonprofit I ran that showed the day of the week and time of day had no impact on click through rates on our monthly email newsletter.

Learn more about BPI

The following was a clip from a recent presentation, where I discuss the importance of data in improvement (seems obvious, yet not always present).

I also share the unique situation that happened in the 1948 Presidential Election when polling data was biased towards the candidate that lost. As I dug deeper into this story, I don't see where they specifically mention the phone, but there was a problem with the accuracy of the polling. It also mentions that Truman was gaining momentum late in the election, and that wasn't reflected in the polls. Nonetheless, the Chicago Tribune ran their infamous headline that Dewey had won the election, when Truman actually won.

You can learn more about that strange election at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1948_United_States_presidential_election

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In this podcast, I share a successful case study of a Lean Six Sigma training and certification program conducted for a battery manufacturer about 2 years ago. By completing real-life projects, they were able to payback the investment in the training in under one month!

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In this episode, I share a short segment of a recorded presentation I gave to the Continuous Process Improvement Forum hosted within the National Industries of the Blind. They wanted to hear my perspective on AI, so I shared how I've utilized for my consulting work.

NIB is a great organization whose mission is to enhance the opportunities for economic and personal independence of people who are blind, primarily through creating, sustaining, and improving employment.

Links

• National Industries for the Blind: https://nib.org/

In the 2024 Lean Global Connection virtual conference, our Lean Sustainability community shared some tips and methods to help apply Lean to Green initiatives.

In my segment, I explained how Energy Treasure Hunts are a combination of gemba walks and kaizen events, with the goal to identify and reduce energy usage in a facility. This is a great approach that combines my passion for process improvement and sustainability.

The full presentation will be available in a few weeks (end of 2024), and I will post it in the Lean Six Sigma for Good podcast as soon as possible.

Links

• Lean Global Connection: https://www.planet-lean.com/lean-global-connection-2024
• Video from this presentation segment: https://youtu.be/OD0aZK8JptM
• Energy Treasure Hunts Webinar: https://leansixsigmaenvironment.org/index.php/e116-using-energy-treasure-hunts-and-energy-swaps-to-engage-employees-and-reduce-costs/
• About the Lean Sustainability Community: https://leansixsigmaenvironment.org/index.php/lean-sustainability-global-network/

Energy Treasure Hunts can be described as a combination of gemba walks and kaizen events in Lean methodology, with the goal to identify and reduce energy usage in a facility. This is a great approach that combines my passion for process improvement and sustainability.

I uploaded a recent webinar I did on Energy Treasure Hunts to AI (NotebookLM), and it generated a fake podcast episode between two robots, which was mind-blowing to hear.

I share segments from the "podcast" so you can hear how it sounds. Let me know what you think!

In summary, here is how NotebookLM summarized the webinar, which was well-stated:

"Energy treasure hunts and programs like the Better Buildings Challenge offer a powerful approach to identifying and implementing energy-saving opportunities. By engaging employees, leveraging data analysis, and fostering collaboration, organizations can achieve significant energy reductions, cost savings, and environmental benefits."

Links

• NotebookLM from Google: https://notebooklm.google.com/
• Energy Treasure Hunts Webinar: https://leansixsigmaenvironment.org/index.php/e116-using-energy-treasure-hunts-and-energy-swaps-to-engage-employees-and-reduce-costs/

In the last 2 episodes, I shared best practices in process improvement with students in the Florida Atlantic University (FAU) Executive MBA Program⁠ in Boca Raton, Florida.

At the end of my talk, I discussed how Lean and Six Sigma can be used to improve society and the environment, which I call Lean Six Sigma for Good. I share some examples and discuss my own experiences, hand out copies of Volume 1 and 2 of the book series, and encourage the students to help me connect with some local nonprofits.

Additional Links

This is the 2nd part of the list of best practices in process improvement I shared with students in the Florida Atlantic University (FAU) Executive MBA Program⁠ in Boca Raton, Florida last month. I compiled my top recommendations that they could take back to their company.

• Daily huddles to review performance and formalize communication
• Statistical thinking and analysis (separating noise from signals)
• Leaders as coaches and mentors (secret to Toyota)
• Must create time for risk prevention, kaizen events and projects

Additional Links

This is a list of best practices in process improvement I shared with students in the Florida Atlantic University (FAU) Executive MBA Program⁠ in Boca Raton, Florida last month. I compiled my top recommendations that they could take back to their company.

