Jay Arthur

In the late 1800s, Vilfredo Pareto observed that 20% of Italians held 80% of the wealth. 

Explaining control charts is difficult due to the unappealing terminology in quality management. Terms like “control charts” and “Statistical Process Control” can deter understanding. Alternative names like “process behavior charts” haven't improved appeal either. Given the popularity of user-friendly tracking on smart devices, there’s a need to rebrand these tools to make them more accessible and engaging.

Over the last 20 years at conferences, I've noticed many improvement posters rely on line and bar charts, which aren't always effective. While some use control charts and histograms, they often miss illustrating the "before and after" of improvements. It's crucial to better showcase these changes with appropriate chart types.

FMEA is a crucial tool for anticipating and preventing failures in products and processes, enhancing quality and reliability across industries. Discover how this method can safeguard operations and drive success.

The hype around "big data" has mainly aimed at niche market sales without delivering expected benefits. Similarly, the business world's obsession with Lean Six Sigma has shown minimal returns on investment. In contrast, over the last 25 years, I've leveraged small Excel files to significantly cut costs and increase profits, often by millions of dollars, through a reliable sequence I discovered.

Why the demand for short production runs? Your customer’s application of Lean principles causes them to request smaller batch sizes which results in the need for shorter production runs and short run SPC.

There are many root causes of defects, mistakes, errors, and variation. One sometimes overlooked is measurement.

The obvious reasons for automating quality in manufacturing are to reduce scrap, rework, overtime and costs while simultaneously increasing productivity and customer satisfaction. The non-obvious reasons include employee satisfaction, customer referrals and market growth. Automation also give managers and line workers insights into ongoing production. 

When I first got involved with quality, I learned about the “five M’s” that constituted most root causes: man, machine, materials, methods, and measurement. In manufacturing you know that measurement gages and how they are used can be a key cause of variation.