Author name: Forrest Breyfogle

In Lean Six Sigma, much training effort is spent on conveying the importance of having a measurement system so that consistent and correct decisions are made relative to part quality and other assessments. Measurement Systems Analysis (MSA) and Gage R&R study (Repeatability and Reproducibility) are an integral part of the Lean Six Sigma Black Belt and Green Belt training. It should be the goal of every organization to achieve the three Rs of business; i.e., everyone doing the Right things, and doing them Right, at the Right time. One tool that provides direction for achievement of the three Rs goal is process performance metrics; i.e., a process’ performance report-out should lead to the most appropriate action or non-action. This objective is not unlike an inspection gage MSA, which is to determine if inspectors can adequately determine whether a manufactured component should be accepted or rejected. Because of this performance-reporting need, it would seem that management and practitioners would be assessing how well current scorecard and metric reporting systems are doing from a MSA conceptual point of view. However, this does not seem to be occurring. The question is why do we not examine business metrics and process capability indices reporting from a MSA point of view with the same level of intensity that we do for product quality metrics? This one-hour Webinar will explain more on the magnitude of the issue: we’ll give focus to how Cp, Cpk, Pp, and Ppk process capability indices’ reporting is sensitive to how a given process is sampled; i.e., an MSA issue. A predictive metric reporting system will then be described for overcoming not only the issues of process capability indices but general business-performance scorecards.