• Focused on building problem solving and waste identification skill set of lowest-level employee
• Psychological safety to discuss and solve problems
• Management horizontally across value stream
• Making decisions that are best for the system, not individual departments (vertical)
• Aligned and balanced metrics (two-way communication or “catchball”)
• Not just lagging financial metrics

Additional Links

This is the final part of the 2006 speech given by Rockwell Collins CEO, Clay Jones. I worked at Rockwell Collins from 1999-2017, and was heavily involved in the Lean Electronics program.

In this clip, he answers audience questions:

1) How to immerse Lean into the culture?

2) How is he going after employee healthcare costs? (asked by George Koenigsaecker)

3) What are the biggest barriers he is concerned about?

In his answers, he mentions the importance of coaching and mentoring, but also discusses the classroom and virtual training courses, knowledge management and the Communities of Practice program.

He also shares some of the work that Rockwell Collins has done to drive Lean into healthcare (including a grant program I worked on).

Finally, he stressed the importance of not being complacent, always looking for waste and reducing cost of nonconformance, and the strive for continuous improvement. I also share my thoughts on what happened to the Lean program when Kelly Ortberg (now the Boeing CEO and President) took over for Clay in 2013.

This is part 5 of the 2006 speech given by Rockwell Collins CEO, Clay Jones. I worked at Rockwell Collins from 1999-2017, and was heavily involved in the Lean Electronics program.

In this clip, you'll hear him discuss the 5 lessons learned from the first 8 years of the Lean journey at Rockwell Collins (1998 to 2006).

1. Senior Leadership alignment
2. Managing change and resistance
3. Course correction when needed
4. Implement Value Stream Mapping first
5. Ask for help

"If leadership isn't driving your Lean transformation, don't even start. It's like teaching a pig to talk. You're wasting your time, and you're annoying the pig" - Clay Jones

He shares some impressive results that were partly due to Lean implementation. Stock price increase of 260%, return on investment capital from 21% to 38%, sales almost doubled from $1.8B to $3.5B, net income over 80%, both business units over 18% operating margin, along with the traditional improvements to on-time delivery, customer acceptance (quality) and sales per employee.

This is part 4 of the 2006 speech given by Rockwell Collins CEO, Clay Jones. I worked at Rockwell Collins from 1999-2017, and was heavily involved in the Lean Electronics program.

In this clip, you'll hear him discuss how they expanded on the Core Process Optimization efforts to move to Lifecycle Value Stream Management. This allowed them to address the wastes in the handoffs between major processes. The VSM roles required them to change their roles, metrics, behaviors and cost allocations.

"Lean is a journey, not a destination" - Clay Jones

He also shares how they expanded Lean into innovation and creative processes like Engineering, Design and Development and Research. This broke the stereotype that Lean was only for manufacturing. The standardization of these major processes helped bring some consistency and efficiency to how a product was proposed, funded, managed, designed, transitioned and supported.

He also reiterated the importance of knowledge management in capture information and disseminating it across the organizations and value streams.

This is part 3 of the 2006 speech given by Rockwell Collins CEO, Clay Jones. I worked at Rockwell Collins from 1999-2017, and was heavily involved in the Lean Electronics program.

In this clip, you'll hear him discuss why they brought in some external consultants like John Shook and Denny Mead to try and figure out why all the improvements were not showing an impact on the bottom-line results or other key metrics. The RC Scorecard was developed to give a balanced view across the company, and it included a critical metric, called Cost of Nonconformance (CONC), which I was heavily involved with. He also discusses how leadership needed to become more engaged in value stream mapping to help drive the right improvements in the right areas by following the new "Lean Roadmap."

This is part 2 of the 2006 speech given by Rockwell Collins CEO, Clay Jones. I worked at Rockwell Collins from 1999-2017, and was heavily involved in the Lean Electronics program.

In this clip, you'll hear him discuss how they created and rolled out Lean Electronics program across both manufacturing and the office, and selected Decorah (Iowa) as the pilot site. In the first few years (1998-2000), they achieved lots of successes (conducting over 600 kaizen events a year with reductions of 20-40%), but something was missing.

Enterprise Value Stream Mapping was added through an initiative called Core Process Optimization (CPO) to look at major pieces of the customer journey, from Sales and Marketing, Design and Development, Build (Manufacturing) and Sales and Support.

For the next few podcasts, I'll be sharing clips from a 2006 speech given by Rockwell Collins CEO, Clay Jones. I worked at Rockwell Collins from 1999-2017, and was heavily involved in the Lean Electronics program. I credit Clay and the "Lean Electronics" program for giving me the skills and experience to make this my passion, allowing me to eventually open up my consulting business, BPI.

