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Selling Your Ideas: Learning the skills to be a great advocate

The toughest challenge many six sigma leaders face is getting buy-in. A plant is working at 105%; a business is quite profitable–how do you get that plant manager or business leader to consider using six sigma as a tool to do even better. Like it or not, there are politics to ideas in every organization. Good ideas, like six sigma, don’t sell themselves. Instead, you have to advocate for them. In this webinar, John Daly, author of Advocacy: Championing Ideas and Influencing Others, will describe some of the key skills of great advocates. You’ll learn very specific tactics for more effectively influencing others in conversations and meetings.

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Quality Digest Live: Interview with Forrest Breyfogle, III

Forrest Breyfogle was interviewd by Quality Digest at the Quality Expo in Chicago in September 2011, where they discuss the future of quality and the future of manufacturing. *YouTube video, requires appropriate plugins. The full Quality Digest Live segment can be viewed at: http://www.qualitydigest.com/_qd.video_player.php?category=118&video=16271

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Truly Understanding Hypothesis Testing Concepts Making a Complex Topic Simple

Hypothesis testing is a concept that is taught in Lean Six Sigma and statistics courses. It is likely the least understood concept taught in both genre. In this webinar, we will walk through the concepts of a and b risk along with power and confidence choices using a completely different method than you would have been taught in a class. Through the use of diagrams and simulations, we will make the hypothesis concepts real and understandable. This could be the most informative hour your have every experienced! This may make much of your LSS training finally make sense. At the end of this webinar, the participant will be able to understand all hypothesis tests concepts and to be absolutely confident of the testing conclusions.

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Digital Statistics Tables

Most practitioners do not frequently use the statistics tables, such as the normal distribution and t distribution. You may not have used them since your last Lean Six Sigma or statistics class. Is the lack of use due to the availability? If you would like a digital copy of the statistics table that has no intellectual property or copyright restrictions, download it here. This is an Excel workbook file, with all the equations that are used. Load it onto your laptop or your mobile device for quick access.

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Is Your Management System Broken?

What would you say if someone said that current management systems are broken? Your management system? If you are intrigued and interested in learning more, you are in for a treat.In this edition of the Operational Excellence Edge ezine series, you get to meet another of the authors of Driving Operational Excellence. Forrest Breyfogle, author of 13 books in the area of process improvement, quality, and Lean Six Sigma, shares some of his unique insights on these topics and more. Forrest will share his views about Toyota’s recent struggles along with other insights you will find very useful.

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Design of Experiments: Out of the Classroom

Teaching Design of Experiments to students is not an easy task. It is difficult to simulate the entire effort within the constraints of a classroom. You can teach the analysis with software, but this is not enough to really gain an understanding of DOE. In an effort to teach these concepts to a non-manufacturing audience, the DOE concepts were used to improve the baking of a chocolate chip cookie. You may say that is a manufacturing process and it is, but it involves all of the DOE concepts in an arena that most can understand. In this webinar we will walk through the entire process of planning, designing, running, and analyzing a factorial DOE. If you consider DOE a difficult concept and have a fear running one, this webinar is for you. By the end of the webinar, you will understand all the fractional factorial DOE concepts as well as know a few things about making chocolate chip cookies. We will even share the results of the DOE with you! Objectives: Walk through the key activities of a Design of Experiments (planning, designing, running, and analyzing ) in an area that you understand. At the end of the webinar you should feel much more comfortable in using a DOE, even outside of manufacturing.

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Improved Enterprise Improvement Plan (EIP) Template

As Smarter Solutions continues to refine the Integrated Enterprise Excellence (IEE) system, we tweak certain tools to improve their use. The Enterprise Improvement Plan (EIP) has been updated in order to better title the columns so that they are clear in their intent. We have also added a fifth column as we modified the fourth column. The fourth column has been defined as the improvement being targeted, with the fifth column being the specific project or task that is linked to the improvement. We think you will find this tool to be more useful and easier to explain to others.

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Enhanced Capturing Voice of the Customer Methodology in a Business Management System

An enhanced capturing voice of the customer methodology is needed within businesses. A voice of the customer (VOC) system needs to be an integral part of an organizational overall business management system. A business’ survival depends upon effectively reacting and anticipating customer needs; however, businesses need to better answer how to effective track and improve

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Voice of the Customer Business System Integration

Business survival depends upon fulfilling the wants, needs, and desires of customers. For long-lasting success fulfilling this business requirement, an effective system is needed to capture and utilize Voice of the Customer (VOC) inputs. However, organizations often undertake this VOC task by creating a function that focuses on conducting and interpreting customer satisfaction surveys. With this approach, policies might even be established where employee compensation depends upon how well satisfaction-survey goals are met. Care needs to be exercised when capturing and using customer inputs, since the best intention can lead to playing games with the numbers and/or a VOC silo effort that is not integrated in the overall business management system. From an effectiveness point of view, one might even question whether customer satisfaction is the most important measurement to track. Why? Often customer satisfaction does not correlate as well as we might think to future customer’s buying behaviors – a critical factor. This presentation will describe an integrated business management system that effectively blends VOC needs, wants, and desires with metrics that move organizations toward achievement of the 3 Rs of business; i.e., everyone doing the Right things, and doing them Right, at the Right time.

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Decisions Made in a Silo

Most companies build their organizational charts around the concept of silos, which Forrest W. Breyfogle III says can cause significant problems because decisions made in a silo are not necessarily made in the best interest of the entire company. As the founder of Smarter Solutions, a provider of Lean Six Sigma coaching, consulting and training services, Forrest has experienced this challenge firsthand. Most Six Sigma projects originate within a…

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