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As part of your continuous improvement efforts, you will need to experiment, and that means making models. Models are essentially, at their heart, experiments to figure out how to do things on a larger scale. They are intended to get all the mistakes and faults in ideas out before you Read more…
A Likert Scale is the sequenced set of responses we frequently see on surveys. There are several common applications, such as how strongly you agree with a statement, or how satisfied you were with service. The latter is common in phone surveys after a customer service call. Example Likert Scale: Read more…
Six Sigma is based on the DMAIC cycle. DMAIC stands for Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, Control, and is a step-by-step approach to solving large problems. Six Sigma refers to the standard deviations and is geared primarily towards reducing variation, so the output of a process fits within six standard deviations Read more…
Discrete data is data that is countable, quantitative data. It is numerical in data, stemming from a physical count or measurement, and has a limited number of possible values. The number of wheels on a vehicle would be discrete data. Discrete data has the advantage of being easy to collect. Read more…
In logistics, a milk run is where a customer has a single vehicle visit a series of suppliers to pick up materials. In traditional shipping, the reverse is true. Vendors deliver to their customers. The name comes from the dairy industry, in which a single tanker from a processing facility Read more…
Gut feel is the immediate response you come to about something, based on intuition. It is formed nearly instantly due to the sum of your experience and training, based upon the available information you have. The degree of accuracy varies from person to person, but the common aspect for everyone Read more…
Half-life is generally a scientific term that denotes the time it takes for half of something to decay, or otherwise degrade. It is commonly used to describe the time it takes for half of the unstable atoms in radioactive material to decay. It also used in the drug industry to Read more…
The term “firefighting” is often used to describe solving problems in a mad scramble during a crisis. It generally means that someone comes in and handles a problem in an emergency mode. The result is normally just enough to rescue the team from its predicament, but seldom actually solves the Read more…
There’s and old joke. There are two types of people in the world. Those that know what extrapolation is, and those… If you know what extrapolation is, you get the joke. Extrapolation is the process of making an estimate of what data will look like based on the current trend. Read more…
The exact origin of the term ‘Good Idea Fairy’ is unknown, but it is generally thought to be in the US military. It is a derogatory term for leaders who come up with what is considered by the team to be crazy ideas that are seemingly plucked out of thin Read more…
Co-location describes dissimilar processes being placed near each other to facilitate flow. This typically happens when you are creating a product-oriented work cell on the shop floor, or when you use value stream management and have administrative teams assigned to specific product groups in the office. Like all things, there Read more…
Carpal Tunnel Syndrome (CTS) is a is a repetitive stress injury (RSI) of the median nerve in the carpal tunnel as it passes through the wrist area. This nerve controls the feeling and movement of the thumb and first three fingers. It causes a variety of symptoms that range from Read more…