PQ Systems, Inc. | Quality Blog

The news that Schofield Media has decided to shutter iSixSigma comes as a significant blow to those of us in the process improvement field. Watching iSixSigma falter and recover in recent years has been painful, but its customers and advertisers have hoped for its stability and success, not only because of the services it has provided in the last ten years or so, but also because of what it has represented with respect to communication.

In an environment of fast-paced change and urgent new understandings, communication among quality professionals is essential to progress. If iSixSigma is really gone, as current developments suggest, it is a loss not only to those who advertise on the iSixSigma site and depend on its cutting edge content for thoughtful analysis of current trends and practical advice, but to the quality community at large. Professional perspective is essential to continued growth and improvement for any organization, and iSixSigma has brought important dialogue to the quality community. Those in the industry who face their own challenges with respect to quality of products and processes, and who look to others in the industry to support their efforts to meet these challenges, now find themselves largely on their own–not a good sign for lean innovation and continued improvement.

We at PQ Systems will continue to hope that iSixSigma can once again get to its feet and provide the kind of essential communication that we have depended on for the past several years, filling a critical need in the process improvement field. Without its voice, the silence is deafening.

As I was recently going through some old papers, I came across a letter my good friend and fraternity brother, Ron Sparling, and I had sent to the general manager of a General Motors division where another close friend and fraternity brother had worked.

Our brother, Mark Horvath, had died of a heart attack at the age of 39 after nearly a year-long stretch of new, highly stress-related job responsibilities. In our letter, we recognized that a simple cause-and-effect relationship between the stress and his death was, of course, impossible to establish. We also acknowledged that the problem was not unique to his division or to General Motors. We did, however, suggest that stress can affect health in a negative way and asked the general manager to look into that issue and try to reduce the job-related stress in his division.

I don’t think things have changed much over those many years. As a matter of fact, they may have gotten worse, at least in the U.S. That is certainly what I read about and hear from people who currently hold the kinds of jobs I held in those days. Many of my friends and colleagues, especially those in the for-profit world, speak of their 24-7 world where they continually must seek to balance their lives and health with the continually increasing demands put upon them. They speak of walking a razor’s edge between the risks of losing their jobs and of losing their lives and their families.

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Join us in Pittsburgh next week at Booth #613 for ASQ’s World Conference on Quality and Improvement. You’ll find us in Exhibit Hall A at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center from Sunday evening (May 15) through Tuesday (May 17).

If you haven’t registered yet for the conference, on-site registration will begin Sunday morning near Exhibit Hall A on the second floor of the convention center.

Watch for us—we’ll look forward to seeing you!

The answer to last week’s question is (drumroll please):

Other than this year, only two other years have had no number 1 seeds advance to the Final Four (1980 and 2006).

No number one seeds advanced to this year’s Final Four in the NCAA men’s basketball tournament which is leaving many sports fans wondering if the bracket selection process has room to improve. (Perhaps they should use a flow chart to reassess their process and address some of these issues?) The last time all number one seeds made it to the Final Four was in 2008. How many times, including this season, have no number one seeds advanced to the Final Four?

Comment below with your guesses and we’ll reveal the correct answer on Monday, April 4th.