There is a set of tools that we can use to improve the results of each of the phases that continuous improvement projects must go through (8D, PDCA, DMAIC, Double diamond, etc.). These methods use ...divergent techniques, which help generate multiple alternatives, and convergent techniques that help analyze and filter the generated options. However, the tools used in all those frameworks are often very similar. Our goal, in this research, is to develop a comprehensive model that allows it to be used both for problem-solving and for taking advantage of opportunities. This protocol defines the main terms related to our research, makes a framework proposal, proposes a rubric that identifies observable milestones at each stage of the model and proposes the action plan to validate this rubric and the model in a given context. The action plan will be implemented in a future research.
BackgroundThis paper presents the findings of a 13-month lean implementation in National Health Service (NHS) primary care health visiting services from May 2008 to June 2009.MethodLean was chosen ...for this study because of its reported success in other healthcare organisations. Value-stream mapping was utilised to map out essential tasks for the participating health visiting service. Stakeholder mapping was conducted to determine the links between all relevant stakeholders. Waste processes were then identified through discussions with these stakeholders, and a redesigned future state process map was produced. Quantitative data were provided through a 10-day time-and-motion study of a selected number of staff within the service. This was analysed to provide an indication of waste activity that could be removed from the system following planned improvements.ResultsThe value-stream map demonstrated that there were 67 processes in the original health visiting service studied. Analysis revealed that 65% of these processes were waste and could be removed in the redesigned process map. The baseline time-and-motion data demonstrate that clinical staff performed on average 15% waste activities, and the administrative support staff performed 46% waste activities.ConclusionOpportunities for significant waste reduction have been identified during the study using the lean tools of value-stream mapping and a time-and-motion study. These opportunities include simplification of standard tasks, reduction in paperwork and standardisation of processes. Successful implementation of these improvements will free up resources within the organisation which can be redirected towards providing better direct care to patients.
BIT design improvement is possible by using the proposed method. This method uses a Markov's Three State Model to identify the intermittent faults. This method sets double threshold values for ...intermittent faults, thus providing a technique to categorize them independently so as to allow for further design analysis and risk mitigation. This technique could be of pragmatic value during BIT design development. In future, we hope to collect, DVT based, HALT sample data to generate an accurate picture of the parameter variance due to environmental extremes and margin erosion or over time. Optimizing BIT parameter variance during the BIT design phase provides an opportunity to eliminate intermittent faults. HALT augmented BIT characterization will open a path forward for identification and mitigation of intermittent faults.
Emergency departments are the first line in hospitals to face emergency patients. As a major function of emergency medicine, when a patient comes to the emergency department, the emergency medical ...personnel will first perform a triage procedure and then transfer the patient to associated departments for treatment. Due to the utilization pattern of the Taiwanese people in medicine, the emergency departments in most major hospitals are always overcrowded. The arrangement of manpower or the distribution of resources to handle patients’ demands can affect disease outcomes and quality of medical treatment. Therefore, the prediction of demands of physician manpower certainly will affect the quality and cost in medical treatment, and has significant impact on patients’ life and satisfaction.
This study used data mining, classification and a decision tree to analyze the prediction model of patients’ demand in the Emergency department from real treatment situations. The result was the accuracy of shift anticipation improved from 22% to 50%. This study also used anticipant performance evaluation matrix integrated with loss function to evaluate the performance between the anticipation of demand established by mining and the original arrangement. It helped to save the cost of the medical personnel by 37%. In the end it combined the DMAIC action procedure from 6-Sigma and developed an anticipation model that can be suitable in different departments to dispatch medical personnel. It provided a reference of the decision maker of the hospital.
The service industry plays an essential role in economic globalization and a determining factor in strengthening industry’s competitiveness. Targeting fitness industry, this study intends to explore ...ways to minimize customer complaints, understand customer expectation, and enhance service quality by applying the five steps of 6-Sigma: (1) Definition; (2) Measurement; (3) Analysis; (4) Improvement; and (5) Control, to effectively solve the root causes of customer complaints, raise customer satisfaction and minimize possible future complaints.
Existing research works on process quality improvement focus largely on the linkages between quality improvement cost and production economics such as set-up cost and defect rate reduction. This ...paper deals with the optimal design problem for process improvement by balancing the sunk investment cost and revenue increments due to the process improvement. We develop an optimal model based on Taguchi cost functions. The model is validated through a real case study in automotive industry where the 6-sigma DMAIC methodology has been applied. According to this research, the management can adjust the investment on prevention and appraisal costs on quality improvement that enhances process capability, reduces product defect rate and, as a result, generates remarkable financial return.
