

Lean Six Sigma Bursts
Brion Hurley
Brion Hurley from Business Performance Improvement shares his takes and thoughts on a variety of topics related to process improvement (specifically Lean and Six Sigma methods), Bursts are rapid improvement activities, so this sounded like a good word to use for these short audio clips. We'll try to keep them under 10 minutes each. Have a question? Use the Spotify app to leave us a voice message, and we might pick your question for our next episode!
Episodes
Mentioned books

Oct 23, 2024 • 12min
E112: Lean Six Sigma for Good
In the last 2 episodes, I shared best practices in process improvement with students in the Florida Atlantic University (FAU) Executive MBA Program in Boca Raton, Florida.
At the end of my talk, I discussed how Lean and Six Sigma can be used to improve society and the environment, which I call Lean Six Sigma for Good. I share some examples and discuss my own experiences, hand out copies of Volume 1 and 2 of the book series, and encourage the students to help me connect with some local nonprofits.
Additional Links
Full presentation with slides (YouTube)
Lean Six Sigma for Good book series
Florida Atlantic University Executive MBA Program
If you're interested in taking a Lean, Green Belt or Black Belt course, consider these self-paced affordable courses from OpEx Training: https://www.leansixsigmadefinition.com/shop/
Need help in your organization, or want to discuss your current work situation? Let's talk! Schedule a free support call
Podcast Sponsor: Creative Safety Supply is a great resource for free guides, infographics, and continuous improvement tools. I recommend starting with their 5S guide. It includes breakdowns of the five pillars, ways to begin implementing 5S, and even organization tips and color charts. From red tags to floor marking; it’s all there. Download it for free at creativesafetysupply.com/5S
BIZ-PI.com
LeanSixSigmaDefinition.com
Have a question? Submit a voice message at Podcasters.Spotify.com

Oct 14, 2024 • 10min
E111: Lean Six Sigma Best Practices - Part 2
Discover the power of daily huddles for fast problem-solving and performance reviews. Learn how to prioritize improvements using Pareto charts, addressing the biggest issues first. Explore how Toyota fosters a culture of problem detection and coaching rather than merely copying solutions. Brion emphasizes the importance of statistical thinking to differentiate between consistent process issues and random variations. Finally, find out how to protect time for kaizen and risk prevention to create a proactive improvement culture.

Oct 9, 2024 • 8min
E110: Lean Six Sigma Best Practices - Part 1
This is a list of best practices in process improvement I shared with students in the Florida Atlantic University (FAU) Executive MBA Program in Boca Raton, Florida last month. I compiled my top recommendations that they could take back to their company.
Focused on building problem solving and
waste identification skill set of lowest-level employee
Psychological safety to discuss and solve problems
Management horizontally across value
stream
Making decisions that are best for the system, not individual departments (vertical)
Aligned and balanced metrics (two-way
communication or “catchball”)
Not just lagging financial metrics
Additional Links
Full presentation with slides (YouTube)
Lean Six Sigma for Good book series
Florida Atlantic University Executive MBA Program
If you're interested in taking a Lean, Green Belt or Black Belt course, consider these self-paced affordable courses from OpEx Training: https://www.leansixsigmadefinition.com/shop/
Need help in your organization, or want to discuss your current work situation? Let's talk! Schedule a free support call
Podcast Sponsor: Creative Safety Supply is a great resource for free guides, infographics, and continuous improvement tools. I recommend starting with their 5S guide. It includes breakdowns of the five pillars, ways to begin implementing 5S, and even organization tips and color charts. From red tags to floor marking; it’s all there. Download it for free at creativesafetysupply.com/5S
BIZ-PI.com
LeanSixSigmaDefinition.com
Have a question? Submit a voice message at Podcasters.Spotify.com

Sep 8, 2024 • 15min
E109: The Lean Journey at Rockwell Collins with Clay Jones - Part 6
This is the final part of the 2006 speech given by Rockwell Collins CEO, Clay Jones. I worked at Rockwell Collins from 1999-2017, and was heavily involved in the Lean Electronics program.
In this clip, he answers audience questions:
1) How to immerse Lean into the culture?
2) How is he going after employee healthcare costs? (asked by George Koenigsaecker)
3) What are the biggest barriers he is concerned about?
In his answers, he mentions the importance of coaching and mentoring, but also discusses the classroom and virtual training courses, knowledge management and the Communities of Practice program.
He also shares some of the work that Rockwell Collins has done to drive Lean into healthcare (including a grant program I worked on).
Finally, he stressed the importance of not being complacent, always looking for waste and reducing cost of nonconformance, and the strive for continuous improvement. I also share my thoughts on what happened to the Lean program when Kelly Ortberg (now the Boeing CEO and President) took over for Clay in 2013.
You can watch the entire video at http://techtv.mit.edu/videos/16101-leading-rockwell-collins-lean-transformation
Additional Links
Clay Jones Wikipedia page
Kelly Ortberg Wikipedia page
George Koenigsaecker
If you're interested in taking a Lean, Green Belt or Black Belt course, consider these self-paced affordable courses from OpEx Training: https://www.leansixsigmadefinition.com/shop/
Need help in your organization, or want to discuss your current work situation? Let's talk! Schedule a free support call
Podcast Sponsor: Creative Safety Supply is a great resource for free guides, infographics, and continuous improvement tools. I recommend starting with their 5S guide. It includes breakdowns of the five pillars, ways to begin implementing 5S, and even organization tips and color charts. From red tags to floor marking; it’s all there. Download it for free at creativesafetysupply.com/5S
BIZ-PI.com
LeanSixSigmaDefinition.com
Have a question? Submit a voice message at Podcasters.Spotify.com

