New York City Lights

I snapped this photograph in New York City last week while walking the streets downtown.

Downtown New York City

The lights of New York never disappoint...

Seven The Steakhouse

Next time you visit Minneapolis, check out Seven The Steakhouse, which is arguably the best steakhouse in the Twin Cities.

I was at Seven this past weekend and enjoyed the 1881 KC Strip 21 oz bone-in strip loin with spinach on the side, and a bottle of Kenwood “Jack London” Zin red wine from Sonoma County, California. The flavors were bold and the cuts of meat premium!

Follow the link below to learn more about Seven The Steakhouse and to make reservations.

Seven The Steakhouse

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101 Things Every Six Sigma Black Belt Should Know

by Thomas Pyzdek, Copyright © 2003

1. In general, a Six Sigma Black Belt should be quantitatively oriented.
2. With minimal guidance, the Six Sigma Black Belt should be able to use data to convert broad generalizations into actionable goals.
3. The Six Sigma Black Belt should be able to make the business case for attempting to accomplish these goals.
4. The Six Sigma Black Belt should be able to develop detailed plans for achieving these goals.
5. The Six Sigma Black Belt should be able to measure progress towards the goals in terms meaningful to customers and leaders.
6. The Six Sigma Black Belt should know how to establish control systems for maintaining the gains achieved through Six Sigma.
7. The Six Sigma Black Belt should understand and be able to communicate the rationale for continuous improvement, even after initial goals have been accomplished.
8. The Six Sigma Black Belt should be familiar with research that quantifies the benefits firms have obtained from Six Sigma.
9. The Six Sigma Black Belt should know or be able to find the PPM rates associated with different sigma levels (e.g., Six Sigma = 3.4 PPM).
10. The Six Sigma Black Belt should know the approximate relative cost of poor quality associated with various sigma levels (e.g., three sigma firms report 25% COPQ).
11. The Six Sigma Black Belt should understand the roles of the various people involved in change (senior leader, champion, mentor, change agent, technical leader, team leader, facilitator).
12. The Six Sigma Black Belt should be able to design, test, and analyze customer surveys.
13. The Six Sigma Black Belt should know how to quantitatively analyze data from employee and customer surveys. This includes evaluating survey reliability and validity as well as the differences between surveys.
14. Given two or more sets of survey data, the Six Sigma Black Belt should be able to determine if there are statistically significant differences between them.
15. The Six Sigma Black Belt should be able to quantify the value of customer retention.
16. Given a partly completed QFD matrix, the Six Sigma Black Belt should be able to complete it.
17. The Six Sigma Black Belt should be able to compute the value of money held or invested over time, including present value and future value of a fixed sum.
18. The Six Sigma Black Belt should be able to compute present value and future value for various compounding periods.
19. The Six Sigma Black Belt should be able to compute the breakeven point for a project.
20. The Six Sigma Black Belt should be able to compute the net present value of cash flow streams, and to use the results to choose among competing projects.
21. The Six Sigma Black Belt should be able to compute the internal rate of return for cash flow streams and to use the results to choose among competing projects.
22. The Six Sigma Black Belt should know the COPQ rationale for Six Sigma (i.e., the Six Sigma Black Belt should be able to explain what to do if COPQ analysis indicates that the optimum for a given process is less than Six Sigma).
23. The Six Sigma Black Belt should know the basic COPQ categories and be able to allocate a list of costs to the correct category.
24. Given a table of COPQ data over time, the Six Sigma Black Belt should be able to perform a statistical analysis of the trend.
25. Given a table of COPQ data over time, the Six Sigma Black Belt should be able to perform a statistical analysis of the distribution of costs among the various categories.
26. Given a list of tasks for a project, their times to complete, and their precedence relationships, the Six Sigma Black Belt should be able to compute the time to completion for the project, the earliest completion times, the latest completion times and the slack times. The Six Sigma Black Belt should also be able to identify which tasks are on the critical path.
27. Give cost and time data for project tasks, the Six Sigma Black Belt should be able to compute the cost of normal and crash schedules and the minimum total cost schedule.
28. The Six Sigma Black Belt should be familiar with the basic principles of benchmarking.
29. The Six Sigma Black Belt should be familiar with the limitations of benchmarking.
30. Given an organization chart and a listing of team members, process owners, and sponsors, the Six Sigma Black Belt should be able to identify projects with a low probability of success.
