During our Well-Defined Processes course we spend a significant amount of time talking about procedures. The role of procedures in documenting processes as well as positive and negative attributes of procedures.

At the very beginning of the course, we ask the participants, “What is wrong with procedures in your organization?” The things that appear on the list are predictable. They include:

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Let’s say, just prior to taking a commercial flight, that you are talking to your pilot and discussing the technical aspects of the trip. During the discussion, you learn that the plane only has one instrument gauge – an air speed meter. “We just like to focus on one thing, and be really good at it,” explained the pilot. “After we get really good at regulating our air speed,” the pilot continues,

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Our recent articles have focused on innovation and change. To compete in today’s fast-moving world, both innovation and change are integral ingredients for process improvement and success. This month, we will talk about companies that have readily welcomed change and embarked on the process improvement journey. We will begin with Precoat Metals, which recently recognized an opportunity for improvement.

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Question of the month: How can the process approach help sales and marketing?

Sales and marketing is more than just a magical black box. It is a business process that is fundamental to the success of your company. Therefore, it should be well-defined, under control, and aligned with the overall business strategy.

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Last week we discussed the sales and marketing pipeline, as part of our coverage on using the business process approach to sales & marketing. Well-defined and aligned processes not only use measurement to continually improve,

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In the previous series of articles, we discussed applying Statistical Process Control (SPC) to business processes. Although SPC has been around for a long time and is applicable to the current world of Lean, Six Sigma, and ISO, it is often overlooked.

SPC is a great tool to not only monitor the current and recent behavior of a process, but is also a great tool to support Continuous Improvement activities.

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Question of the month: Why are control charts so important in measuring process effectiveness?

In October, we continued the Road to Six Sigma series dealing with statistical process control in business settings. We discussed correlation and control charts—two very important concepts that enable you to understand

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Part 4 of a 4-Part Series

We come now to what started this “Road to Six Sigma” series in the first place, Dr. Shewhart’s simple control tool, the control chart. The control chart is really two time-based charts plotted on the same form. For simplicity’s sake, we will focus on control charts for variable individual readings because

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Question of the month: What is the difference between common cause and assignable cause?

Email articles in September discussed applying statistical process control (SPC) methods to business processes. Today many organizations have implemented a rigorous application of statistical methods called Six Sigma. However, Six Sigma is not for everyone because

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Corrective and Preventive Actions are key elements to a Quality Management System (QMS) that is focused on Continual Improvement and Customer Satisfaction. Indeed, any ISO 9000 type QMS should have

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