Essay - Sigma Framework

March 13, 2019March 18, 2019

Essay: ISO and Six Sigma

When I talked with my Lean Six Sigma friend Mike Negami on phone about the typical topic “Why is Lean Six Sigma unpopular in Japan”, he said that the Lean Six Sigma is getting more popular as the next step of quality improvement after the ISO 9001 certification.

December 13, 2015October 6, 2019

Essay: Table for Table Tennis and Lean Six Sigma

I bought a table for table tennis as a Christmas present for my son, since the winter in this northern state was too cold and too long to exercise outside. I hoped that playing table tennis in basement can be a good winter exercise to my son. So I bought the assembling type table made in China with just $125. Cheep!!

December 7, 2015August 4, 2019

Essay: Tweak Lean Six Sigma Framework

I wrote in the previous post that the Lean Six Sigma framework is like a Rock-Paper-Scissors because we need to select a right problem-solving framework in three types depending on the type of the problem. The three types of problem-solving frameworks are Lean, Six Sigma, and Design for Six Sigma (DFSS).

November 1, 2015July 21, 2019

Essay: Project Oriented

For company and people, the best approach for a big success is to accumulate many small successes. I concluded the same for a project after the successes of many Lean Six Sigma projects. A big project can be decomposed to many small projects. People can easily gain their experience and knowledge in Lean Six Sigma through the small projects, and accumulating the small successes becomes a big success of the company.

October 20, 2015June 22, 2019

Essay: Training for Green Belt Certification

I am going to teach Design for Six Sigma (DFSS) in the training for Green Belt certification in the next week. That will be two times of a week long of training. So I need to spend this week for the preparation of the training. I have to make it a success because I will spend totally three weeks in DFSS alone.

September 20, 2015June 16, 2019

Essay: Lean Bronze Certification

There are many different types of certification in U.S., and all of them could be very beneficial for improving skills and knowledge as well as promotion and job hunting. This time I tried the Lean Bronze Certification held by Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME), and fortunately I passed the exam.

September 16, 2015June 15, 2019

Essay: Where Innovation Come From

When I recommend Lean Six Sigma or Design for Six Sigma (DFSS) to an engineer, he or she just rejects it with many reasons or just ignore it and goes away in many cases. In such cases, the engineer may not know anything about Lean Six Sigma. It could be understandable because people tend to ignore or reject whatever they don’t know.

August 27, 2015May 22, 2019

Essay: Scientific Method

The scientific method is defined in Wikipedia like below:

The scientific method is an empirical method of acquiring knowledge that has characterized the development of science since at least the 17th century. It involves careful observation, applying rigorous skepticism about what is observed, given that cognitive assumptions can distort how one interprets the observation. It involves formulating hypotheses, via induction, based on such observations; experimental and measurement-based testing of deductions drawn from the hypotheses; and refinement (or elimination) of the hypotheses based on the experimental findings.

August 21, 2015May 17, 2019

Essay: Table Tablet at Restaurant

I wrote about a table tablet at a sushi restaurant in Japan in the last blog post. Then I noticed that the number of table tablets in restaurants are increasing in U.S. As a customer, it is very convenient because I can do everything at the table from ordering to checking without any service done by a waiter or a waitress. I on the other hand miss the conversation with them.

August 19, 2015May 15, 2019

Essay: Conveyor Sushi is Lean

A friend of mine took me a conveyor sushi restaurant in Yokohama, Japan. And I was so surprised by the new conveyor system in the restaurant because I had never seen such technology in my rural town where I live. Probably it was pretty common in Yokohama and to my friend. So he was surprised by me because I was so surprised by the sushi restaurant.