http://deanbrandon.com Snippets and links - Business Analyst continuous improvement programme Fri, 23 Nov 2007 05:59:13 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en The Unified Modeling Language (UML) state diagram can describe a lot of things, from computer programs to business processes. State diagrams are used to describe the behavior of a system.  State diagrams describe all of the possible states of an object as events occur.  Each diagram usually represents objects of ... http://deanbrandon.com/?p=25 Mean time between failures (MTBF) is the mean (average) time between failures of a system, and is often attributed to the "useful life" of the device. Calculations of MTBF assume that a system is "renewed", i.e. fixed, after each failure, and then returned to service immediately after failure. The average ... http://deanbrandon.com/?p=23 A swim lane (or swimlane) is a type of process flow diagram that depicts what or who is working on a particular subset of a process. The swim lane flowchart differs from other flowcharts in that processes and decisions are grouped visually by placing them in lanes. Parallel lines divide the ... http://deanbrandon.com/?p=22 The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (Pub. L. No. 107-204, 116 Stat. 745), also known as the Public Company Accounting Reform and Investor Protection Act of 2002 and commonly called SOX or Sarbox; is a United States federal law signed into law on July 30, 2002 in response to a number ... http://deanbrandon.com/?p=21 Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA) is a risk assessment technique for systematically identifying potential failures in a system or a process. It is widely used in the manufacturing industries in various phases of the product life cycle. Failures are any errors or defects, especially ones that affect the customer, ... http://deanbrandon.com/?p=20 Poka-yoke (pronounced "POH-kah YOH-keh") means "fail-safing" or "mistake-proofing" avoiding (yokeru) inadvertent errors (poka) is a behavior-shaping constraint, or a method of preventing errors by putting limits on how an operation can be performed in order to force the correct completion of the operation. The concept was originated by Shigeo Shingo ... http://deanbrandon.com/?p=19 Capability Maturity Model® Integration (CMMI®) is a process improvement approach that provides organizations with the essential elements of effective processes. [1] The latest release of CMMI — CMMI for Development (CMMI-DEV), Version 1.2 — was released in August 2006. CMMI for Development addresses product and service development processes. Another release of ... http://deanbrandon.com/?p=18 Kaizen is a daily activity whose purpose goes beyond simple productivity improvement. It is also a process that, when done correctly, humanizes the workplace, eliminates overly hard work (both mental and physical) "muri", and teaches people how to perform experiments on their work using the scientific method and how to ... http://deanbrandon.com/?p=17 A use case is a technique used in software and systems engineering to capture the functional requirements of a system. Use cases describe the interaction between a primary actor the initiator of the interaction and the system itself, represented as a sequence of simple steps. Actors are something or someone ... http://deanbrandon.com/?p=15 Statistical process control is an effective method of monitoring a process through the use of control charts. By collecting data from samples at various points within the process, variations in the process that may affect the quality of the end product or service can be detected and corrected, thus reducing waste ... http://deanbrandon.com/?p=14