Vishwadeep Khatri

Warranty period should be calculated through two elements. The expected life and reliability of the product or service Competitive pressures and advantages of offering a longer period. While the first factor should be the real decider, the second plays its own role in many cases.

In DFSS project, the specialists have the biggest role to play. In my view, it is best that a specialist leads a DFSS project. However, a DMAIC project is often led by generalists. In all type of projects, subject matter expert is a key team member.

A simple answer should be - Improvement assignments where cause and solution are easy to find - Kaizen / Lean teams. Improvement areas where cause and solution are unknown (difficult to assess) - Lean Six Sigma team.

Hi Ravisankar, I noticed your response late. Here are my comments. Measuring customer satisfaction is a challenging subject in some sectors. It is not so challenging in some other sectors. Automotive industry - There is direct and accurate feedback provided to component manufacturers by automotive assembler. Example - automotive sub-assemblies or parts BPOs and similar support services - There is a reasonable method of satisfaction ratings. Example - Any BPO B2C marketing - The CSI is more challenging subject here but signals are always available if we have the antennas in place. Example - Recently tablet PCs have been withdrawn by companies within weeks of launch. Products and services with warranty and guarantee - Customer dissatisfaction directly relates to replacement & repair demands. A product replaced during warranty is not considered great service but a failure by customers. Industries that can track repeat or referral sales data. Example - Apple customers generally tend to buy more than one product from the company and this is tracked through itunes database. Pull vs Push marketing - Companies who are able to rely more on pull have better data generation. On the other hand companies who rely on push have more uncertainty and larger variation in sales. [*]I would like to keep the number of products and forecast accuracy as two different topics. You need reasonable accuracy for existing products as well as new products. In most industries, you need a new product every six months as a thumb rule anyway. [*]Channel effectiveness study also depends on reliability of metrics put in place and data associated with them. As an example, in web based marketing, we have clients who are now able to track the number of clicks on their website through various promotional measures and sources (channels). Effectiveness of these channels can be tracked right from lead generation till the sales through conversion ratios. Money is then pumped into the right channels after carrying out experiments

Lean Six Sigma Green Belt and Black Belt provide you the perfect ladder for this objective. These programs also help you to move across industries. Have a look at the videos section to see how participants have done well in process excellence. Hope this answers your questions.

Both are backed by strong management principles. If you consider any one as the BIBLICAL approach to follow (with an eye on business sense all the time), big improvements can happen. However, ISO 9001 many times suffers with practices of faking data for appeasing the external auditor. For such companies, maintaining ISO 9001 becomes Non Value Adding activity to quite an extent. The bottom-line is - any sound management practice that is supported well by top management can lead to great results. Generally, top management finds it easy to support Six Sigma as it connects with business sense. More views are welcome.

The culture difference is substantial. Problem complexity also has a role to play. It makes sense for continual improvement professionals to be equipped with both bodies of knowledge so that they choose the right weapon for the selected enemy.

Dear Ravi, Good to see your post here. The narrative highlights an important pain area for the Institute. My comments are as follows. Choose a CTQ clearly. You may choose pass percentage or absenteeism or preparation time spent. It may not be a good idea for me to suggest the CTQ as you are closer to the problem and likely to know it better. If the CTQ is pass percentage, it does not seem to be a good idea to reach a conclusion on the basis of gut feel that preparation time or absenteeism is the critical X. Data analysis should confirm this in analyze phase. My suggestion is that you should follow DMAIC phases - one phase at a time. Once the project charter is ready, you can consider preparing for next phase.

Hi Judy, Your situation seems to be the ideal candidate for a Six Sigma project. After all, if you knew the exact critical cause and the solution you would not need Six Sigma techniques. Welcome to the Six Sigma world.

Dear Varun, Your Manager is right. Let me know if you have any specific questions that are bothering you.

Hi, As a person having own venture and wanting to make it big, you can benefit a lot from Lean Six Sigma learning. Each process and subprocess in your business can be designed, studied and improved (for direct business impact) by using Six Sigma techniques. Have a look at the following link for detailed discussion on introduction to Six Sigma http://forum.benchma...t-is-six-sigma/

Ankit, your questions need some detailed discussion and explanation. Please call our office at toll All India free number 1800 102 3003 during office hours.