31. The Six Sigma Black Belt should be able to identify measurement scales of various metrics (nominal, ordinal, etc).
32. Given a metric on a particular scale, the Six Sigma Black Belt should be able to determine if a particular statistical method should be used for analysis.
33. Given a properly collected set of data, the Six Sigma Black Belt should be able to perform a complete measurement system analysis, including the calculation of bias, repeatability, reproducibility, stability, discrimination (resolution) and linearity.
34. Given the measurement system metrics, the Six Sigma Black Belt should know whether or not a given measurement system should be used on a given part or process.
35. The Six Sigma Black Belt should know the difference between computing sigma from a data set whose production sequence is known and from a data set whose production sequence is not known.
36. Given the results of an AIAG Gage R&R study, the Six Sigma Black Belt should be able to answer a variety of questions about the measurement system.
37. Given a narrative description of “as-is” and “should-be” processes, the Six Sigma Black Belt should be able to prepare process maps.
38. Given a table of raw data, the Six Sigma Black Belt should be able to prepare a frequency tally sheet of the data, and to use the tally sheet data to construct a histogram.
39. The Six Sigma Black Belt should be able to compute the mean and standard deviation from a grouped frequency distribution.
40. Given a list of problems, the Six Sigma Black Belt should be able to construct a Pareto Diagram of the problem frequencies.
41. Given a list which describes problems by department, the Six Sigma Black Belt should be able to construct a cross tabulation and use the information to perform a Chi-square analysis.
42. Given a table of x and y data pairs, the Six Sigma Black Belt should be able to determine if the relationship is linear or non-linear.
43. The Six Sigma Black Belt should know how to use non-linearity’s to make products or processes more robust.
44. The Six Sigma Black Belt should be able to construct and interpret a run chart when given a table of data in time-ordered sequence. This includes calculating run length, number of runs and quantitative trend evaluation.
45. When told the data are from an exponential or Erlang distribution the Six Sigma Black Belt should know that the run chart is preferred over the standard X control chart.
46. Given a set of raw data, the Six Sigma Black Belt should be able to identify and compute two statistical measures each for central tendency, dispersion, and shape.
47. Given a set of raw data, the Six Sigma Black Belt should be able to construct a histogram.
48. Given a stem & leaf plot, the Six Sigma Black Belt should be able to reproduce a sample of numbers to the accuracy allowed by the plot.
49. Given a box plot with numbers on the key box points, the Six Sigma Black Belt should be able to identify the 25th and 75th percentile and the median.
50. The Six Sigma Black Belt should know when to apply enumerative statistical methods, and when not to.
51. The Six Sigma Black Belt should know when to apply analytic statistical methods, and when not to.
52. The Six Sigma Black Belt should demonstrate a grasp of basic probability concepts, such as the probability of mutually exclusive events, of dependent and independent events, of events that can occur simultaneously, etc.
53. The Six Sigma Black Belt should know factorials, permutations and combinations, and how to use these in commonly used probability distributions.
54. The Six Sigma Black Belt should be able to compute expected values for continuous and discrete random variables.
55. The Six Sigma Black Belt should be able to compute univariate statistics for samples.
56. The Six Sigma Black Belt should be able to compute confidence intervals for various statistics.
57. The Six Sigma Black Belt should be able to read values from a cumulative frequency ogive.
58. The Six Sigma Black Belt should be familiar with the commonly used probability distributions, including: hypergeometric, binomial, Poisson, normal, exponential, Chi-square, Student’s t, and F.
59. Given a set of data the Six Sigma Black Belt should be able to correctly identify which distribution should be used to perform a given analysis, and to use the distribution to perform the analysis.
60. The Six Sigma Black Belt should know that different techniques are required for analysis depending on whether a given measure (e.g., the mean) is assumed known or estimated from a sample. The Six Sigma Black Belt should choose and properly use the correct technique when provided with data and sufficient information about the data.
61. Given a set of subgrouped data, the Six Sigma Black Belt should be able to select and prepare the correct control charts and to determine if a given process is in a state of statistical control.
62. The above should be demonstrated for data representing all of the most common control charts.
63. The Six Sigma Black Belt should understand the assumptions that underlie ANOVA, and be able to select and apply a transformation to the data.
