Tools For Process Improvement : The Deming Cycle

Successful organizations continuously strive to improve the processes they have in place. Process improvement leads to better quality control, higher efficiencies and lower costs. In order to implement a process improvement plan, it is necessary to collect and analyze data from the process. In this paper, I present an analysis of the metric data collected for the process I identified during week #1. As part of the analysis, the control and confidence limits are calculated, as well as other relevant statistics. With this information, a process improvement

Six Sigma can help companies achieve performance levels that externally are invaluable to customers and internally can reduce costs. These projects can now be found in very diverse industries and can span far-reaching …these two initiatives can be complementary, especially for "Greenfield" process improvements… UPS Supply Chain Solutions 2 business processes and geographies

The modern day health care system is currently faced with a wide array of challenges, such as the aging of the population and the intensified need for medical care, the rapidly evolving technologies and the increasing costs of the medical act.

There are always pros and cons to any quality improvement methodology. For instance, the pros of Six Sigma tend to place extreme importance on leadership and its support for the success of the project. Another pro is the integration of different human elements, which include cultural change, and focus on the customer and their needs. “By using the concept of statistical thinking, Six Sigma encourages applications of statistical tools and techniques that reduce variability” (Harry, 2000). The cons of Six Sigma include, not having the quality data available, especially when a new process has been implemented without having the data available. Often the solutions that Six Sigma proposes can be costly and only a small

The first phase is to define the objective the organization is trying to meet by indentifying and collecting the needed data. The second phase is measuring which means to measure how any new process will affect the organization. The third phase is analyze which means to look at the data that was previously collected. The fourth phase is to improve the area that was defined in the beginning. The fifth phase is control which means to take control of the information and situation to make it better. To accomplish quality improvement Six Sigma uses strong leadership and statistical thinking (Joshi, Nash, Ransom, & Ransom, 2008). The pro of this method is it allows the organization a structured way to process the information in order to make the necessary improvement. The con to this method is in the long run it could cost the company a lot of money.

Failure modes and effects analysis (FMEA) is a systematic method to evaluate process improvement plans. The purpose of the FMEA is to identify ways the plan might fail and what impact the failure would have on the process. In the scenario of the task, the hospital had a moderate sedation policy that was not followed and this resulted in the death of Mr. B. The process improvement plan for this sentinel event involves a policy change to the moderate sedation policy that includes the use of a checklist with a time-out component. The FMEA for this process improvement plan will evaluate the use of the checklist since it contains all elements of the new policy with-in the procedure checklist. A team will be chosen for the FMEA that

Six Sigma is a business metrics that seeks to identify and eliminate causes of errors or defects as well as failures in business processes by focusing on output that are critical to customers (De Feo, Barnard 2004). It is also a measure of quality that strives to eliminate defects using the application of statistical methods. In this case, a defect is defined as anything that could lead to customer dissatisfaction. Six Sigma’s statistical quality control is the method used to measure variability in a product for evaluation and corrective actions. When the product metrics exceeds the bounds of acceptability, based on statistical inference, the product can be rejected with reasonable assurance that does not meet requirement. It aims to identify and eliminate waste in order to increase speed and flow from start to finish. It also identifies the critical steps, and deleting those not required or nonessential. There are so many metrics process in today’s business industries but the metrics that Six Sigma’s statistical thinking can also be defined as a thought process. In which it recognize the variation is all around us and present in everything we do. The Six Sigma’s interconnected processes and identifying, characterizing, quantifying, controlling and reducing variation provide opportunities for improvement within any organizations or firms. That is to say,

Six Sigma is a quality improvement philosophy and a methodology and collection of statistical techniques used to implement that philosophy. Six Sigma’s focuses on reducing or removing identifiable sources of changes in order to decrease the number of defects in a product. Six Sigma was developed by Bill Smith and was used to standardize the way in which defects are tallied (Meredith, 2013). As a new way of doing business, six sigma can have a significant impact on the end result of business. There are many way six sigma can be applied. For example, the scientific component of methodology is a structure approach that takes

