Draft Online Process Improvement Guide - Comments wanted

[Brian Hunt]

I've want to set up a self help introduction to process improvement to support some business improvement work I'm doing - I've set up an online guide here and would appreciate comments and suggestions on how to improve it.

I've tried to keep it reasonably simple and quick to use and understand - the intended audience is a small manufacturing company.

Brian

[Claes Gefvenberg]

Originally Posted by Brian Hunt

...and would appreciate comments and suggestions on how to improve it.

I've had a quick look and think it looks just fine. Clear and to the point. Good job, and thank's for sharing it.

I did find a typo in the decision grid: You have high benefit and easy in two frames...Apart from that: fine, but I suggest a trial run with some guinea pigs from outside the Q geek community.

Added later: I have some more solutions for the Out of the box thinking example at http://www.sanguma.com/html/creativity.htm. See the thread: Another puzzle... Analternative way of doing it with one line is described there, and there is also at least one way to do it with three lines.

/Claes

[Brian Hunt]

Claes thanks for your comment and for finding the typo - now corrected.

I'm impressed with the six dots solutions - some heavyweight brains in this forum!

Brian

[peterd]

Brian,

Just had a quick look and very good for an introduction for people. Especially like the one page ISO9001 summary

Peter

[mitsu11]

I love what you have done with this web site, particularly the charts and graphs that break up the text! Great design. The text itself is very helpful and descriptive of the many alternatives for continual improvement.

I do have one suggestion, though. I would try to break up this information a bit more. It is good to have the bookmarks to jump around on the page, but the sheer volume of information on that page will be overwelming to a small company, I think. A better alternative might be to dedicate one HTML page to each technique, and then on the first "home" page, give your introduction/explanation, and then offer the technique title (hyperlinked to the technique's new page) with a short (few sentence) description of the technique.

[Brian Hunt]

Originally Posted by mitsu11

. I would try to break up this information a bit more. It is good to have the bookmarks to jump around on the page, but the sheer volume of information on that page will be overwelming to a small company, I think. .

Thanks for the comments mitsu - I agree with your comments on breaking it up and will do that when I update it - I've remembered a number of other things I want to add. It started as a small page but just grew and grew!

Brian

[Wes Bucey]

I was very impressed with the scope of your project. I was wowed by the ISO graphic (your own idea? - if so, offer to license it to ISO in Switzerland for a healthy fee )

Perhaps you ought to consider entering the entire project in the June contest.

Originally Posted by Brian Hunt

Thanks for the comments mitsu - I agree with your comments on breaking it up and will do that when I update it - I've remembered a number of other things I want to add. It started as a small page but just grew and grew!

Brian

There are ways to display the material so it automatically sizes with the browser window - that way viewers aren't required to maintain full screen to see it without scrolling from left to right.

If you are unsure of how to do this - just ask - there are lots of pros who visit here who can steer you on the right path.

[Steve Prevette]

Originally Posted by Brian Hunt

I've want to set up a self help introduction to process improvement to support some business improvement work I'm doing - I've set up an online guide here and would appreciate comments and suggestions on how to improve it.

I've tried to keep it reasonably simple and quick to use and understand - the intended audience is a small manufacturing company.

Brian

There is a technical issue with the Bell curve discussion. The basis for control charting is not the Bell curve. 99.7% of the data are not between the control limits. Dr. Shewhart developed control charting to be distribution-free. He tested the three standard deviation limits on several non-normal distributions and it worked fine. Dr. Wheeler has also done studies on non-normal distributions.

The "correct" (at least according to Dr. Shewhart) interpretation for the basis of control charting is the Tchebychev inequality. This inequality states that no more than 1/n^2 of the data will be outside of n standard deviations of the average. That means that there is at worst 11% of the data outside of three standard deviations, not 0.3%. The Camp-Meidel extension for continuous distributions that also have only one peak drops that number to 5%. Dr. Wheeler's work gives the number for most distributions seen in the "real world" at 2 to 3%.

The reason I think this is important is that a lot of managers look at the 99.7% and say "that's too far out", bring those control limits inwards, make me more likely to detect a trend. In reality, all that will do is increase the false alarms.

Good document overall.