64. The Six Sigma Black Belt should be able to identify which cause on a list of possible causes will most likely explain a non-random pattern in the regression residuals.
65. If shown control chart patterns, the Six Sigma Black Belt should be able to match the control chart with the correct situation (e.g., an outlier pattern vs. a gradual trend matched to a tool breaking vs. a machine gradually warming up).
66. The Six Sigma Black Belt should understand the mechanics of PRE-Control.
67. The Six Sigma Black Belt should be able to correctly apply EWMA charts to a process with serial correlation in the data.
68. Given a stable set of subgrouped data, the Six Sigma Black Belt should be able to perform a complete Process Capability Analysis. This includes computing and interpreting capability indices, estimating the % failures, control limit calculations, etc.
69. The Six Sigma Black Belt should demonstrate an awareness of the assumptions that underlie the use of capability indices.
70. Given the results of a replicated 22 full-factorial experiment, the Six Sigma Black Belt should be able to complete the entire ANOVA table.
71. The Six Sigma Black Belt should understand the basic principles of planning a statistically designed experiment. This can be demonstrated by critiquing various experimental plans with or without shortcomings.
72. Given a “clean” experimental plan, the Six Sigma Black Belt should be able to find the correct number of replicates to obtain a desired power.
73. The Six Sigma Black Belt should know the difference between the various types of experimental models (fixed-effects, random-effects, mixed).
74. The Six Sigma Black Belt should understand the concepts of randomization and blocking.
75. Given a set of data, the Six Sigma Black Belt should be able to perform a Latin Square analysis and interpret the results.
76. Ditto for one way ANOVA, two way ANOVA (with and without replicates), full and fractional factorials, and response surface designs.
77. Given an appropriate experimental result, the Six Sigma Black Belt should be able to compute the direction of steepest ascent.
78. Given a set of variables each at two levels, the Six Sigma Black Belt can determine the correct experimental layout for a screening experiment using a saturated design.
79. Given data for such an experiment, the Six Sigma Black Belt can identify which main effects are significant and state the effect of these factors.
80. Given two or more sets of responses to categorical items (e.g., customer survey responses categorized as poor, fair, good, excellent), the Six Sigma Black Belt will be able to perform a Chi-Square test to determine if the samples are significantly different.
81. The Six Sigma Black Belt will understand the idea of confounding and be able to identify which two factor interactions are confounded with the significant main effects.
82. The Six Sigma Black Belt will be able to state the direction of steepest ascent from experimental data.
83. The Six Sigma Black Belt will understand fold over designs and be able to identify the fold over design that will clear a given alias.
84. The Six Sigma Black Belt will know how to augment a factorial design to create a composite or central composite design.
85. The Six Sigma Black Belt will be able to evaluate the diagnostics for an experiment.
86. The Six Sigma Black Belt will be able to identify the need for a transformation in y and to apply the correct transformation.
87. Given a response surface equation in quadratic form, the Six Sigma Black Belt will be able to compute the stationary point.
88. Given data (not graphics), the Six Sigma Black Belt will be able to determine if the stationary point is a maximum, minimum or saddle point.
89. The Six Sigma Black Belt will be able to use a quadratic loss function to compute the cost of a given process.
90. The Six Sigma Black Belt will be able to conduct simple and multiple linear regression.
91. The Six Sigma Black Belt will be able to identify patterns in residuals from an improper regression model and to apply the correct remedy.
92. The Six Sigma Black Belt will understand the difference between regression and correlation studies.
93. The Six Sigma Black Belt will be able to perform Chi-square analysis of contingency tables.
94. The Six Sigma Black Belt will be able to compute basic reliability statistics (MTBF, availability, etc).
95. Given the failure rates for given subsystems, the Six Sigma Black Belt will be able to use reliability apportionment to set MTBF goals.
96. The Six Sigma Black Belt will be able to compute the reliability of series, parallel, and series-parallel system configurations.
97. The Six Sigma Black Belt will demonstrate the ability to create and read an FMEA analysis.
98. The Six Sigma Black Belt will demonstrate the ability to create and read a fault tree.
99. Given distributions of strength and stress, the Six Sigma Black Belt will be able to compute the probability of failure.
100. The Six Sigma Black Belt will be able to apply statistical tolerancing to set tolerances for simple assemblies. The Six Sigma Black Belt will know how to compare statistical tolerances to so-called “worst case” tolerancing.
101. The Six Sigma Black Belt will be aware of the limits of the Six Sigma approach.

