Davis Balestracci
In my last column, I showed how hidden special causes can sometimes create the appearance of common cause, but the purpose of common-cause strategies is to deal with this and smoke them out. When...
Davis Balestracci
I was teaching a class and asked participants to create a control chart of an indicator that was important to them. A lab supervisor presented me with a chart on the number of procedures her...
Davis Balestracci
Author's note: To my non-U.S. readers, I apologize for using the sport of baseball to make my points today—and during the World Cup, no less! It’s a perfect context, however, and I hope you will be...
Davis Balestracci
Do you still insist on asking, “Which chart do I use for which situation?”
I’ve seen many flowcharts in books to help you answer this question. They’re all some variation of this:
I find them far...
Davis Balestracci
My recent columns have emphasized the need for critical thinking to understand the process that produces any data. By just plotting data in their naturally occurring time order, many important...
Davis Balestracci
In my last column, I considered two of the most common questions faced by a statistical educator and the deeper questions that need to be addressed. I encouraged people to consider their everyday...
Davis Balestracci
In my column, “The Universal Process Flowchart × Four,” I challenged you to look at the everyday use of data as a huge source of hidden waste. I suggested looking at a sample of any routine meeting...
Davis Balestracci
Critical thinking does not necessarily result from using a practitioner’s toolbox framed within a formal improvement structure such as Six Sigma, lean, lean Six Sigma, or the Toyota Production...
Davis Balestracci
To summarize my last three articles, most improvement approaches come out of the same theory and are based on the assumption that everything is a process.
The universal process flowchart in Figure...
Davis Balestracci
This is the last in my series making the case that the various improvement approaches are all pretty much the same.
There are seven sources of problems with a process. The first three help frame...
