Learn new skills... Develop your understanding...

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A. Minitab tips and tricks - Service Quality
Focusing on a Service Quality scenario this session will include navigation of the software and data tools such as importing data from Excel, Extract from Date/Time, value order and coding. Graphics functionality will include Time Series Plot, graph customisation, panelling, brushing, individual value plot and pie charts. Also included will be Attribute Agreement Analysis.

B. Spreadsheet modelling and simulation for  process and service improvement
This workshop aims to introduce attendees to Crystal Ball software for predictive management and will focus on the scenario of a loan application process.

This transactional process takes an average of 91 hours. Given a performance target of 96 hours of cycle time, the process would seem to be solid. However, the loan specialists have complained that quite often it can take over 130 hours and should be a project for process improvement.

Learn how to apply simulation to better understand what is driving the variation around this business process and quantify the process capacity and quality level.

Led by: Brian Cerkvenik, Oracle’s Crystal Ball

C. Lean, Six Sigma, DFSS – how to find the right approach and keep things simple!
The performance improvement world is awash with different approaches and strange terminology, but more often than not it’s the simple approaches and basic tools that provide the most value for money.  This will workshop will cover:

1. An overview of the common approaches (Lean, Six Sigma etc.)
2. The tools and techniques within each approach
3. Different structures for solving problems (DMAIC, DRIVE, PDCA etc.)
4. How to develop an approach and toolkit that is right for your organisation.
   

About the workshop leader:  Quentin Brook is the managing director of QSB Consulting, a leading provider of Lean and Six Sigma training and consultancy.  His consultancy experience covers a broad range of sectors and clients, including BT, Sony Ericsson, npower, RAC, Royal and SunAlliance, Cisco, IMS Health, Ikon Offices Solutions, Zurich Financial Services and Lex Vehicle Leasing.  Quentin is also the author of the best selling Six Sigma and Minitab pocket guide, with over 30,000 copies sold to date.

D. From Program to Scorecard driven improvement
Initiatives showing $75m of savings are getting canned in organizational reshuffles. Death comes to all 'initiatives'.  This workshop will help you change your 'initiative' into something that survives and thrives.

Improvement professionals may think in terms of cause-effect, but the trick is to educate line managers and business leaders to think the same way.  This workshop will concentrate on the techniques used by best practice companies to change the way their ‘management review cycle’ operates.  These companies are achieving:

1. Robust linkage between measurements, decisions to act, and the result of actions that’s clear to all employees.
2. Results of performance improvement that are ‘owned by’ and ‘sought after by’ line managers.
3. Performance improvement that’s embedded as ‘the way the company does business’.

About the Workshop Leader:  Paul Docherty is the CEO of i-nexus.   His understanding of the challenges of embedding Six Sigma and other performance improvement methodologies into the fabric of organisations comes from his experience coaching senior management teams in many Global 500 companies and from leading the deployment of Six Sigma at Marconi.   Paul co-founded i-nexus in 2001, and has spearheaded its rapid expansion into the preferred global deployment partner for Lean Six Sigma and Strategy Execution programs.

Please note, this double session will finish at 12pm.

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E. Minitab Tips and tricks - Manufacturing
Focusing on a Manufacturing scenario this will include navigation of the software and data tools such as importing data from Excel, Extract from Date/Time, calculator, assigning formulas, code and tally. Graphics functionality will include Time Series Plot, graph customisation, brushing, subset data, individual value plot, boxplot customising MTB, automatically updating graphs and graph layout.

F. Using simulation and optimisation to improve your DFSS projects
Models with Simulation and optimisation are highly effective ways to predict and improve business processes and products.

This workshop will focus on a Design for Six Sigma (DFSS) practice for product design where a manufacturer wants to design the product to meet specified targets and limits while maximising performance and minimising costs.

DFSS and other design improvement methodologies are intended to improve product quality at the start of product development. Learn how DFSS techniques can be used with Crystal Ball to simulate various design options for the product. You will see how simulation works with DFSS to:(1) reduce product development cycle costs, (2) improve product development cycle time, and (3) increase customer satisfaction while eliminating rework or scrap and reducing end-of-line testing.

