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Bringing Toyota Close to Home

Your company need not be in the automotive industry to benefit from the principles of the Toyota Production System. Whether you’re running a critical care unit, overseeing cross-country trucking operations or opening an art school, you can learn valuable lessons from the Toyota Production System. We’ll apply TPS in certain situations to bring some principles into […]

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Design for Six Sigma

Design for Six Sigma (DFSS) is the application of Six Sigma principles to the design of products and their manufacturing and support processes. Whereas Six Sigma by definition focuses on the production phase of a product, DFSS focuses on research, design, and development phases. DFSS combines many of the tools that are used to improve […]

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Explaining 5S Implementation for the Non-manufacturing sector

5s is another well known business process management principles and quality control certification and has got extensive support in the manufacturing sector. 5S works mostly towards removal of wasteful processes and products within an organization, and has been derived from the Japanese words seiri, seiton, seiso, seiketsu, and shitsuke. 5S has also found a lot […]

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Handling Statistical Variation in Six Sigma

Six-Sigma provides a methodical, disciplined, quantitative approach to continuous process improvement. Through applying statistical thinking, Six Sigma uncovers the nature of business variation and its affect on waste, operating cost, cycle time, profitability, and customer satisfaction. The term “Six Sigma” is defined as a statistical measure of quality, specifically, a level of 3.4 defects per […]

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It Can Be Copied But…

Piggly Wiggly…muri…mura…muda… No, they’re not your typical cheerleading blurbs, although with Toyota hugging the limelight these days as one of the world’s major car producers with stellar growth rates and “can’t-be-beat” performance, everyone might as well be cheerleading for the Japanese auto maker.  The praises are richly deserved. The story began when Toyota owners visited […]

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Value Stream Mapping

Reaping the Benefits of Value Stream Mapping

Value Stream Mapping (VSM) is a proven tool. Well suited for a broad range of industries and processes, VSM is ideal for creating positive organizational changes, developing efficient future states, and producing system-wide benefits in cost, quality, and flexibility. In short, it helps eliminate waste. But like any tool, VSM must be applied properly. That […]

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Six Sigma Breeds Effective Leadership

Introduction You browse through a handful of Six Sigma books hoping to find a definition for leadership. Chances are you’d be hard pressed to find one unifying definition.  Instead, you’ll get a garden variety of definitions that will help you zero in on the true essence of leadership. Given evolving business and manufacturing trends and […]

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What is Lean Six Sigma Training Certification

What is Lean Six Sigma? Lean Six Sigma combines the quality improvements that come from using Six Sigma with the speed improvements that come from using Lean manufacturing principles. Six Sigma is a disciplined, data-driven approach and methodology for eliminating defects in any process – from manufacturing to transactional and from product to service. Lean manufacturing […]

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Do Kaizen Events help in Non-manufacturing units?

The word Kaizen means continuous improvement. Implementation of a quality process does not mean that there is no need for any further improvements of changes. In fact, most quality processes are reviewed at frequent intervals and findings are then implemented as changed processes. This review process which is geared to bring about a positive change […]

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