According to Forrester principal analyst Mike Gualtieri, "Hadoop is not big data. It's a big-data technology. You can break down the siloes but Hadoop is also a framework for processing the data". So, proper handling of big data is very essential for any company. Hadoop can help in explaining corporate data by managing it across clusters of commodity hardware. Research shows that many of the big companies using Hadoop. To know more on the advantages of Hadoop, follow the article by Toby Wolpe, senior reporter at ZDNet in London:

http://www.zdnet.com/hadoops-rise-why-you-dont-need-petabytes-for-a-big-data-opening-7000028282/

How good is methodology when it comes to innovation? One key reason for going Agile is that it enables people to be creative and come up with ideas. With Agile, people are given freedom - but they need to understand what to do with it, as well as what they are expected to produce with it. There are certain challenges that makes Agile difficult to implement in the beginning but it will bring productivity in the long run. To know more about the challenges met, follow the article by Rebecca Leitch, writer in ESI International.

http://www.esi-intl.co.uk/blogs/pmoperspectives/index.php/2014/04/the-challenges-for-project-managers-to-overcome-when-going-agile/

Hospitals tend to be less hierarchical than manufacturing, requiring building consensus among stakeholders before taking action. In addition to cost cutting in healthcare, Lean initiatives improve patient safety and reimbursement rates and create new standards. Lean combined with Six Sigma, a process-improvement strategy, can help in reducing variability in business processes. An article by Susan D. Hall, experienced writer and editor in Dallas, talks about how Lean Six Sigma improves outcomes and saves costs by employing better care coordination and implementing a culture of efficiency, data-rich technology and real-time operation performance measurement.

To know more visit http://www.fiercehealthcare.com/story/lean-leadership-healthcare-what-does-it-take/2012-08-22

“Quality means doing it right when no one is looking.”
― Henry Ford
The quality of your product or service defines the success measure of your efforts. Now this leads to several questions like - What is ‘quality’? Why it is so important? To get answers to these questions we have to ask ourselves what is the level of standard we would like to achieve? ‘Quality’ is nothing but the final performance criteria which affects a company with respect to its customers, clients or consumers. For each product and service, requirements are specified which are known as ‘Quality Control’ parameters. The article deals with the details of different quality standards.

http://creative.sulekha.com/chapter-22-introduction-to-iso-six-sigma-tqm-lean-manufacturing-cmm-pcmm-cmmi-etc_273495_blog

 Total quality management (TQM) tools help organizations to identify, analyze and assess qualitative and quantitative data that is relevant to their business. Each of these tools can be examined and used to enhance the effectiveness, efficiency, standardization and overall quality of procedures, products or work environment, in accordance with ISO 9000 standards (SQ, 2004). Read more about the TQM tools from the following link:

http://totalqualitymanagement.weebly.com/tqm-tools.html

“Quality in a service or product is not what you put into it. It is what the client or customer gets out of it.” – Peter Drucker. Total quality management describes a management approach to long term success through customer satisfaction. The primary elements of TQM are: Customer focus, Total employee involvement, Process centered, Integrated system, Strategic and systematic approach, Continual improvement, Fact based decision making, Communications. To know more on this aspect, please go through the following link:

http://asq.org/learn-about-quality/total-quality-management/overview/overview.html

In words of Mahatma Gandhi:
“Satisfaction lies in the effort, not in the attainment, full effort is full victory”.

In sync with the above said words we find a case study which describes the efforts which were taken by a hospital to enhance its efficiency and productivity by using Lean & Six Sigma. Through this, management was able to reduce average door-to-physician time, outpatient length of stay and overall satisfaction level of their patients.
Please go through the link for more details: http://www.projmasters.com/project-management-consulting-services/project-management-case-studies/enhance-hospital-operation-using-lean-six-sigma/

What is Six Sigma? 'Sigma' is a statistical term for measuring how far a product differs from perfection. 'Six Sigma' means six standard deviations between mean and nearest specific limit. The main goal for applying Six Sigma is to reach as close to zero defect as possible. Six Sigma can be approached on three levels: Metrics, Methodology, Philosophy

Read more at http://www.surveymethods.com/glossary/article_six_sigma_seg_l.aspx

Taiwan is in a seismically active zone as it is situated on the earthquake prone Pacific ring of Fire. The cracks in the lightweight partition walls cause customer dissatisfaction as repairing cost is higher. To increase customer satisfaction, American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) is applying Six Sigma in construction technology. Application of C&A (Cause and Effect) and FMEA (Failure Modes and Effect Analysis) is being used to determine the reason of cracks. To know more on this please go through the following link.

http://ascelibrary.org/doi/abs/10.1061/(ASCE)ME.1943-5479.0000155

The 25-bed critical access Monadnock Community Hospital faced a huge deficit as a direct result of an unexpected ice-storm that hit the state of New Hampshire in December 2008, causing a two-week power outage. The hospital was in deep financial trouble.Fortunately for the hospital and the region, the hospital management had decided to look into various options to bail the hospital out of this crisis. The hospital's lab department had some success following a lean Six Sigma model, so the hospital authority pursued the strategy hospital-wide. Mr. Peter L. Gosline, president and CEO of Monadnock Community Hospital, had highlighted the success of the hospital's five-year "lean" journey during the American College of Healthcare Executive's 2014 Congress in Chicago, a model that he estimates has saved the organization $1 million a year!

To read more, visit the link address given below:

http://www.fiercehealthcare.com/story/how-lean-strategies-saved-nh-critical-access-hospital-financial-ruin/2014-04-07

Lean Six Sigma is a managerial concept combining Lean and Six Sigma that results in the elimination of eight kinds of wastes / muda (classified as Defects, Overproduction, Waiting, Non-Utilized Talent, Transportation, Inventory, Motion, Extra-Processing) and an improved capability of performance. The term Six Sigma is statistically based on the provision of goods and service at a rate of 3.4 defects per million opportunities (DPMO). A mnemonic for the wastes is "DOWNTIME”.