Reproduced with kind permission of Six Sigma Training

Source: Pyzdek, T (2003), 101 Things Every Six Sigma Black Belt Should Know, Six Sigma Training.

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The Virtual Economy Hits Jobs

According to Bill Davidow of the Atlantic (2012, April 10), the impact of the emerging virtual economy on jobs introduces some interesting arithmetic with regard to labor productivity and jobs:

Walmart has some two million employees, and annual sales of around $200 billion. Given that many work part-time, I figure that the company has sales of around $100,000 per employee. With 56,000 employees in 2011, Amazon generated a little over $800,000 per employee.... Here's the challenge: In the past, every million-dollar increase in economic output generated on the order of ten jobs. In the future..., it may generate only one or two.

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If we accept that firms such as Amazon are the business models for the future economy, then the future of jobs in America gets gloomy fast. The only safe haven for labor is to acquire high productivity skills that earn premium wages in the still emerging virtual economy.

Source: Davidow, B (2012, April 10), How Computers Are Creating a Second Economy Without Workers, Atlantic.

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Well Said...

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

~ Arthur C Clark

Sir Arthur Charles Clarke (1917-2008)

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Public Trust in Banking Declines Dramatically

According to a Gallup poll cited by The Atlantic (2012, April 20), public trust in banks, the US Congress, and the presidency, declined dramatically over the past decade. Between 2002 and 2011, public trust in banks declined by 24%, while trust in support of Congress and the presidency declined by 17% and 23%, respectively.

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Given these shifts, I have to wonder why the US Congress and presidency are always so eager to affiliate with banks. Let's face it, banking is somehow at the center of something bad happening in America today...

Source: Fournier, R & Quintin, S (2012, April 20), How Americans Lost Trust in Our Greatest Institutions, The Atlantic.

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Space Shuttle Discovery at Dulles

I spotted the Space Shuttle Discovery atop a NASA 747 at Dulles International Airport earlier today. I quickly snapped the photograph below from my window seat.

Space Shuttle Discovery at Dulles International Airport

Certainly better photographs of the Space Shuttle Discovery have been taken. However, I am pleased to have seen Discovery for the first time during my business travels. The Space Shuttle Discovery is enroute to the National Air and Space Museum's Udvar-Hazy Center for public display beginning later this year.

Some Random Thoughts

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Well Said...

"There is no psychiarist in the world like a puppy licking your face."

~ Ben Williams

William McKibbin and Lola

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The Problem with Cosmopolitan Economics

The three crucial indicators that something is wrong in America are: a) declining home values; b) declining real wages; and c) the declining employment to population ratio. These indicators are the key measures of Main Street economic vitality, all of which have been trending downwards for the past decade, and all of which are conveniently hidden behind the stage play of macroeconomic indicators (i.e., inflation, growth, and unemployment) that purport to pinpoint the health and well-being of the US (and therefore, Main Street) economy. However, the Main Street economy does not revolve around the cosmopolitan economy. Rather, the cosmopolitan economy revolves around the Main Street economy, a fact that society at large seems to have forgotten in modern times.

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Programming the Apple //e circa 1980's

The short video below shows the typical user experience that Apple //e programmers followed during the early 1980's.



I was an avid Apple //e user back in the day, so the above video activates personal memories. Even the sounds are very familiar to me. Personal computing has certainly come a long way since the invention of the Apple //e.

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Internet Visions in 1969

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Jason Silva: Jobs

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Well Said...

"No matter what anybody else tells you, corporations achieve
competitive advantage through acts of innovation."