At present time the ISP (Internet Service Provider) already make a great impact to the human life as well as the economic society, everything has a close relation with the internet service and due to ...the fast development of information technology further lower the cost of ISP and improved the service speed as well as its quality. All of this make the customer layer of ISP more popular than before and thus bring up the fierce competition in this industry. Due to the entry barrier of high investment and high technology of ISP industry it has become as a monopoly market and the monopoly market is very respect the competition and cooperation relationship with competitors. Besides, most of the relevant literature in the past is focus on the measurement and analysis of customer to the self-company and few of them mention how to include the satisfaction of competitor’s customer into measurement and analysis. As golden strategy stated in the Sun-Tze Strategic: “Know yourself and know your competitor well, winning every war.” we must consider the strength, weakness, opportunity and threat on customer satisfaction of your company and competitors. Base on the above motivation, this article will apply the DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, Control) methodology of 6-Sigma, focus on the viewpoint of customer satisfaction of ISP industry. At first we utilize the 5 equal scale measurement define the network quality item of ISP, which provided by the self-company and competitors. And measuring the degree of “satisfaction” and “importance” of these quality items, then use the performance evaluation matrix and strength and weakness matrix to analyze the Strength, Weakness, Opportunity and Threat of self and competitors, focus on the quality items that fall out of the 2 sigma and use the strength–weakness strategic chart to establish the improvement strategy. And at last, utilize the strength–weakness matrix chart as the control tool to verify and sustain the effectiveness of the improved performance. The complete and easy measurement improvement model provided in this article can be used by the enterprise to effectively and quickly evaluating and analyzing the service quality of self and competitors. And under the reasonable cost condition with considering the competing opportunity and threat of market to effectively improving the customer service quality and promoting the overall customer satisfaction and create powerful high value-added quality competition strength.
In this paper, we develop a quality improvement model based on the structure of classical economic production quantity (EPQ) model. The asymmetrical truncated loss function is used to evaluate the ...cost of poor quality in a production system. A practical quality improvement case which follows the 6-sigma DMAIC method in a car seat assembly line is discussed to verify the proposed model. Our model provides a fundamental structure for studying the cost of quality improvement in a production system. Based on this model, the management can evaluate the affect of quality investment to generate significant financial return in their production line.
At present, there are a lot of manufacturing industries in Taiwan have outside moved to those countries with cheaper cost of labor. Therefore, the focus of manufacturing industry is transferred to ...service sector gradually. For the tourism industry has grown very fast and its productivity has been so high among service sector that being the 'high added value industry without chimney' which can consider economy and environment at present. Because the tourism industry is classified to service sector with such features as invisible, can not be stored and service quality determined during trading process (i.e. production and consumption are inalienable), it is necessary to measure service quality. In the past, relevant papers mostly measured and analyzed cognitive satisfaction after consuming for the customer. However, the satisfaction of service quality should be set up the gap between expectation degree before consuming and cognition degree after consuming. Therefore, this paper would consider expectation degree before consuming and cognition degree after consuming by the methodology applying 6-Sigma with DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control) and performance evaluation matrix to construct the index for whole satisfaction with tourism industry and then integrate with the importance of each service quality in order to develop the control chart for whole satisfaction. For the items of service quality outside 2-Sigma, we would construct the strategy to improve by cause and effect diagram. Finally, we would make questionnaire investigation and construct the control chart for whole satisfaction once again in order to confirm the performance for improvement as well as keep the improving performance. Through the analysis and measurement model proposed by this paper, the services can make integrated measurement and analysis for importance of service quality, expectation degree before consuming and cognition degree after consuming in order to find out key unusual quality needed to improve and control while improve the whole satisfaction fast and effectively.
In respect with the growing fast development of Internet the Internet Game has become the most growing industry at present time. In one year, there are less one million units PC computer sold in ...Taiwan area but there are over one million people bought "Paradise" game card. The CPU giant - Intel takes 20 years to achieve the gross margin of 50% but a Korean online game company NC soft takes only 2 years to achieve the gross margin of 60%. Although in 2001 the economic growth rate of Taiwan is down to 1%-2% but the growth rate of 2001 of on-line game company, Orange, is up to 116%. In seeing the success of NC soft and Game Orange, Owing to the success of NC soft and Game Orange's "Paradise" game, it brings the Internet game industry to a prosperous and competitive status, therefore if a business company wants to grasp the growth turning point in this industry she must build up her capability to develop an excellent Internet game product, but to develop an excellent Internet game it needs to proceed the measurement and analysis on the customer satisfaction for the quality of game's scenario and content's vision and sound of game. Base on the foregoing motives we apply the DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, Control) methodology of 6-Sigma, and focus on the customer satisfaction of content's sound effect and visual effect for specific company's Internet game proceed the define, measure, analyze, improve and control. At first, we define the related performance index and the questionnaire items for the related sound and vision effect characteristics and applying the 5 equal scale of Richet to proceed the questionnaire measurement, and then we analyzed the data collected from the questionnaires retrieved. At the beginning, we develop the significance of importance of customer motive and satisfaction level on sound and image effect by the quality function deployment and use them to calculate the importance index of every sound and image quality characteristics, and then build up the quality matrix by using the index value of importance and satisfaction. At final, use the difference of the importance value minus the satisfaction value as the overall satisfaction index to build up the quality performance control chart. In the respect of improvement, at first we focus on the abnormal sound and image quality characteristics that located outside the control chart, deploy them by the cause-effect diagram to find out the key corrective actions for improvement; at final, on the respect of control, we re-do the questionnaire survey and applying the method mentioned above for building up the quality performance control chart to verify the effectiveness of action execution.
By using the easy and comprehensive evaluation and improvement model provided by the article, the industry business can quickly and effectively evaluate and analyze the bad and good quality of the sound and image of their Internet game, and under the reasonable condition to effectively improve the quality of sound and image to promote the overall customer satisfaction and by providing them for industry's reference to increase the value added and quality competition of new product.
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