Sep 5, 2024 • 12min
E108: The Lean Journey at Rockwell Collins with Clay Jones - Part 5
This is part 5 of the 2006 speech given by Rockwell Collins CEO, Clay Jones. I worked at Rockwell Collins from 1999-2017, and was heavily involved in the Lean Electronics program.
In this clip, you'll hear him discuss the 5 lessons learned from the first 8 years of the Lean journey at Rockwell Collins (1998 to 2006).
Senior Leadership alignment
Managing change and resistance
Course correction when needed
Implement Value Stream Mapping first
Ask for help
"If leadership isn't driving your Lean transformation, don't even start. It's like teaching a pig to talk. You're wasting your time, and you're annoying the pig" - Clay Jones
He shares some impressive results that were partly due to Lean implementation. Stock price increase of 260%, return on investment capital from 21% to 38%, sales almost doubled from $1.8B to $3.5B, net income over 80%, both business units over 18% operating margin, along with the traditional improvements to on-time delivery, customer acceptance (quality) and sales per employee.
You can watch the entire video at http://techtv.mit.edu/videos/16101-leading-rockwell-collins-lean-transformation
If you're interested in taking a Lean, Green Belt or Black Belt course, consider these self-paced affordable courses from OpEx Training: https://www.leansixsigmadefinition.com/shop/
Need help in your organization, or want to discuss your current work situation? Let's talk! Schedule a free support call
Podcast Sponsor: Creative Safety Supply is a great resource for free guides, infographics, and continuous improvement tools. I recommend starting with their 5S guide. It includes breakdowns of the five pillars, ways to begin implementing 5S, and even organization tips and color charts. From red tags to floor marking; it’s all there. Download it for free at creativesafetysupply.com/5S
BIZ-PI.com
LeanSixSigmaDefinition.com
Have a question? Submit a voice message at Podcasters.Spotify.com

6 snips
Sep 2, 2024 • 18min
E107: The Lean Journey at Rockwell Collins with Clay Jones - Part 4
This is part 4 of the 2006 speech given by Rockwell Collins CEO, Clay Jones. I worked at Rockwell Collins from 1999-2017, and was heavily involved in the Lean Electronics program.
In this clip, you'll hear him discuss how they expanded on the Core Process Optimization efforts to move to Lifecycle Value Stream Management. This allowed them to address the wastes in the handoffs between major processes. The VSM roles required them to change their roles, metrics, behaviors and cost allocations.
"Lean is a journey, not a destination" - Clay Jones
He also shares how they expanded Lean into innovation and creative processes like Engineering, Design and Development and Research. This broke the stereotype that Lean was only for manufacturing. The standardization of these major processes helped bring some consistency and efficiency to how a product was proposed, funded, managed, designed, transitioned and supported.
He also reiterated the importance of knowledge management in capture information and disseminating it across the organizations and value streams.
You can watch the entire video at http://techtv.mit.edu/videos/16101-leading-rockwell-collins-lean-transformation
If you're interested in taking a Lean, Green Belt or Black Belt course, consider these self-paced affordable courses from OpEx Training: https://www.leansixsigmadefinition.com/shop/
Need help in your organization, or want to discuss your current work situation? Let's talk! Schedule a free support call
Podcast Sponsor: Creative Safety Supply is a great resource for free guides, infographics, and continuous improvement tools. I recommend starting with their 5S guide. It includes breakdowns of the five pillars, ways to begin implementing 5S, and even organization tips and color charts. From red tags to floor marking; it’s all there. Download it for free at creativesafetysupply.com/5S
BIZ-PI.com
LeanSixSigmaDefinition.com
Have a question? Submit a voice message at Podcasters.Spotify.com