In this video, you'll hear him discuss how he first learned about Lean from Boeing, and what the customers were telling him about their products and services and what needed to improve.

In a recent class I taught, we were discussing the Project Charter, which asks you to fill in the baseline data for the metric you're trying to improve.

I explain how you need to be persistent to find data, and not to start a project if you don't have any data, especially for a training class, or for your first project.

I also answer a student question about how many samples you need for the baseline. You can also listen to a previous podcast (episode #25) about why we need 30 data points: https://spotifyanchor-web.app.link/e/VAoKfXBelJb

In this podcast, I share a short clip from a recent training class, explaining the benefits of Lean Six Sigma Green Belt training to an organization, but more importantly, why it's important to the people attending the clas personally.

In episode 101, I share an interview clip from John Barnett, former Boeing Quality Manager, as he discusses the culture of quality that might explain the recent airline issues. He was found dead while he was giving a deposition about his former company, but I don't go into those details. I wanted to share my insights about a comment he made that inspection is non-value added, and how I think it has been misunderstood.

Inspection is non-value added, but that doesn't mean you stop inspecting. You need to remove the causes for the inspection before you can even consider removing or reducing inspection or test.

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In episode 100, I share a segment of a Lean Six Sigma Green Belt training course I conducted, where I went into details about the Fishbone Diagram and the 6 M's, and I thought you might find it useful.

When you are trying to uncover possible causes of a problem, using the 6 M's with a Fishbone Diagram is a great way to enhance your team brainstorming, and methodically narrow down the causes through a process of elimination.

I've also posted a video of the slides I presented, if you want to see the graphics and gain more insights from what I shared.

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In episode 97, we released an excerpt by Elisabeth Swan from "Lean Six Sigma for Good: Lessons from the Gemba (Volume 1)"

This is an excerpt from the audiobook version Volume 1.

I share the story of running a small nonprofit organization in Portland, called Recycling Advocates (now called Waste-free Advocates). We created a fundraiser conference called Zero Waste Conference, to promote the reduction of items going to the landfill.

I was able to incorporate some Lean and Six Sigma principles to the event planning to prevent issues like parking confusion, sign-in delays, seating charts, predicting show up rates, and much more. The entire chapter requires the purchase of the book, but remember that the proceeds from the book sales supports the nonprofit organizations selected by each of the 8 chapter authors.

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This is an excerpt from the audiobook version of "Lean Six Sigma for Good: Lessons from the Gemba (Volume 2)"
Elisabeth Swan shares the story of volunteering with the Cape Cod Childcare Development nonprofit organization. She discusses getting a call from the CEO to help the organization utilize more Lean Six Sigma Green Belt skills and methods within the organization.
In one of the examples highlighted in her chapter, she shares how they reviewed their expenses and processes, and managed to update the ordering process, consolidate vendors, reduce the number of steps involved in getting supplies to the people who needed them, all while ensuring the Finance Department received the right info to pay the bills. The savings from the monthly cellphone bill, combined with switching to a new vendor, was enough to afford the mortgage for the building to house the new Head Start program.
Proceeds from the book purchase supports the nonprofit organizations selected by each of the 8 chapter authors.

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When I talk to clients about training their team, that usually opens up a lot of questions in my mind that we'll need to discuss before I can give them a ballpark number quote.

To explain the concepts of hypothesis testing (null and alternative hypothesis statements), I use an example of James Bond. His famous line is "shaken, not stirred" when ordering a martini.

In a hypothesis test, we would set the null (default) hypothesis to say that he cannot tell the difference. The alternative hypothesis would be proven if there was data showing he could tell the difference (better than guessing or chance).

Hope this helps you understand the concept of hypothesis testing a little more clearly.

Back in 2020, I created a course called "Home Efficiency Using Japanese Lean Productivity Techniques" and I'm offering a free coaching program this month to help you complete the course and get help implementing the concepts into your personal life.

In one of my recent Six Sigma classes, I provide a simplistic explanation of SPC and control charts, and why they are essential to detecting problems quickly in your processes.

If you're interested in learning more about SPC, check out the link below.

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In one of my recent Lean classes, I discuss the difference between planning kaizen events and working kaizen events. Planning events end up with a 90-day implemenatation plan. Working events end up with 80% completion of actions by the end of the event, with 30 days to complete the remaining 20% of the actions. I try and encourage more working sessions, but planning is sometimes really important to decide where to focus the working sessions in the future.

