Featured content from Catalyst’s experienced team of Trainers and Consultants. Themes include Lean Six Sigma Training and Consulting, Continuous Improvement and Operational Excellence
Increasingly often these days we get greeted with the phrase “May you live in ‘interesting’ times”. Then we may pause a minute to think whether that was meant as a constructive positive wish – or whether there was something deeper meant by it. ‘Interesting’ sometimes seems more to mean ‘turbulent times’ rather than ‘fascinating’. Either…
Before hitting the road with Lean Six Sigma, it is necessary to start the engine. To do this, three vital components are required – a spark, fuel and air. The spark in an engine delivers electric current from an ignition system to the combustion chamber to ignite the compressed fuel and air. The power of the…
Article Acknowledgement: This article was published on the CQI website. It was adapted for CQI’s Knowledge Hub from Lean Six Sigma for Leaders, by Martin Brenig-Jones and Jo Dowdall, Wiley Publishing 2018. “If you can’t describe what you are doing as a process, you don’t know what you’re doing”. These words were spoken by the quality…
Last week I had the privilege of working with a fantastic new client organisation situated just around the corner from 221b Baker Street, the address of fictional detective Sherlock Holmes. Each time I walked past there were dozens of people gathered around the famous doorway taking pictures and queuing up for the Sherlock Holmes museum.…
Earlier this summer it was announced that sales of ice cream and frozen treats were up by over 100% on 2017’s figures. Boozy ice lollies were among the fastest growing product areas, with an increase in sales of 188% reported by Waitrose. Mmmm, G&T for me please! But while a proliferation of flavours and combinations…
This week the hashtag ‘GarethSouthgateWould’ has sent Twitter into overdrive and demonstrated the high esteem in which the England Football Manager is held. Some of the many brilliant tweets that have been shared: GarethSouthgateWould know the difference between Reply and Reply All GarethSouthgateWould fold the end of the Sellotape over when he’s finished using it,…
Are you Team Yanny or Team Laurel? If you don’t yet know, make your mind up here! This was the question that divided the nation last week when an audio clip hit the internet, featuring a single word being repeated. But what is that word? Whilst some people unmistakably hear the word “yanny”, others hear…
Are you coming to learn with us? Better make sure you get a good night’s sleep! According to neuroscientist Matthew Walker, sleeping is the best thing you can do before and after learning, in order to cement the memory and make learning stick. Sleeping before learning has the effect of clearing out the hippocampus…
Happy Easter everyone! Please egg-scuse the pun – but what a great opportunity to blog about Poka Yoke. Poka Yoke is a Japanese term for error proofing. This is key whether designing a new process or improving an existing one. Poka Yoke devices are often simple and inexpensive, sometimes we don’t even notice they are…
In his (awesome) book ‘Learning to See’, Mike Rother writes, “whenever there is a product for a customer, there is a value stream. The challenge lies in seeing it”. We couldn’t agree more, and are enthusiastic advocates of the Value Stream Mapping (VSM) approach. But maybe something in the language of it, or in the…
