You may also view our newsletter archive at http://www.moresteam.com/morenews/archive.cfm.
 |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| MoreNews about Lean Six Sigma March 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Standards for Lean Six Sigma Certification
Watch the Recorded Webcast "Raising the Bar across the Board"
 Join the communities of practice that are re-shaping the Belt certification process. Participants across 26 countries were represented at the Webcast held last week. The presentation discussed the need for Belt certification standards to address the glaring inconsistencies in certification practices that result in LSS companies having to devote resources to re-training a "certified" Black Belt. Peg Pennington, Executive Director of the Center for Operational Excellence at The Ohio State University reviewed the new Lean Six Sigma Certification Standards recently published by the Center. The Standards were drafted based on a gap analysis comparing existing industry practices, published LSS BOKs, and LSS company requirements.
Rachel Lane, Associate Vice President of Business Excellence at Nationwide, offered her endorsement of the Standards and discussed how Nationwide is implementing them. Watch the recorded Webcast to keep up-to-date on this important development.
 COE Soliciting Comments on LSS Belt Standards
Consistent Combination of Theory and Demonstrated Capability
 "Great technical competency does not necessarily translate to project leadership," states Peg Pennington, COE Executive Director. "I invite you to review the standard and provide feedback. From this rich community of users we can grow a certification standard that any company could use in their own development process." iSixSigma Certification Survey
Motorola, DuPont, and Microsoft Cited as Best Practices
 In drafting the new Standards, current industry practices were considered. One of the key inputs was a survey conducted by iSixSigma which reported the results from 1,160 respondents regarding Belt certification at their companies. Questions covered the inclusion of certification exams, project work required, financial targets, tenure, and many other related issues. Read the articles previously published in the iSixSigma Magazine.RESOURCES
EngineRoom Update: Version 5.09
 As a Microsoft® Excel®-based tool, EngineRoom provides Lean Six Sigma practitioners with a powerful, simple-to-use suite of data analysis tools and templates. As an update to EngineRoom 5.0, this version is the most powerful release yet. The latest enhancements include new chart options and capabilities and interface and menu improvements. Another recent addition is the Design of Experiments (DOE) module, which employs an intuitive, user-friendly Wizard for experimental design selection and analysis in “plain English.” This completes the suite of statistical tools in EngineRoom for integration with a Lean Six Sigma training course.
There are a number of additional enhancements as well. An upgrade version is available to eligible users. Read more and download a free 30-day trial version of EngineRoom 5.09. Recommended Reading: Super Crunchers
 This book is an all-time staff favorite. Why do we like it so much? It's all about data and data-driven decision making. The author, Ian Ayres, is a lawyer and an economist and finds a way to make a book about the "power" of numbers entertaining to read.In Super Crunchers: Why Thinking-By-Numbers is the New Way To Be Smart, Ayres focuses primarily on regression and random sampling examples, but also explains a number of other statistical analysis techniques. He uses instances of real life “super crunching” -- such as how websites like Amazon offer buying suggestions based on the
observation that "consumers who bought this also bought that." Ayres has researched a wide variety of areas like pricing polices, affirmative action programs, car theft, weight reduction programs, etc. and explains the basic quantitative methods behind the findings.
Ayres is a columnist for Forbes magazine and writes for the New York Times'' Freakonomics Blog. He has been a public radio commentator and his research has been featured on a variety of televised news shows. Originally released in 2007, Super Crunchers has been a Wall Street Journal and New York Times business bestseller. It is available at Amazon.com.
Sound Bytes of Success: Xerox and IBM Dublin
 During a recent product development project, a Xerox team utilized Design for Lean Six Sigma to generate millions of dollars in total savings and nearly 50% return on investment. The company has seen other impressive results by pairing its Lean Six Sigma initiatives and innovation teams together to drive product development. Read the full article.The IBM Dublin Plant is going green(er). A Lean Six Sigma team beefed up Control and developed a dashboard to provide warnings related to various forms of energy use. Within the first eight months, the plant achieved a 20% reduction in energy consumption and expects another 10% reduction by the end of this year. Read the full article.
Register for Drawing for Free Course Before Friday!
 In honor of its tenth anniversary, MoreSteam is hosting a drawing for a free online course subscription to one randomly selected winner. Interested individuals can select any one of MoreSteam’s online courses, including Lean Six Sigma Black Belt, Lean Six Sigma Green Belt, Design for Six Sigma, or Lean Methods Accelerator. Register before the end of March 19th.
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