~ Peter Drucker

Prof Peter Ferdinand Drucker (1909-2005)

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Michio Kaku on the Failure of US Education

Prof Michio Kaku makes the case that "the US has the worst educational system known to science..."



Regretfully, I agree with Dr Kaku's assessment. Far too many Americans take their educational opportunities for granted. The US needs more students to choose science, mathematics, and engineering as future careers.

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A Primer on PowerPivot Topology and Configurations

Analysts who use Excel (Microsoft) with PowerPivot (Microsoft) will find the presentation below interesting.



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Foxconn Employees at Work

Watch below to see how Foxconn employees build the Apple iPad in China.



Foxconn workers start at an incredible $14 per day, which is a very low wage by US standards. The good news is that popular consumer products such as the Apple iPad can be manufactured overseas at a fraction of the domestic cost, which translates into lower prices here in the US. To my knowledge, the US no longer manufactures consumer electronics domestically.

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The Stolen Valor Act of 2005 is a Good Law

Pres George W Bush signed into law the Stolen Valor Act of 2005, which states:

Whoever falsely represents himself or herself, verbally or in writing, to have been awarded any decoration or medal authorized by Congress for the Armed Forces of the United States, any of the service medals or badges awarded to the members of such forces, the ribbon, button, or rosette of any such badge, decoration, or medal, or any colorable imitation of such item shall be fined under this title, imprisoned not more than six months, or both.... If a decoration or medal involved in an offense... is a distinguished-service cross..., a Navy cross..., an Air Force cross..., a silver star..., a Purple Heart, or any replacement or duplicate medal for such medal..., the offender shall be fined under this title, imprisoned not more than 1 year, or both.

The Medal of Honor [click to enlarge]

As far as I am concerned, the Stolen Valor Act of 2005 is a good law that should remain in force. Our nation needs this law in order to recognize for posterity the distinguished service of its military veterans. Such honors are not intended to be taken lightly by society.

Source: Stolen Valor Act of 2005, 109th Congress, 2005–2006.

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Watch Out for "Shadow" Banking

The apparent emergence of a "shadow" banking system in the US should frighten investors. The news clip below produced by the Wall Street Journal brings to light some of details and concerns about that system.



The schematic referred to in the above reporting appears below:

Schematic of the "Shadow" Banking System according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York [click to expand]

The report from which the above schematic was drawn is linked below:

Shadow Banking

Of course, "shadow" banking sysem is only a concern if the result is another Wall Street catastrophe. Given Wall Street's recent record, I suppose investors have every right to worry...

Source: Pozsar, Z; Adrian, T; Ashcraft, A; & Boesky, H (2010; revised, 2012, February), Shadow Banking, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

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Well Said...

"Who is the greater criminal: He who robs a bank or he who founds one?"

~ Kurt Weill

Kurt Weill (1900-1950)



"Mack the Knife" clip from the movie, "Die Dreigroschenoper" or "Three Penny Opera" (1931)

Kurt Weill wrote the original opera music for "Die Dreigroschenoper" in collaboration with Bertolt Brecht in 1928, just prior to the Great Depression, which began the following year. The Victorian era figure of "Mack the Knife" in the film clip above has an uncanny resemblence to the infamous Wall Street banking tycoon, J P Morgan.

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US Employment to Population Ratio 1948-2012

The heat chart below depicts the unadjusted US Employment to Population ratio between January 1948 and March 2012 inclusive as reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Relative intensity is reported using a spectral color range between green and red, with green reflecting a higher than normal monthly ratio for this multi-year analysis.

[click image to expand]

Many economists believe that reporting the number employed as a percentage of the civilian population provides a more accurate description of the current state of employment than conjecturing the number of "unemployed" in a population. The US employment to population ratio reached an historical peak of 64.4% on an annual basis in 2000.

*The BLS defines employment and population (civilian noninstitutional) as follows:

Employment consists of all persons who, during the reference week (the calendar week including the twelfth day of the month), (a) did any work at all (at least 1 hour) as paid employees, worked in their own business or profession or on their own farm, or worked 15 hours or more as unpaid workers in an enterprise operated by a member of the family, or (b) were not working but had jobs or businesses from which they were temporarily absent because of vacation, illness, bad weather, childcare problems, maternity or paternity leave, labor-management dispute, job training, or other family or personal reasons, whether or not they were paid for the time off or were seeking other jobs.... The civilian noninstitutional population consists of persons 16 years of age and older residing in the 50 States and the District of Columbia who are not inmates of institutions (for example, penal and mental facilities and homes for the aged) and who are not on active duty in the Armed Forces.

Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics

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US Employment to Population Ratio Rises in March 2012

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the US employment to population ratio* for March 2012 stood at 58.3%, up from from 58.0% the previous month, and 58.1% a year ago. The US employment to population ratio has been trending downwards since 2000.

Many economists believe that reporting the number employed as a percentage of the civilian population provides a more accurate description of the current state of employment than conjecturing the number of "unemployed" in a population. The US employment to population ratio reached an historical peak of 64.4% on an annual basis in 2000.

*The BLS defines employment and population (civilian noninstitutional) as follows:

Employment consists of all persons who, during the reference week (the calendar week including the twelfth day of the month), (a) did any work at all (at least 1 hour) as paid employees, worked in their own business or profession or on their own farm, or worked 15 hours or more as unpaid workers in an enterprise operated by a member of the family, or (b) were not working but had jobs or businesses from which they were temporarily absent because of vacation, illness, bad weather, childcare problems, maternity or paternity leave, labor-management dispute, job training, or other family or personal reasons, whether or not they were paid for the time off or were seeking other jobs.... The civilian noninstitutional population consists of persons 16 years of age and older residing in the 50 States and the District of Columbia who are not inmates of institutions (for example, penal and mental facilities and homes for the aged) and who are not on active duty in the Armed Forces.

Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics

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The Minerva Project: An "Elite" Online Education

Online education has been slowly building its reputation in the US over the past decade. Not surprisingly, a new online university program lead by the Minerva Project is now seeking to compete with top-tier institutions for the best students. Here is how the Minerva Project describes its initiative:

The Minerva Project is the first elite American University to be launched in a century. Minerva's philosophy transforms every aspect of the university-student relationship in anticipation of students' changing needs in an evolving world. Across a full life cycle of admission to instruction to post graduation support, The Minerva Project is rethinking the role of an elite institution of higher learning.

Follow the link below to learn more:

Minerva Project

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"Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war."

~ John Adams

Hon John Adams (1735-1826)

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"Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practise to deceive."

~ Sir Walter Scott

Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832)

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Everything You Wanted to Know About Data Mining but Were Afraid to Ask

According to The Atlantic:

Big data is everywhere we look these days. Businesses are falling all over themselves to hire 'data scientists,' privacy advocates are concerned about personal data and control, and technologists and entrepreneurs scramble to find new ways to collect, control and monetize data. We know that data is powerful and valuable. But how?

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A Modern Business Data Center

Source: Everything You Wanted to Know About Data Mining but Were Afraid to Ask (2012, April 3), Atlantic.

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Monocle: Worth Every Penny

Check out Monocle. Launched in February 2007, Monocle is a premium media brand with magazine, web, broadcast, and retail divisions focusing on global affairs, business, culture, and design, Monocle's mission is to keep an eye on the world.

Produced and published in London, Monocle's subscription price is worth every penny.

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Well Said...

"Glory, built on selfish principles, is shame and guilt."

~ William Cowper

William Cowper (1731-1800)

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Marcellus Shale Potential

Marcellus shale has become a boom for small towns in Western Pennsylvania. According to researchers at Pennsylvania State University:

Fully developed, the Marcellus Shale has the potential to be the second largest natural gas field in the world, behind only the South Pars/Asalouyeh field shared between the nations of Iran and Qatar. Converted to British Thermal Units (BTUs), the natural gas found in the Marcellus could be equivalent to the energy content of 87 billion barrels of oil, enough to meet the demand of the entire world for nearly three years.

Download Report

Underground shale formations have been found to be a rich source of natural gas

Pennsylvania is now reporting "self-sufficiency" in natural gas.

Source: Timothy J. Considine, T J, Watson, R, & Blumsack, S (2010, May 24), The Economic Impacts of the Pennsylvania Marcellus Shale Natural Gas Play: An Update, Pennsylvania State University.

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