Archive for the ‘News’ Category

Schweitzer-Mauduit International Management Credits LSS for $5 Million in Cost Reductions

Thursday, May 9th, 2013

In its earnings call earlier today, Frédéric P. Villoutreix - Executive Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Schweitzer-Maudit International Management stated:

“With respect to cost optimization, we have continually improved our track record of eliminating cost from the business, and the first quarter was no exception. Year-over-year, cost benefits from our values Lean Six Sigma efforts and restructuring actions provided approximately $5 million of cost improvements, especially in the paper segment.

“Our success in these efforts are to offset the negative impact on higher pulp prices, as well as some mix issues in our base paper business. We have worked hard to generate strong cost savings to offset inflationary and pricing pressures, and this remains our focus on the long run.”

Schweitzer-Mauduit Int’l reported Q1 EPS of $1.01, $0.09 better than the analyst estimate of $0.92. Revenue for the quarter came in at $194.5 million, versus $195 million reported last year. The stock closed the day at $42.82, up $1.60 (4.08%) on above average volume. Click here to see stock price chart.

To learn more about how Lean Six Sigma can help you, contact The Pyzdek Institute.

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Can Lean Six Sigma Make CSI Better?

Thursday, April 25th, 2013

While the CSI (Crime Scene Investigation) teams on television may be able to resolve a case in under an hour, real life criminal cases can take days, weeks, months, even years to finish.

And like many real life police units throughout the country, the police in Monroe County in western New York found themselves faced with a backlog of criminal cases involving DNA analysis.

To eliminate the backlog, decrease case turn-around time, and increase overall quality of lab reports, Monroe County outsourced the crime lab work to Sorenson Forensics. Sorenson is the first accredited forensics lab that offers Lean Six Sigma consulting services for DNA labs. They use the methodology to improve performance, efficiency, and quality. They indicate it has:

  • Helped them streamline casework reviews
  • Eliminated variation, defects, and waste
  • Created continuous, value-added flow

Now Sorenson consults with other forensic agencies to achieve the same results. The goal is to move caseloads through the system more efficiently, quickly, and accurately. Forensics investigators get results in days and weeks, rather than months.

According to Sorenson Forensics Executive Laboratory Director Tim Kupferschmid:

“A Lean Six Sigma process, when effectively implemented into a crime laboratory, results in a dramatic decrease in turn-around-time and the elimination of the existing backlog.” 

While results may vary, Sorenson suggests that using LSS reduces:

  • Operational costs (20% to 30%)
  • Rework (100%)
  • On-time delivery (100%)

Additionally, it improves customer and employee satisfaction.

Remarkable advances in DNA testing and high-tech diagnostics provides labs with the ability to dig deeper into crime scene evidence. The job is methodical and time consuming. The ability to decipher traces of evidence is complicated. Crime labs are “under the gun” to produce reliable evidence.

As with anything new, fear of change in a crime lab makes people nervous. Lean Six Sigma is not a one-size-fits-all solution. Management needs to be involved and support the changes every step of the way. Constant communication is imperative.

However, crime labs have found that LSS offers:

  • Increased team morale
  • Reduced lab-processing times
  • Reduced backlog
  • Increased output
  • Reduced errors

This is great news when you’re constantly up against deadlines. Even better, it results in more crimes solved and more criminals taken off the street.

For more information on how Lean Six Sigma can help your team perform more effectively and offer better results, contact us about Lean Six Sigma training.

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Lean Six Sigma Skills Still in Demand in 2013

Thursday, April 18th, 2013

A new report from executive search firm The Avery Point Group indicates the demand for continuous improvement talent and Lean Six Sigma skills has more than doubled from 2010.

Although there have been three consecutive years of sustained demand for Lean Six Sigma skills, there was also a noticeable improvement in the demand for Six Sigma talent alone.

This marked the first time in the study’s history where demand for pure Six Sigma talent saw a noticeable year-over-year improvement relative to Lean. 

The report cited that Lean tends to be the dominate skill requirement within job postings. However, Six Sigma came on stronger this year even within Lean job postings.

Several factors in this year’s report include: 

  • Even with Six Sigma’s “resurgence,” Lean still dominates as the desired skill. However, Six Sigma is important to continuous improvement as companies recognize that Lean isn’t necessarily sufficient to meet every continuous improvement need.
  • According to the 7,097 Internet job postings reviewed for the study, 41 percent of the job openings sought pure Lean skills, while 27 percent sought pure Six Sigma skills. This suggests that companies may feel Lean’s focus on waste, flow, and flexibility is more practical.
  • Though demand for Lean talent exceeded Six Sigma by slightly more than 24 percent, this was still a large drop from last year’s record-setting 68 percent.

Overall, the results seem to indicate that even though Lean dominates, Six Sigma plays an important role in corporate continuous improvement.

Ultimately, Lean and Six Sigma are complementary strategies that offer significant benefits when implemented individually. However, used in combination they provide a cohesive approach that increases improvements in quality, efficiency, and productivity.

