[Ailist] Re: Six Sigma

[David Shaked]

Joan,

I have been in the area of Six Sigma and Lean for the past 6 years (I am a master black belt if that tells you anything). I am now in transition to AI and have delivered a few AI activities with my company (a large multinational corporation).

My observation is that AI is very different than both lean and six sigma in particular. In six sigma you are specifically looking for what is NOT working in a given process or what is defective and trying to solve it. Lean has a similar thought process, but instead of looking for defects, you are looking for where waste is generated and then try to eliminate it. As you can appreciate this isn't quite AI...

Kaizen (='make better' in Japanese) is one of the lean tools/approaches. The original process of Kaizen is simply doing a quick process analysis and fixing the 'non-lean' parts of it within 2-5 days of concentrated effort. Kaizens can potentially be adapted to an AI approach and I am currently in the process if doing it and would be happy to brainstorm with others who may be interested in the topic.

My suggestions about your case are to focus on the success of the program rather than the program itself. You can ask questions about previous successful experiences with corporate initiatives or business improvement activities and perhaps gain insights on how to best introduce Six Sigma into your organization. Another idea would be to ask questions around previous successful initiatives by the leadership of the company.

If you'd like to talk more about this, e-mail me at: mail at david-shaked.com.

Good luck!
David.