One of my favorite hobbies is playing baseball with my kids. I'm very involved with their Little League teams and volunteer to help teach baseball skills to the kids. My 7-year old son, Steven, is playing his first year of coach-pitch baseball. Prior to that, he played T-ball which is a very different game. One day at practice, I was pitching to

One of the key traits of a successful business owner is the ability to get things done. But many people are procrastinators. They say to themselves "why do it today when there is always tomorrow". But eventually tomorrow has come and gone and still the job isn't done. In business this means that the tasks that need to be accomplished have only mult

In the latest book from Ken Blanchard's "The One Minute..." series called 'The One Minute Entrepreneur - The Secret to Creating and Sustaining a Successful Business' he gives an interesting definition. "Profit is the applause you get for taking care of your customers and creating a motivational environment for your people" If you look after y

A signature item is a particular food or drink that a restaurant has created and is very well known for. Every establishment needs a signature item which becomes the mainstay for regular patrons, and, in turn, keeps the establishment in business for a very long time. The signature item could be anything such as a specially made sandwich, a pan

In order to run a successful online home based business, you need to create a simple work-at-home schedule that allows you the opportunity to get all your work done each day. Even though you work from home, you still need to be productive in order to earn a living. If you are the type who procrastinates, then you may want to reconsider working

Focusing on the customer is essential to the success of any business. We all recognize this idea. But do we really internalize this idea? Do we really believe that such a focus has the potential to drive business growth and improve the quality of our day-to-day work as well as improve the chance that our business, and hence our jobs, will flourish?

The role of Six Sigma Green Belts is to support Black Belts in the completion of projects. This might involve helping the Black Belt to collect and analyze data or to help in the running of designed experiments. Reaching Six Sigma performance requires the completion of many projects. Green Belts help to leverage Black Belts by allowing Black Belts

Six Sigma is a data-driven process re-engineering methodology resulting in paradigm shifts in the way a company behaves, treats its customers, and produces its products. It has been used for over 15 years in a number of companies including General Electric, Allied Signal and Texas Instruments. Six Sigma performance implies a level of process and

To achieve Six Sigma levels of quality, an organization must improve the processes that are critical to customer satisfaction. Some of these processes belong to manufacturing. But others will belong to service and support organizations such as sales or maintenance. In many cases, processes will cut across the boundaries of traditional departments.

Unless we can measure something, we cannot improve our performance. Sigma is a unit of measure that gives us a way of measuring variation and the capability of our processes to meet customer expectations consistently. We will discuss Sigma in more detail as the course progresses.What is a Sigma? It is a Greek letter that represents a measure of var

Probably the biggest single difference between a true Six Sigma company and those companies that are stuck permanently at Four Sigma, is the mindset. The under-achieving companies are complacent, unaware and unable to accept the idea that they must make quantum leaps in process quality if they are to gain, and keep, their competitive advantage. The

One of the most important tools for achieving Six Sigma process capability is Process Benchmarking. This powerful tool is used to compare processes or products within the industry, between industries, or even between geographical areas or countries. A tool called Benchmarking Chart is a powerful way to "baseline" various processes or products so th

One of the more confusing aspects of learning Six Sigma, is the relationship between process Standard Deviation, which is denoted by the Greek letter sigma and the process Sigma value, known as Z. When output data of a process is collected and analyzed, two of the first statistics to be calculated are the Mean and the Standard Deviation. The Mea

Focusing on the customer is essential to the success of any business. We all recognize this idea. But do we really internalize this idea? Do we really believe that such a focus has the potential to drive business growth and improve the quality of our day-to-day work as well as improve the chance that our business, and hence our jobs, will flourish?

It is vital that there is a clear and consistent set of people processes across an organization. These processes includes the selection of Black Belts, Master Black Belts, and Six Sigma Green Belts, their evaluation, and the requirements and process for their certification. One main issue is ensuring that these processes are very rigorous. Rigor