Lean Six Sigma is a leading management technique that maximizes production efficiency and maintains control over each step in the process. For more information on Lean Six Sigma tools, concepts, training, and certification, contact Thomas Pyzdek, well-known Lean Six Sigma expert and author of The Six Sigma handbook, a standard reference in the field.

The Pyzdek Institute offers Lean training, Six Sigma training, and Lean Six Sigma training.

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Lean Six Sigma Enables Improvements Through Technology

Thursday, October 25th, 2012

A recently concluded webinar and panel discussion included the CEO of the Center for Excellence in Operations, Inc. and MetricStream. This company is a market leader for global corporations in Enterprise-wide GRC and Quality Solutions. The goal of the webinar was to provide participants with insights into how Lean Six Sigma is a technology game changer. There is an article on the equities.com website that provides a summary of the webinar.

“A major take-away from the session is that the next generation of improvement must incorporate technology-enabled sustainability factors.”

Factors include data management, business analytics, policy deployment, compliance management and regulatory management. Other capabilities to improve process management were also discussed. Using technology for business processes provides benefits and opportunities that are far beyond the capability of outdated operations. This includes SIDAM modes for non-linear capabilities of problem solving. SIDAM is an acronymn for Sense, Interpret, Decide, Act and Monitor.

Businesses that are looking to obtain rapid sustainable improvements need to incorporate technologies that benefit from Lean Six Sigma. One way to achieve this is to obtain a certificate in areas such as Lean Enterprise Solutions, Lean Six Sigma and process management. Many programs are available from various educational centers and online providers, such as the Pyzdek Institute. Our Six Sigma training is available for Green Belt, Lean Black Belt and Lean Six Sigma. We are the best Six Sigma provider that offers online training and certification.

Certifications for Lean Six Sigma are industry-recognized. You can achieve credibility and recognition from earning this credential. This certification will allow you to aid organizations to achieve a constant return on investment that is based on continuous improvement initiatives.

If you have any questions about Lean Six Sigma and how it can benefit your organization then contact us for additional information. You will receive training that comes directly from the source.

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Lean Six Sigma Improves Healthcare Employee Morale

Friday, August 10th, 2012

It has long been known that Lean Six Sigma provides benefits for shareholders and customers, but a recent study by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) show that healthcare organizations that use Lean Six Sigma report higher employee satisfaction. In fact, an independent comparative study of 13 Lean projects, staff at all levels reported higher employee satisfaction at every institution that used the approach. The study reported that better front-line staff involvement in problem-solving and employee collaboration were cited as reasons for the results.

Healthcare teamHealthcare presents its own set of challenges to Lean Six Sigma deployment. AHRQ offers guidelines for introducing Lean Six Sigma into healthcare environments. These include:

  1. Make your QI efforts about quality, not about meeting a requirement
  2. Aim for real change, not just re-education
  3. Empower and excite
  4. Measure and evaluate
  5. Start small, dream big

Healthcare quality has been a documented issue since before the publication of “To Err is Human,” which reported over a decade ago that between 44,000 and 98,000 people died in hospitals each year due to preventable medical errors. Sadly, a recent analysis by the  Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) estimated that 13.5% of Medicare beneficiaries experienced an adverse event during a hospital stay. This lack of progress demands that healthcare, as an industry, examine new ways to improve their operations. Lean Six Sigma’s long history of successfully reducing errors and costs in other industries demands the attention of the healthcare sector. Reports of successes such as those highlighted above indicate that the approach can provide benefits to all healthcare stakeholders. I applaud these efforts and urge other healthcare organizations to investigate these success stories as possible role models for themselves.

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Tom Pyzdek to Discuss Gaming the Metrics on Quality Digest Live

Thursday, January 12th, 2012

In this article I discuss the topic of Gaming the Metrics. I will be on Quality Digest TV to discuss the subject live with Quality Digest’s hosts. Join the fun at 11AM Pacific/2PM Eastern time by clicking here. If you miss the broadcast, you can find the recording here. (Tom’s segment appears about 12 minutes into the episode.)

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How One Retailer Competes Using Lean Six Sigma

Wednesday, January 4th, 2012

LogoKum & Go convenience stores knows that the convenience store market is highly competitive. CSP Daily news reports that the retailer has taken to using Lean Six Sigma to help them compete. Kum & Go LC has practiced Six Sigma for several years, considering it a way to not only deliver a great retail experience to customers, but also to differentiate the West Des Moines, Iowa-based chain of more than 400 locations in 11 states.

“We provide safe and clean stores along with first-to-market products and exceptional customer experiences,” Dennis Folden, COO, told CSP Daily News. “That’s why we are able to ensure continued loyalty from our customers. Specifically, Six Sigma, continuous process improvement and a ‘passion for excellence’ are not easily replicated.”

Margins in the retail industry are extremely tight, so every penny counts. Lean Six Sigma is a way to identify opportunities to eliminate waste, unwanted variation, and errors in retail business processes, all of which cost money, add no value for customers, and don’t contribute to the bottom line.

