Pinnacle Partners Inc

Continual Improvement System
Pinnacle Partners East, LLC 3530 Talahi Drive Knoxville 37919 Knoxville,
Phone: (865) 310-2973

All posts by: Frony

About Frony

Dr. Sophronia Ward is a statistician specializing in Continual Process Improvement. Since 1981, she has engaged in consulting, coaching, facilitating and training with all levels of organizations in the U.S. as well as Central and South America, Canada, Europe, South Africa and Australia.

October 4, 2017

The Need

In 1980, The NBC White Paper, “If Japan Can, Why Can’t We” launched a drive to improve quality in US businesses as well as introduced W Edwards Deming to a wider audience. Deming was credited with teaching statistical methods, particularly those of Walter Shewhart to the leaders of Japan’s businesses in the 1950s. And the...
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October 4, 2017

Asking the Right Questions

Little did I know what I was getting into when, in the Summer of 1981 Alan Lasater, a colleague in the statistics department at the University of Tennessee asked several of us to join him in teaching the statistical methods of Dr. Walter A. Shewhart and Dr. W. Edwards to people who worked in industry….
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October 4, 2017

Do you really need that new machine?

Sheets of glass are produced in a continuous process, then cut to size by “scoring” the glass and snapping the sheets apart.  Scoring involves making a “mark” or “score” in the glass so that the pieces can be snapped apart with no rough edges.  If the scoring is not done properly or the glass doesn’t…
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October 4, 2017

Shewhart’s Profound Gift

I never met Walter A Shewhart, but his insight of how to “see” process behavior through data is truly profound.  W. Edwards Deming along with H. Alan Lasater and David S. Chambers of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville were instrumental in introducing me to the techniques Shewhart’s used to analyze process behavior.  Through this experience…
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August 2, 2017

Why do we make Continual Improvement so hard?

Quality Brain Teasers, Real-World Challenges to Build Your Manufacturing Skills by Sophronia W. Ward, Ph.D. and Sheila R. Poling is a compilation of 20 Brain Teasers published in Quality Magazine between January 2000 and April 2002. All of the Brain Teasers were selected from the many real-world experiences that Dr. Ward encountered while working directly in her client’s manufacturing facilities.
Brain teasers on the Quality Magazine Website

August 2, 2017

Manufacturing Engineering Handbook “Chapter Contributor”

The new edition of this professional resource reveals how to optimize all aspects of the global manufacturing process to build the highest quality goods at the lowest price in the shortest possible time. How can one apply technical and business knowledge to develop a strategic plan that delivers increased productivity, quality, sustainability, reliability, agility, resilience,…
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July 7, 2017

“Why do we make Continual Improvement so hard?”

In the beginning, it seemed so easy.  In the Spring of 1982 Jerry Fondren, the plant manager of Holley Carburetor in Water Valley, MS, and two other managers came to the University of Tennessee’s Institute for Productivity Through Quality.  When asked why he came, he replied “Ford came to my plant and beat up on…
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July 6, 2017

Using Lean for Faster Six Sigma Results: A Synchronized Approach

Author(s): Mark A. Nash; Sheila R. Poling; Sophronia Ward, PhD Summary Lean? Six Sigma? or Lean Six Sigma? Which is the right approach for effective continuous improvement? While much has been written on merging Lean and Six Sigma initiatives, this is the first book to detail a logical alternative – a no-nonsense strategy for maintaining the best…
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May 17, 2017

This American Life – NUMMI

Host Ira Glass introduces the story of the New United Motor Manufacturing Inc., aka NUMMI. In 1984, General Motors and Toyota opened NUMMI as a joint venture. Toyota showed GM the secrets of its production system: How it made cars of much higher quality and much lower cost than GM achieved. But today, GM cars…
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