by Thomas Pyzdek

American Kaizen

Kaizen means “improvement” in Japanese. In Japan businesses view Kaizen as a way to engage everyone in improvement without spending much money. Improvements are usually small, and overall improvement is gradual. Americans have little patience for such an approach. This podcast describes the American version of Japan’s successful approach to improving products and processes.

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5.0/5: Does Normality Really Matter in ANOVA?
5.0/5: Six Sigma Project Guidelines in Plain English
5.0/5: President Obama, Rush Limbaugh, and me
5.0/5: P.F. Chang's Simple Recipe for Profits
5.0/5: Study: Ford Quality Rivaling Japanese Counterparts - Industry Headlines - Quality
5.0/5: U.S. airlines continue on-time improvement in February - USATODAY.com
5.0/5: Peter L. Bersbach
5.0/5: Tough Times and Lean Six Sigma
5.0/5: 101 Things a Black Belt Should Know
5.0/5: 101 Soft Skills a Six Sigma Black Belt Needs

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What is Six Sigma?

By Thomas Pyzdek, Author of The Six Sigma Handbook

For Motorola, the originator of Six Sigma, the answer to the question "Why Six Sigma?" was simple: survival. Motorola came to Six Sigma because it was being consistently beaten in the competitive marketplace by foreign firms that were able to produce higher quality products at a lower cost. When a Japanese firm took over a Motorola factory that manufactured Quasar television sets in the United States in the 1970s, they promptly set about making drastic changes in the way the factory operated. Under Japanese management, the factory was soon producing TV sets with 1/20^th the number of defects they had produced under Motorola management. They did this using the same workforce, technology, and designs, making it clear that the problem was Motorola's management. Eventually, even Motorola's own executives had to admit "our quality stinks." Read More...

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