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Denis Leonard has a degree in construction engineering an M.B.A. and a Ph.D. in quality management. Denis is a Fellow of the American Society for Quality, a Certified Quality Manager, Auditor and Six Sigma Black Belt. He has been an Examiner for the Baldrige National Quality Award Board of Examiners a Judge on the International Team Excellence Competition and a Lead Judge on the National Housing Quality Award. A former Professor of Quality at the University of Wisconsin, he has experience as a quality manager in the homebuilding industry as well as construction engineer, site manager and in training, auditing and consulting with expertise in strategic and operational quality improvement initiatives. His work has achieved national quality, environmental and safety management awards for clients.
Denis is co-author of 'The Executive Guide to Understanding and Implementing the Baldrige Criteria: Improve Revenue and Create Organizational Excellence'.
http://www.BusinessExcellenceConsulting.net
DenisLeonard@BusinessExcellenceConsulting.net
Full listing of blogs http://www.housingzone.com/author/denis-leonard
FMEA
Sun, 2012-05-20 23:08
Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA) is a tool that can assist in identifying where your areas of risk lie and helps structure solutions.
By using a table list, key steps in your process i.e. either a project or at the highest level,...
Strengths & Weaknesses
Sun, 2012-05-13 11:45
In 1989 Warren Bennis published ‘On Becoming a Leader’ which became a key leadership book. He stated that leaders “know who they are, what their strengths and weaknesses are, and how to fully deploy their strengths and compensate for their...
Team roles
Sun, 2012-05-06 10:00
The Belbin team roles are used to help create effective and balanced teams. Few individuals are strong in all of these roles, so ensuring you have a good mix on a team can make a real difference. It also needs to be noted that each role has...
Ensuring that lean and six sigma projects are successful
Mon, 2012-04-30 13:05
The Lean Enterprise Institute surveys show that 36% of companies attempting lean give up the efforts. Customer Relationship Magazine cites 60% of six sigma programs fail to give desired results. The problem is not the tools it is the approach...
Do you care as a leader?
Mon, 2012-04-23 18:01
A key aspect of quality management is the importance we place on employees, valuing people. We spend a significant amount of time and money officially sending this message to our team, espousing this pillar of quality. Yet, while doing this, we...
Innovation and creative problem solving
Mon, 2012-04-16 09:42
Being creative and innovative is something that is widely touted, but how do we actually do it?
This may be needed for a particular issue during land development, most certainly necessary during design and of course during construction....
Has risk management become a higher priority for you?
Mon, 2012-04-09 13:28
A Risk Management Benchmarking Survey in 2010 showed that 65% of businesses conduct no form of risk analysis prior to making major corporate decisions. While on 42% have any form of risk management audits or procedures. However, a study in the...
Rework
Mon, 2012-04-02 17:20
Construction projects are complex in nature and prone to cost and schedule overruns. A significant factor that often contributes to such overruns is rework.
Rework is defined as the ‘unnecessary effort of...
Flat empowered organizational structures
Mon, 2012-03-26 21:02
Flat, team based and empowered organizations have the potential to out-perform tall hierarchical organizations in most every competitive industry and that includes home building! I have always enjoyed conversations on business improvement with...
Like changing a wheel while the car is still moving
Mon, 2012-03-19 21:31
Process improvement can often be received with impatience and inflated expectations of its impact. One of the regular problems is that a particular piece of the organizations process is asked to be improved in isolation. This is a little like...
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