7 snips
Jun 29, 2024 • 12min
E106: The Lean Journey at Rockwell Collins with Clay Jones - Part 3
This is part 3 of the 2006 speech given by Rockwell Collins CEO, Clay Jones. I worked at Rockwell Collins from 1999-2017, and was heavily involved in the Lean Electronics program.
In this clip, you'll hear him discuss why they brought in some external consultants like John Shook and Denny Mead to try and figure out why all the improvements were not showing an impact on the bottom-line results or other key metrics. The RC Scorecard was developed to give a balanced view across the company, and it included a critical metric, called Cost of Nonconformance (CONC), which I was heavily involved with. He also discusses how leadership needed to become more engaged in value stream mapping to help drive the right improvements in the right areas by following the new "Lean Roadmap."
You can watch the entire video at http://techtv.mit.edu/videos/16101-leading-rockwell-collins-lean-transformation
If you're interested in taking a Lean, Green Belt or Black Belt course, consider these self-paced affordable courses from OpEx Training: https://www.leansixsigmadefinition.com/shop/
Need help in your organization, or want to discuss your current work situation? Let's talk! Schedule a free support call
Podcast Sponsor: Creative Safety Supply is a great resource for free guides, infographics, and continuous improvement tools. I recommend starting with their 5S guide. It includes breakdowns of the five pillars, ways to begin implementing 5S, and even organization tips and color charts. From red tags to floor marking; it’s all there. Download it for free at creativesafetysupply.com/5S
BIZ-PI.com
LeanSixSigmaDefinition.com
Have a question? Submit a voice message at Podcasters.Spotify.com

Jun 24, 2024 • 12min
E105: The Lean Journey at Rockwell Collins with Clay Jones - Part 2
This is part 2 of the 2006 speech given by Rockwell Collins CEO, Clay Jones. I worked at Rockwell Collins from 1999-2017, and was heavily involved in the Lean Electronics program.
In this clip, you'll hear him discuss how they created and rolled out Lean Electronics program across both manufacturing and the office, and selected Decorah (Iowa) as the pilot site. In the first few years (1998-2000), they achieved lots of successes (conducting over 600 kaizen events a year with reductions of 20-40%), but something was missing.
Enterprise Value Stream Mapping was added through an initiative called Core Process Optimization (CPO) to look at major pieces of the customer journey, from Sales and Marketing, Design and Development, Build (Manufacturing) and Sales and Support.
You can watch the entire video at http://techtv.mit.edu/videos/16101-leading-rockwell-collins-lean-transformation
If you're interested in taking a Lean, Green Belt or Black Belt course, consider these self-paced affordable courses from OpEx Training: https://www.leansixsigmadefinition.com/shop/
Need help in your organization, or want to discuss your current work situation? Let's talk! Schedule a free support call
Podcast Sponsor: Creative Safety Supply is a great resource for free guides, infographics, and continuous improvement tools. I recommend starting with their 5S guide. It includes breakdowns of the five pillars, ways to begin implementing 5S, and even organization tips and color charts. From red tags to floor marking; it’s all there. Download it for free at creativesafetysupply.com/5S
BIZ-PI.com
LeanSixSigmaDefinition.com
Have a question? Submit a voice message at Podcasters.Spotify.com

May 18, 2024 • 9min
E104: The Lean Journey at Rockwell Collins with Clay Jones - Part 1
For the next few podcasts, I'll be sharing clips from a 2006 speech given by Rockwell Collins CEO, Clay Jones. I worked at Rockwell Collins from 1999-2017, and was heavily involved in the Lean Electronics program. I credit Clay and the "Lean Electronics" program for giving me the skills and experience to make this my passion, allowing me to eventually open up my consulting business, BPI.
In this video, you'll hear him discuss how he first learned about Lean from Boeing, and what the customers were telling him about their products and services and what needed to improve.
You can watch the entire video at http://techtv.mit.edu/videos/16101-leading-rockwell-collins-lean-transformation
If you're interested in taking a Lean, Green Belt or Black Belt course, consider these self-paced affordable courses from OpEx Training: https://www.leansixsigmadefinition.com/shop/
Need help in your organization, or want to discuss your current work situation? Let's talk! Schedule a free support call
Podcast Sponsor: Creative Safety Supply is a great resource for free guides, infographics, and continuous improvement tools. I recommend starting with their 5S guide. It includes breakdowns of the five pillars, ways to begin implementing 5S, and even organization tips and color charts. From red tags to floor marking; it’s all there. Download it for free at creativesafetysupply.com/5S
BIZ-PI.com
LeanSixSigmaDefinition.com
Have a question? Submit a voice message at Podcasters.Spotify.com

May 5, 2024 • 7min
E103: How to gather data before starting an improvement project
In a recent class I taught, we were discussing the Project Charter, which asks you to fill in the baseline data for the metric you're trying to improve.
I explain how you need to be persistent to find data, and not to start a project if you don't have any data, especially for a training class, or for your first project.
I also answer a student question about how many samples you need for the baseline. You can also listen to a previous podcast (episode #25) about why we need 30 data points: https://spotifyanchor-web.app.link/e/VAoKfXBelJb
If you're interested in taking a Lean, Green Belt or Black Belt course, consider these self-paced affordable courses from OpEx Training: https://www.leansixsigmadefinition.com/shop/
Need help in your organization, or want to discuss your current work situation? Let's talk! Schedule a free support call
Podcast Sponsor: Creative Safety Supply is a great resource for free guides, infographics, and continuous improvement tools. I recommend starting with their 5S guide. It includes breakdowns of the five pillars, ways to begin implementing 5S, and even organization tips and color charts. From red tags to floor marking; it’s all there. Download it for free at creativesafetysupply.com/5S
BIZ-PI.com
LeanSixSigmaDefinition.com
Have a question? Submit a voice message at Podcasters.Spotify.com


