- BPI is a Certified B Corporation! So what does that mean? - FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Portland, Oregon, 2/3/2018 – Business Performance Improvement (BPI), a Lean and Six Sigma consulting firm focused on sustainability,
- Calculating Confidence Intervals for Proportions in Minitab - A common question I get asked is: how accurate are my defect rate predictions? If you are inspecting a sample
- Use capability analysis to see if you are sleeping enough - My wife says I don’t sleep enough, and she is right. I tried to argue with her for years, saying
- How to use candy to teach or learn Six Sigma - During our Yellow Belt (beginner Six Sigma) class, we have found lots of success teach statistical concepts using candy. It is a
- Which lean event type should I do first, Value Stream Mapping or Kaizen Burst? - What type of lean event should we do first, Value Stream Mapping (VSM) or Kaizen Burst? Before we can answer
- Employee engagement that will make you jealous! - One of the most difficult things for business owners and managers is to engage their employees in continuous improvements every
- Combining DMAIC and lean events to maximize process improvements - The DMAIC approach for process improvement is the foundation for Six Sigma, and I have grown to appreciate it more
- Split testing website marketing messages with Minitab’s Chi-Square % Defective comparison tests - Six sigma techniques have expanded beyond traditional manufacturing companies, into healthcare, movie industry, government and now online marketing. Split testing
- Don’t waste time on a full Gage R&R study until the data says you are ready - We support a lot of small volume manufacturing facilities (delivering low rate, high complexity products), which presents different challenges for
- What does golfing have to do with Six Sigma? - Here at BPI, we are always looking for ways to make Lean and Six Sigma concepts easier to understand for
- Myths about Toyota and why this is the improvement book you must read! - Toyota Kata is one of the most popular books in the process improvement community right now (summer of 2014). I’ve
- Six Sigma for Small Business – Book Review - One of the common complaints I hear about Six Sigma is that it is only for big businesses who can
- Tips and tricks for more efficient and effective PFMEAs - Process Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (PFMEA) tables can be a powerful tool to identify potential failures in a process,
- Which lean book is better? Toyota Way or Toyota Kata - I saw a recent interview with author Jeffrey Liker about both of these books, and I think he does a
- “Six Sigma on a Budget” book review with simplified tools - One of the biggest issues with companies deploying Six Sigma is the upfront cost for training. For a company of
- List of supplies for Lean Six Sigma Event Facilitators - If you are just getting started leading or facilitating lean or six sigma events, you need to be prepared with
- 6 resources for Six Sigma Black Belts to save time and improve effectiveness - Sigma Black Belts and Master Black Belts often have too much on their plate, especially when there aren’t many other
- 15 last minute tips before taking an ASQ Green or Black Belt exam - You’ve been studying for the ASQ Green or Black Belt exam. You think you’re ready, but you’re nervous that you
- Adding comments that move with the data in Excel SPC control charts - When you first start out implementing Statistical Process Control (SPC), it is unlikely that your company will invest in a
- How to increase the number of graphs you can display in Minitab beyond 100 - With an increasing amount of data being collected and analyzed these days, I often run into the restriction in Minitab
- What if you can’t find a Green Belt project for certification? - When promoting Six Sigma certification, we rarely have difficulty getting people interested in the idea. With opportunities to increase your
- Ideas for airlines on how to make lines and wait time shorter for passengers - Post updated on 8/22/16 (see below) As an avid airline passenger, I’ve flown on many different airlines (most major airlines)
- Top 3 things to validate before removing test or inspection steps - A process with excellent capability usually means there is a very small probability that the natural variation of the process
- How to calculate time savings after reducing distance traveled - One of the goals of a lean kaizen event is to reduce the overall lead time, from when an order
- Zero defects does not mean the problem is solved - One of the common mistakes made by companies is the assumption that the lack of defects means the problem has
- What do all the lines and boxes mean on a boxplot? - The Boxplot is one of simplest graphical tools to look at, and a tool I use very frequently when first
- 8 ways why batching is bad for your business - One of the most common questions we get when reviewing a process: “What’s wrong with batching? I can produce so
- 8 steps for passing the ASQ Six Sigma Green Belt or Black Belt exam - We have taught many students how to prepare for ASQ exams. I’ve even taken (and passed) the Certified Quality Engineer
- Online statistics training from Minitab has great animation and examples - Minitab statistical software is one of the most powerful and popular programs around, especially for those in the Six Sigma
- Free Green and Black Belt training? - BMGi is one of the largest process improvement consulting companies around. I’ve had some friends attend training from them, and
- How many of the 50 Best Practices for Process Excellence has your company implemented? - Lee Pollock and Mark Kiemele are authors of a new book, Reversing the Culture of Waste – 50 Best Practices to
- Reducing your time might seem like lean, but you can easily anger your customers - Lean is about increasing value to your customer. Often times, this requires you to eliminate waste in the process. However,
- Problem solving is critical for any business - Does your company have a problem solving process, like PDCA or 8-D? If so, do people use it? How do
- We don’t need any help, we are already lean! - “Lean and Six Sigma are only for manufacturing organizations!”“Our processes/company is unique, so that won’t work here!”“We’re already lean because
- Simple Business Approach to Continuous Improvement - As we rolled out our Six Ideas to Improve Your Business Today, we got some feedback that businesses are looking
- Six business improvement ideas you can implement today! - Sometimes us consultants get a bad reputation for making things more complicated than they need to be. We turn people
- Cost savings from process improvements can be misleading - I’ve been to many conferences, and have seen lots of companies claim cost savings and metric improvements that are very
- Start simple before you map your processes - We see a lot of different processes at various levels of process performance. Some are running near six sigma levels,
- Annoying tourist photos have wrong business model with lots of waste! - While on vacation recently, we were overwhelmed by the number of attractions with a photographer service, who make you take
- Prevention not as tough as it seems - Often times, we ask our clients what their proactive or preventative activity is. Most of the time, we get a
- Don’t “check the box” with soft improvement tools - We recently were reminded of a problem that comes up every so often in regards to process improvement tools. The
- New spin (literally) on an old quality tool - I love the Pareto chart. It’s one of the simplest quality tools, yet one of the most powerful, and underused
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