Led by: Dave Hammal, Oracle’s Crystal Ball

G. How to choose and use the right graph for your data
Whilst most businesses have lots of data, the interpretation of that data into meaningful conclusions is where most organisations need to improve.  Graphs are a key tool in analysing business data and this workshop will:

1. Introduce you to a basic set of simple graphs for analysing data
2. Help you identify which one is most appropriate for your data
3. Provide you with a simple routemap for selecting the right graphs in the future
   

This workshop is for anyone involved with business improvement – you do not need to be Six Sigma trained or to bring any data/laptop with you.

About the workshop leader:  This workshop will be led by Quentin Brook, managing director of QSB Consulting.  See above for a more detailed biography.

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H. Minitab quality statistics - Manufacturing
Examples will cover Measurement System Analysis including Gage R&R, Gage Run Chart and Gage Accuracy. Also covered will be several different Control Charts including X-bar, R, S, I and MR plus Capability Analysis for both normal and non-normal data.

I. Design of experiments - Explaining the unexplainable randomness
Both DOE & Regression are methods for obtaining transfer functions. While these methods can produce models which are statistically significant, there is always variation in the output that can not be explained i.e. noise.

This workshop looks at various ways of accounting for noise in your models and how you can still optimise to produce the best and most robust solution regardless of the noise. Learn a more comprehensive way to quantify your variation, rather than the traditional way of simply looking at R-squared values.

Led by: Dave Hammal, Oracle’s Crystal Ball

J. Understanding process variation – what does it mean for process management
All processes vary – both in service and manufacturing environments.  Unfortunately, typical management systems don’t account for this variation very well, leading to poor decisions and wasted effort.  This workshop will utilise Dr. Deming’s famous Red-Bead experiment to demonstrate how an understanding of process variation is critical to successful process management, and will help you to:

1. Understand process variation
2. Recognise fundamental errors in managing variation
3. Develop an approach to monitoring and reducing process variation
   

About the workshop leader:  Alex Fenton is a senior consultant trainer with QSB Consulting and joined QSB in 2002 from NCR Corporation, where he was Director of Quality.  Alex combines a practical approach to Lean and Six Sigma with significant corporate experience to deliver insightful training and project support to QSB clients.

K. “Applying Lean Six Sigma principles to your Lean Six Sigma programme”
If you were to do a Lean Six Sigma project on your deployment, what would be the outcome?

Recent research shows that Belts spend a minimum of 10-20% of their time on non-value-adding activities, such as weekly reporting, generating gate review presentations and action follow ups.  As a result, the average company’s LSS program loses the equivalent of 2 to 3 people to these non-value-adding activities in every wave of Belts deployed. 

It doesn’t have to be that way!  Best practice companies are combining standard cause-effect tools with infrastructure technology to eliminate wasted activity in their LSS programmes.

Drawing on examples from over 100 European companies, this seminar will show how the average company can cut out up to 66% of their non-value-added time by the application of simple and proven techniques.

About the Workshop Leader: Dave Jones is a certified Master Black Belt who has trained and coached performance improvement teams throughout Europe, America and Asia.  In addition to working with i-nexus, he has worked for many of the leading consultancies (George Group, Rath & Strong etc.), and been a senior figure in successful corporate-wide deployments throughout the world.

Please note, this double session will finish at 15:45.

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L. Minitab Design of Experiments
Learn how to create, analyse and determine the optimal setting for a Factorial Design. This will include using Minitab tools to create the design and analyse including reducing the model using Minitab tools to determine which terms are statistically significant. Then use residual plot to check the model for suitability followed by using the response Optimiser and contour plots.

M. Crystal Ball Clinic - Open Hour for Tips, Tricks and Tutorials
A one-hour open workshop where you can:

• Ask questions
• See demos
• Learn techniques
• Get advice

N. How to map your Management Framework and KPI trees
A Management Framework refers to the infrastructure of meetings, reports and KPIs that are used to manage and control a business process.  During this workshop, you will:

1. Learn about how to map a management framework
2. Practice mapping the management framework of your own business process
3. Assess the effectiveness of our management framework against key criteria
4. Consider what constitutes a balanced and effective management framework.
   

About the workshop leader:  Dean Arnold is a senior consultant trainer with QSB Consulting, and joined in 2006 from Fircroft Consulting where he was a Director. Dean has significant continuous improvement experience within a broad range of technical and services sectors, and is a specialist in the Lean tools and techniques