There are various phases in a quality process improvement. At Northrop Grumman, processes are improved using the Six Sigma process. The Six Sigma process includes five phases. The first stage is to define. This stage requires the team to create a SIPOC, describing suppliers, inputs, process, outputs and customers. Next, identify the customer and data that helps the team understand the customer's critical needs. The team will put together a team charter that includes the business case, which is the business reason for the proposed project, a problem statement specifically answering the what, where, when and to what extent of the project. The next part of the charter is a goal statement that meets the SMART criteria, and confirming that no one else has collected that data (Rath, 2003). Roles and responsibilities are assigned to each team member and documented. The project scope defines the starting point, insurance against scope creep and what constraints might affect the team. Milestones schedule a time limit for reaching each level of the process from start to end by using a Gantt chart of some similar chart. Finally a communication plan is developed for content during team

Six Sigma was first introduced in the 1980’s by none other than Motorola. It was not however necessarily a novel concept at the time so much as it drew from a conglomerate of proven manufacturing principles. It is strikingly similar to the scientific method in design. Six Sigma approaches areas that may not necessarily be viewed as problematic with an open mind. It seeks to analyze problems or questions with a stepwise, statistical, and quantitative focus in order to discover, fix, or disprove problems that may or may not exist within a process. By doing this Six Sigma can improve efficiency and therefore improve positive outcomes for whatever the endpoint may be (Mast, Bisgaard, & others, 2007).

Analyze scheduling and controlling techniques with regard to the effect of service availability on the ED bottlenecks

The concept of Six Sigma was developed in the early 1980’s at Motorola Corporation (Harry and Schroeder, 2000). Six Sigma can be defined as a statistical measure of the performance of a process or product (Kumi et. al., 2006). It is used as a quality control mechanism, which seeks to reduce defects or variations in a process to 3.4 per million opportunities thereby optimizing output and increasing customer satisfaction (Sambhe, 2012). Sigma is representing the standard deviation, a unit of measurement that designates the distribution or spread about the mean of a process (Six Sigma Academy, 2002). In addition, the Six Sigma uniquely driven by close understanding of customer needs, disciplined use of fact, data, and statistical analysis, and diligent attention to managing improving, and reinventing business processes (Pande, P., et. al. 2000). The Six Sigma methodology uses statistical tools to identify the factors that matter most for improving the quality of processes and generating bottom-line results. The Six Sigma DMAIC (Define, Measure,

It can be concluded that use of the Six Sigma DMAIC approach was successful in identifying the problem, improving the process, and controlling the defects

It is not well known, however, how organizational learning and continuous improvement work dynamically and mutually. For studying the mutual dynamics of these two widely known concepts in the organization theory and quality management fields, the six sigma approach – an improvement methodology for business processes – forms a fertile context for examination. There are not yet too many scientifically sound reports and case studies of six sigma implementation in real-life. In the dynamic developments of pursuing organizational effectiveness, the six sigma approach is currently gaining more and more ground in high-performance organizations aiming at the highest level of quality (six sigma by definition). Managers allocate resources to the improvement activities they regard as crucial for increasing organizational performance. Six sigma is an improvement method that aims to increase business performance through solid and accurate business focus. The applying of six sigma is progressing in Finnish business life, and this paper reports on a preliminary case study in three companies. Conclusions are made and on how learning and continuous improvement practices support each other, and on the type of learning in the six sigma implementation The findings show that in a procedural implementation of six sigma learning mechanisms and continuous improvement practices are intertwined creating mainly a single-loop type of learning. The type reminds a technical

Deming cycle or Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) cycle was the base model for EMS in promoting the concept of continuous improvement. An environmental policy will be formulated to declare a company’s basic environment value and establishes guidelines that comply with environmental law and regulations during the “plan” stage.