Over the years, this methodology has helped many firms to achieve process & output improvement. However, how about implementing lean six sigma concept to improve operating a city? That’s interesting! That was beyond our imagination. However, Tyler, a city located in Texas, United States, implemented Lean Six Sigma concepts to manage various projects and of course, with a saving of 5 Million US dollars, it can be said that the result was in its favour! Tyler Senior Public Relations Specialist Serena Butcher said the idea behind Lean Six Sigma is to identify waste and variation, so the city can save time and money and overall be more efficient. Mayor Barbara Bass also addressed attendees in a recent gathering to celebrate their success, saying, “In five short years, we’ve changed the culture of how we look at our jobs at city hall.”

To read more about how implementing Lean Six Sigma concepts actually worked for the City of Tyler, visit the following link address:

http://www.tylerpaper.com/TP-News+Local/197509/lean-six-sigma-city-of-tyler-celebrates-over-5-million-in-savings-with-program#.U0I6iqhgXgw

Different financial services suffer high operational risks when there is market failure and industry transformation. In order to reduce the cost of risk management operations, financial organizations are seeking new models and methodologies. FMEA (Failure Mode and Effect Analysis) and Control charts are two very powerful Six Sigma tools which not only help to identify and prioritize risks but also monitor the risks. To know how FMEA and Control charts help in risk management, please go through the following article written by Abhishek Soni, a certified Six Sigma Black Belt and Project Management Professional.

http://www.isixsigma.com/industries/financial-services/leverage-six-sigma-to-manage-operational-risk-in-financial-services/

Six Sigma is not just a toolbox. It is a way of thinking about business, about processes and about cause-and-effect relationships. To ensure success, the application of Six Sigma relies on traditional scientific methods to examine processes, remove undesirable causes and their effects. Six Sigma also seeks to innovate through the discovery of truth with refined, rational cognitive skills and the objective analysis of empirical data. It is a collection of tools. It is a methodology. It is a thought process that dissects the large picture into smaller parts and reassembles it into a more efficient configuration.

Many of the tools used for Six Sigma also proved useful in conjunction with TQM and other process improvement methodologies. While some of the tools are new to process improvement activities, it is important to note that Six Sigma also provides a new way to use existing tools. This leads to a debate about whether Six Sigma is something new or a new way to employ existing tools!

An article by Robert Tripp, Scot Shank and Mike Carnell, emphasizes on this debate and speaks about DMAIC phases of six sigma methodology. Visit the following link to access the article:

http://www.isixsigma.com/new-to-six-sigma/dmaic/six-sigma-toolbox/

Robust demand for continuous improvement talent remains concentrated on lean skill sets, but Six Sigma shows renewed strength in a new study. A survey conducted by the Avery Point Group on 7097 internet job postings revealed the changing demands landscape for lean and Six Sigma talent.

To read more, visit the following link:

http://www.industryweek.com/lean-six-sigma/demand-six-sigma-talent-staging-comeback

Inventory optimization (IO) solutions are meant to help managers match supply volume to customer demand over a large number of stock keeping units or SKUs. One significant drawback of single-echelon solution is that safety stock can only be managed at the individual facility level, which can result in excessive inventory if a company operates in multiple functions. Multi-echelon solutions allow safety stock to be managed and optimized over the entire network & are required for complex situations in which facilities are considered as parts of a network. With the time, business houses had realized the value of inventory optimization for improving gross margin. The potential benefits are substantial, albeit many managers had conveyed that cutting back too much on inventory can cause delays in order fulfilment and hence, there is a high chance of increased customer attrition. However, a recent survey revealed that best-in-class firms actually improve service levels and financial performance through their use of inventory optimization solutions. Hence, balancing inventory and service levels doesn’t have to be a win/lose exercise.

Author Al Bredenberg had given a detailed view on this aspect in his recent article. To read, visit the following link:

http://www.thomasnet.com/journals/techtrends/articles/inventory-optimization-helps-straddle-the-line-between-shortage-and-excess

As most manufacturing firms know, Lean Six Sigma is a proven way to improve operations. It works best when initiatives are aligned with the broader strategic goals of the company.  However, Six Sigma initiatives must be aligned directly to a company's business goals. Senior leaders face a lot of challenges as they try to connect day-to-day activities with strategy. Lean Six Sigma initiatives address these strategic gaps and issues, generating breakthrough performance. Leading companies, that have adopted the Six Sigma methodology, have seen major improvements in their processes. Initiatives are originally sought by adopting what we call a Focused Lean Six Sigma approach. This approach takes a different perspective to create long-lasting change.

For call centres too, to make your task easy, there are different performance management solutions that you can put to use to know various aspects – out of which you can make out areas of improvements. But for this, you have to know how to use your performance management solution. Read more at:  

http://www.callcentrehelper.com/trade-secrets-getting-the-best-from-your-performance-management-solution-60462.htm

GoSigmaWay Consulting Services [www.gosigmaway.com] offers various training programs on “Lean six sigma”, apart from their arsenal of cutting edge consultancy solutions to enable your organization achieve its performance goals.

When it comes to delivering software, today’s business climate has three prerequisites for success: speed, agility, and innovation. While multi-year, expensive and bloated software initiatives were once a reality for some companies, today’s expectations for new projects are measured in days, weeks, and months. Today, leaders understand that a faster, iterative approach can result in faster development that is also of a higher quality.

To read more, Visit:

http://venturebeat.com/2014/03/10/continuous-delivery/