Although Lean Six Sigma’s roots may be in manufacturing, it has been applied in a wide variety of other industries and businesses. If there is a repetitive process involved, the approach can be used to improve it. A retail chain serving millions of customers from hundreds of stores has many such processes. Lean Six Sigma helps first by getting people to understand their business from a process perspective. Most managers who are trained in traditional business schools are taught to view the business as a set of functions, such as marketing, purchasing, human resources, etc.. But customer value is created by processes, not functions. When processes are examined with Lean Six Sigma opportunities for improvement often jump out from the analysis. For example, process maps may reveal a great deal of duplication of effort, or important tasks for which no one has clear responsibility, or confusing lines of authority. Lean Six Sigma’s super-effective DMAIC project execution framework provides a way to pursue these opportunities.

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U.S. Army Embarks on Improvement Using Lean Six Sigma

Thursday, December 29th, 2011

The United States Army’s Office of Business Transformation is pursuing a 3 year program to improve its operations, and Lean Six Sigma is a big part of it. According to its web page on Lean Six Sigma, the Army has an award-winning, world-class Lean Six Sigma program that it applies as a core capability in its business transformation. The Army is reviewing core business processes to better support its forces, to reduce waste and to improve quality. The ultimate goal is to free human and financial resources for more compelling operational needs. The Army believes the fusion of Lean and Six Sigma improvement methods is required because:

  • Lean cannot bring a process under statistical control
  • Six Sigma alone cannot dramatically improve process speed or reduce invested capital
  • Both enable the reduction of the cost of complexity

The Army’s deployment is one of the largest anywhere. The Army’s Lean Six Sigma program has trained more than 1,450 senior leaders. As of the date of the report on their web site, the Lean Six Sigma community has completed nearly 5,200 projects, and more than 1,900 projects are currently in progress. Completed projects have yielded significant financial and operational benefits at organizations across the Army.

The Army’s use of Lean Six Sigma is part of its effort to transform the Army through the establishment of the Institutional Army Transformation Commission in August 2011. The Secretary of the Army, John M. McHugh, established the Commission in a Memorandumon 15 August 2011. According to the Secretary, “reforming and restructuring the Institutional Army – the Generating Force – is critical to building the Army of the future and supporting the forces of today. It must be as nimble, agile and adaptive as our Operating Force – driven by ideas, innovation and a determination to bring the best services and equipment, training and leaders, medical care and support to our Soldiers, civilians, and their family members.”

I think its safe to say that creating an organization that is nimble, agile, adaptive, driven by ideas, innovation, and a determination to bring the best are all goals that any leader can embrace. I believe that the Army is correct in believing that Lean Six Sigma can help them achieve these goals.

 

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Lean Six Sigma’s Process View Helps Hospital

Tuesday, December 27th, 2011

Lean Six Sigma can help healthcare organizations by taking a process view of the organization. For example, Mercy St. Vincent’s Medical Center in Toledo, Ohio, improved quality thorough its own care coordination model while incorporating Lean Six Sigma principles. Read more…

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Brigade provides Lean Six Sigma training to deployed Soldiers

Monday, December 26th, 2011

KANDAHAR AIRFIELD, Afghanistan –

Military logistics operations are centered on providing the best possible service to their customers. Ensuring the best possible service to soldiers downrange is the priority of every logistics leader. One deployed unit is providing their soldiers an opportunity to learn new ways to improve logistic capabilities. The Task Force Resolute command provides a Lean Six Sigma course at the U.S. Forces Afghanistan conference room on Kandahar Airfield, Afghanistan.

“Through Lean Six Sigma, soldiers and leaders will learn how to properly manage time and resources while delivering a top quality product the first time,” said Chief Warrant Officer Jackie Vuorinen, the TF-Resolute safety officer. “This is a program all soldiers can use to save Army resources while providing higher quality products.”

It’s only natural that the Task Force Resolute command use Lean Six Sigma. After all, providing military logistics is a complex process and, like any process, it can be improved. The current best practice for improving complex processes is Lean Six Sigma. Soldiers are being taught the Lean Six Sigma Green Belt body of knowledge. The most fundamental principal taught by the “Green Belt” course is to center the students thinking to several key concepts: define, measure, analyze, improve and control.

The soldier begins by defining a need within their organization centered around quality, cost or timing. The need must be clearly stated through a quantifiable unit such as units shipped, number of products delivered in a sub-standard state or the amount of time it takes to bring a product to the customer. soldiers measure all their statistics through historical data. The data is analyzed and the implications of faults within the organizations system are used to determine methods of improvement. These methods are implemented and used to create a steady improvement in service to the end customer.

Perhaps the effectiveness of the approach is why, according to the DVIDs website story, that students strongly recommend the course to all leaders and soldiers. In truth, this is the standard Lean Six Sigma approach applied in the context of military logistics. Let’s hope that the word spreads.

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