Glossary Terms Archive

Brown Paper Mapping: What It Is and Why It Still Beats Software

Brown paper mapping is a hands-on process mapping technique where a team documents a real workflow on a large roll of paper, typically taped to a wall, using sticky notes to represent individual steps, decisions, and handoffs. It gets its name from the low-cost...

What Is Green Lean Six Sigma (GLSS)? Definition, Tools, and Real Results

Every organization faces three simultaneous pressures. Customers demand higher quality. Markets demand lower costs. Governments, investors, and communities demand environmental responsibility. Traditional process improvement focused on the first two. Green Lean Six...

What Is Judgement Sampling? Definition, Examples, and Six Sigma Role

Collecting data from every unit in a population is rarely practical. Sampling solves this by selecting a subset of the population and using it to draw conclusions about the whole. But not all sampling methods work the same way. Some rely on random selection. Others...

Performance Baseline Measure: What It Is and How to Build One

You cannot improve what you do not measure. That sentence captures the entire purpose of a performance baseline. Before a Six Sigma team changes anything about a process, it must know exactly how that process performs right now. A performance baseline measure is that...

Ohno Circle: Origin, Method, and How Six Sigma Teams Use It Today

The Ohno Circle is a Lean observation exercise built by Taiichi Ohno at Toyota. A trainee stands inside a marked spot on the shop floor. They watch one process, without interrupting it, often for hours. The goal is direct: train the eye to see waste that reports and...