To better understand this podcast, watch the State of Washington VSM video (about 10 minutes).

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In one of my recent Lean classes, I discuss ways to engage front line workers in working kaizen events. I talk about the differences between working and planning sessions in my last podcast. I discuss options for working ahead, catching up afterwards, having half-day sessions (half kaizen, half working), splitting the event across many shifts, and having the leads and supervisors participate but checking in with the workers frequently.

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I've been helping set up a webinar series with support from the Iowa Sustainable Business Forum and the Iowa Lean Consortium. There are two webinars you can choose from, or sign up for both.

I will be presenting the first webinar, Lean Methods for Sustainable Organizations. I will introduce those in sustainability roles to Lean methods, which have become some of the most popular improvement methods used in high-performing organizations in manufacturing, healthcare, government and many other industries.

The second webinar, Sustainability for Lean Organizations, will be presented by Adam Hammes from SGS North America. He will help demonstrate to process improvement specialists, engineers, and management the business case for applying risk and quality management strategies like Lean to sustainability performance.

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In this episode, I answer another question in one of my Six Sigma classes. The student said they were having supplier issues, but the data wasn't very good. There is a plan to implement a data collection system, but it might not be ready for a few months. Should she wait until the system is ready and then start her project, or start now and collect the data manually.

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In this episode, I answer a question in one of my Six Sigma classes. The student said they were not sure if their project could be used, because it alreadys mentions some solutions to the problem, and the training said no solutions can be defined at the beginning of a Six Sigma project. He wanted to know how to handle this situation, which is very common.

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In this podcast, I discuss the Taguchi Loss Function again, this time using some real-life examples. I discuss hotel pool temperatures, solar eclipses, and fruit ripeness.

I originally talked about this topic in Episode 37, explaining how an increase in variation away from the target value (even within specification limits) leads to an exponential increase in customer dissatisfaction. This is different than the traditional approach of viewing results within the specification limits as good, and results outside of the specification limits as bad.

Hope you enjoy this topic. If you think of other real-life examples, please let me know!

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In this episode, I go through TIM WOODS, which is an acronym to describe the 8 types of waste in a process. As an example, I discuss how the 8 wastes apply to recent camping trips I've been making with my wife this summer and fall. Hopefully, this gives you some ideas on how to see waste in your daily activities and work tasks.

Sorry for the length of this podcast, I guess I had a lot to talk about!

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In this episode, I discuss some common criticisms about Six Sigma that I've been hearing about over the years. These tend to make their rounds on LinkedIn every few months or years, so I wanted to take each one and go much deeper in the podcast than I can online.

Let's start with one of the biggest ones, the 1.5 sigma shift, also called the Motorola Shift.

If there are others you have heard about you'd like me to discuss, contact me and I'll add it to a future episode.

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In this episode, I discuss my work with a client that is trying to improve their sustainability score. One of the next steps is to establish a goal for electricity reduction, since it is a large contributor to their carbon footprint. I explain how to apply process mapping to heating and cooling a building, and why regression modeling and analysis can be helpful in focusing your electricity reduction efforts.

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In this episode, I discuss an interview and discussion I had with Climate Change Professional and former Quality executive, David Saunders. We talk about how to leverage your skills of process and quality improvement to improve the environment and help mitigate climate change.

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In this episode, I share some audio from a presentation I gave to Lean Portland for their July Happy Hour. I discussed Statistical Process Control (SPC) and how to detect out of control conditions. I'm sharing two questions that were asked at the end of the talk:

1) For office applications of SPC, what software package would be recommended to make control charts?

2) What control chart do you use if your data is nonnormal?

The full presentation can be watched at the link below.

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In this episode, I share the audio from a presentation I gave to Lean Portland for their July Happy Hour. I discuss Statistical Process Control (SPC) and why it's not seen very much in Toyota facilities anymore. I also include a question that was asked related to the transition from monitoring outputs to inputs. The full presentation can be watched at the link below.

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In this episode, I discuss the Washington State Department of Ecology Lean and Green program that I've been supporting the last few years as a consultant. The audio is an interview with the program administrator and my contact point at Ecology, Hugh O'Neill. He shares how this program can help businesses save money, reduce their environmental impact and engage employees. If you are a business in Washington that might be interested, check out the links below. If you're outside of Washington, contact me to learn how we can help you with a customized program. I also invite you to check out my other podcast, "Lean Six Sigma for Good" if you're interested in environmental and societal improvements.

p.s. Hugh is retiring this year, and I'd like to personally thank him for all his work on this topic, and including me in their very important work. You will be missed!

