Lean Six Sigma

And today we have with us to discuss this topic, Michael Parent.

So Michael is an ASQ senior member and a Lean Six Sigma master black belt whose work focuses on improving operational systems across quality, cost, capacity, and production.

So Michael, welcome to All Things Quality and thanks for joining us.

Yeah, thank you, Pablo.

So tell me a bit about yourself, your background in quality, and And most importantly, maybe what led you to focus on resilient systems?

Yeah, thank you for the question.

So starting off my career, coming out of college, I was exposed to the concepts of quality engineering, Lean Six Sigma, those sorts of things.

And I was absolutely enamored by it.

If it requires learning and development, we have that expertise.

We're a Lean Six Sigma shop, so we have that.

We are also certified in certain assessments from a hiring and fit profile and coaching and development standpoint.

It depends on the specific needs of the of the business but we'll bring the right resources in depending on what is needed

I went back out.

I got my Lean Six Sigma Black Belt certification.

I actually put it on a credit card that my wife didn't know i had so i could hide it from her so she didn't get upset because we had no money it was a difficult time so i had to make difficult decisions and everything started to like cascade and everything started to look up and that was the moment where like my career turned around at that point in time uh right now my son's 12 and i still think about that moment and every time i look into his eyes and i was like you have no idea what we went through when you were just born and the decisions that i made to put our family in that position but I'm grateful for it because it built that tenacity, that resilience that most people don't get to experience that early on in their careers.

And fortunately for me, it happened really early on in my career where I could bounce back from that and understand like how to build the skills and understand what the industry wanted to see in everything I've built since then.

It is actually executing the project, finding the right resources within and the external resources, making sure that the capital allocations are correct and we're not change ordering the project to death, making sure that the resources are properly engaged and informed of the changes that are coming.

And to me, that, again, going back to what I said earlier from your question before, how I saw the opportunity to create live solutions is essentially the key to what makes live solutions so special.

It's that we... don't necessarily handhold we inform and educate and empower i always tell manufacturers if you need to rely on us we're doing something wrong you should not ever have to rely on us for supplemental training or information on the system our job is to not only help execute but it's to empower you and your team as the company leaders and the operators to own the process And that goes back to the Lean Six Sigma training, the background that I have leading Lean Six Sigma projects, Kaizen's, PDCA's.

The whole origin of this company is to really differentiate ourselves and become the organic part of the companies with whom we partner to empower and enable their workforce and then supplement their resources with ours in a very symbiotic and organic manner.

And so little story on that, I became certified in Six Sigma, which is a process management program.

I got certified in BPM, business process management, Lean Sigma, fundamentals of quality, started learning a lot about like how to run a business and how processes work within a company.

And then really understanding that's what a company is.

A company is a collective group of people in process.

So it's focused on our people, our community, our culture.

Below that is red or control, which is our processes by which we improve the firm, right? Quality control, Six Sigma, Lean Sigma, auditing processes, so on and so forth.

risk management, safety, and then you move to the right bottom, it's blue, which is compete, which is how we relate to customers, external stakeholders, markets, competitors, how you become more competitive, more relevant.

And then at the top right is green or create, which is all about creating the future.

So to me, that's the area I will start first.

You know, simple, basic, you know, in classic Lean Six Sigma terms, you know, it is called value stream mapping.

So do a value stream mapping of your process.

Figure out where your waste is.

So to me, that's the area I will start first.

You know, simple, basic, you know, in classic Lean Six Sigma terms, you know, it is called value stream mapping.

So do a value stream mapping of your process.

Figure out where your waste is.