Pre-control chart is used as an initial tool when no process data is available. Have a look at this external link for useful guidance.

Please have a look at the Section "Guidelines after Green Belt" at the forum main page. http://forum.benchmarksixsigma.com/index.php?/forum/51-after-green-belt/

The most commonly accepted approach is - as follows. If the cause and solution of a problem is unknown when you begin working on the problem considering it as a project, Six Sigma (or, in many cases the integrated approach Lean Six Sigma) is used. If the cause and solution are known or easy to figure out (through use of some basic techniques like fishbone and pareto or through group engagement methods), Lean is used. In many cases, even if a project does not warrant the use of Six Sigma DMAIC or a DMADV approach, specific Six Sigma techniques or a combination of Lean and Six Sigma techniques are handy. For a continual improvement specialist, there is really no alternative to learning concepts and techniques in both the bodies of knowledge.

From 1995 till 2007 - About 50,000 US citizens died due to want of a suitable organ donor. An interesting statistic - Only 28% Americans have chosen to donate their organs while 99.9% of French citizens are potential donors. What is the reason for this striking difference? Let us explore one by one. Awareness? - This cannot be the reason as large number of campaigns have been carried out in USA.Moral development? - Do Americans believe that Doctors may not work as hard to save life of patients who have agreed to donate organs? This cannot be the reason. Evidence - Germans and Austrians share the same language, culture and are neighbors but have huge difference on this issue - 12% Germans are donors while 99.9% of Austrians are donors.Something more important is at work behind all this - something more important than deliberate reasoning, national thought processes, or individual preferences. The reason is - In the US, Great Britain and Germany, the legal default is that nobody is a donor without registering to be one. While in France, Austria, Hungary, everyone is a potential donor unless they opt out. This means the DEFAULT RULE works everywhere on this issue. This is the same as Opt-In versus Opt-Out rule in a software program. As you see this rule can have serious long standing repercussions. Have you tried working with the default rule in organisational processes? It can work wonderfully for you. Comments welcome. Best Regards, VK This post has been promoted to an article

In Sport - Indians are not so bad in THE ART but are found lacking in usage of SCIENCE (and competitive intelligence). English bowlers found a way to sort out even Tendulkar by keeping 99% balls on off side ( while Indians went to England unprepared). Saina was sorted by Chinese shuttler (keeping her 100% at back of the court which is her weakness). Most foreign teams analyze player data in scientific ways. For some related information, have a look at the following link - http://ow.ly/6eGZv Open to comments and discussion.

Ravi, we shall discuss these in detail during the BB training. Best Regards,

Hi Santhosh, Next program details can be seen at http://benchmarksixsigma.com/calendarProject completion is not mandatory before Black Belt.Black Belt duration is 6 days. (This is exclusively for Green Belt trained professionals) Black Belt examination is an open book exam. Please call us at 1800 102 3003 to know more. Best Regards, VK

Agree with Steele, Also, z (lower) = (the mean - lower specification limit) / the standard deviation In cases where both the specification limits are known, the two z values need to be combined

Dear Logu, You can use Six Sigma techniques in setting up processes (DMADV) and also in improving processes that have been implemented (DMAIC). Please provide more details if you have specific questions. Best Regards, VK

Dear Ashish, This is a big topic and difficult to explain here. The sigma level calculation varies as per type of data and CTQ. I suggest you undergo some structured Six Sigma training to learn more on this. Best Regards, VK

Yes, it is possible to reach Six Sigma performance or even better with common sense approaches like mistake proofing. OTIS reached such levels in 1853. Dabbawalla's did this in recent times. None of them used DMAIC/DMADV/Lean/5S Regards, VK

Dear Bharat, Let us assume that during the six sigma project, you realized that the primary CTQ could not be impacted. At this stage, you may revise your charter and present for necessary approvals. If management agrees that the original secondary CTQ should now be considered as primary and Six Sigma DMAIC is a valid methodology for the new charter, it is ok to go ahead. You may have to revisit each phase and may need to look at it as an entirely new project. This may be needed as - certain activities for the old secondary CTQ may not have been done earlier (for example - baseline performance or sigma level of secondary CTQ)