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In this episode, I discuss how to measure variation in a process, using Range and Standard Deviation. Variation is an important concept to understand how to improve a process. This was audio from a recent Six Sigma Yellow Belt course I taught. You might have heard of these concepts before, but hopefully it will be a good refresher for you.

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The following topic was taken from one of my recent Yellow Belt courses, explaining how to use Mean (or average) and Median to measure the middle of a set of data, whether it is solar panel production, calories eaten per day or electricity consumed per day.

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For one of my clients, we conducted a survey of their employees to understand if daily huddles were helping them be more engaged in their work. The results of the 7 questions found a statistically significant improvement in scores after the huddles were implemented. Listen to the episode to learn more about the questions and the Paired T-test analysis.

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In this episode, I share some audio about DMAIC from a recent class I taught, and I thought you'd find it helpful. I express the importance of ignoring improvement ideas in a DMAIC project until after you go through Define, Measure and Analyze first. You will get pressure to jump to Improve before you're ready, so resist that urge and trust the process.

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In this episode, I discuss an improvement I made at home, that saved time in my personal life, and why small improvements are worth pursuing and not overlooking. I also discuss how small sample sizes are not a barrier to running statistical tests of significance or hypothesis tests.

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In this episode, I discuss the importance of the Control phase in a Six Sigma DMAIC Improvement project, including the key considerations to make before closing out your improvement activity.

1. Create a system and/or process to monitor the results
2. Update any documentation of the processes and procedures
3. Update any training of the processes
4. Create a response or mitigation plan in case there is a drop in performance
5. Add any visual controls or job aids that can be posted in the work area
6. Review incentives to encourage new improvements to be used or followed
7. Identify contact names and resources if employee has questions about the new improvements
8. Schedule process audits or reviews for the next 30, 60 and 90 days
9. Ensure improvements have been labeled, have a clear storage space, and have someone assigned to reorder them or perform maintenance on them (if applicable)?
10. Ensure clear ownership of the improvements have taken place by the process owners

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In this episode, I share the audio from a panel discussion I was asked to participate on Wednesday this week. The discussion was focused on Lean Manufacturing, but we also discussed Six Sigma quite a bit. The event was hosted by the Texas Chapter of the Women in Manufacturing Association. They are the only national and global trade association dedicated to providing year-round support to women who have chosen a career in the manufacturing industry

I'm sharing only the segments when I talked, but I encourage you to listen or watch the entire hour-long discussion. The other panelists were Crystal Davis, Dave Crysler, RaeJean Griffin, Sneha Kumari, and Troy Weier.

I have a link to the association and the recording is in the links section below.

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In this episode, I provide some tips on how to close out a project or improvement effort, when the primary metric may longer than a year before you might be able to see tangible results. I also discuss other things you can do to prove in the short term that your improvements will be effective in the long run.

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In this episode, I discuss a project I'm really excited about, the 2nd book release in the Lean Six Sigma for Good book series.

This is the 2nd collection of real-life experiences and stories from Lean and Six Sigma practitioners who have spent time at the "gemba" with not-for-profit organizations. They have generously offered to write a chapter about lessons learned and tools they have applied. There are 8 chapters in total.

• Joe Wojniak and Lynn McCullough: Improving Thrift Shop Donations (interview with authors) - Proceeds donated to TRU Community Care
• Tim Turner: Helping Others By Following The Toyota Way (podcast interview with Tim) - Proceeds donated to Center for Quality People and Organizations (CQPO)
• Douglas Cooper: Lessons from Liberia – Standard Work as the Foundation for Lean Practices - Proceeds donated to Mercy Corps
• Anita Havemann: Reducing Time and Complexity in Nonprofit Accounting - Proceeds donated to Relay Resources
• Steve Bell: Simple Framework for Complex Problems - Proceeds donated to Lean4NGO.org
• lisabeth Swan: Leaning into the Mission of Childcare (podcast interview with Elisabeth) - Proceeds donated to Cape Cod Children’s Place
• Tracy O’Rourke: Increasing Meals Per Hour with Kitchens for Good (podcast interview with Tracy) - Proceeds donated to Kitchens for Good
• Joy E. Mason: Using Six Sigma to Address Racial Equity (podcast interview with Joy) - Proceeds donated to The Six Sigma Racial Equity Institute

I think this is a great book to share with potential volunteers, or nonprofits or public service agencies wanting to learn more about how Lean or Six Sigma can be applied to their organizations.

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