Matthew Barsalou

Six Sigma Master Black Belt, engineer, auditor, and author

Matthew Barsalou is an ASQ Fellow and IAQ Academician who works in the automotive industry in Germany. He is an ASQ-certified Six Sigma Black Belt, quality engineer, and quality technician; a TÜV-certified quality manager, quality management representative, and quality auditor; and a Smarter Solutions-certified lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt. He has a bachelor’s degree in industrial sciences, and master’s degrees in business administration and industrial engineering, and liberal studies with emphasis in international business. Barsalou is author of the books Root Cause Analysis, Statistics for Six Sigma Black Belts, The ASQ Pocket Guide to Statistics for Six Sigma Black Belts, The Quality Improvement Field Guide, and Practical Statistical Methods for Quality, and co-author of the book Applied Statistics Manual, as well as writing research and practitioner journal papers.

Wed, 02/14/2024 - 12:01
5S With Dubious Extras Marie Kondo’s decluttering breakthrough sounds very familiar
Wed, 08/19/2015 - 16:23
A recent Business Insider article discussed Marie Kondo’s wildly popular book, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up (Ten Speed Press, 2014). The book is intended for decluttering homes, but the same principles can be applied in the workplace. For…
Customer Problem Resolution A shared journey of discovery
Mon, 07/06/2015 - 13:26
I know that the customer should be involved when performing a root cause analysis (RCA) as the result of a complaint. However, in a meeting, the manager of problem resolution and statistical methods told our team that we should view customer-…
Presenting Information to Management Maximize the effect of your message with these simple hints
Mon, 06/15/2015 - 13:39
One seldom mentioned yet critical skill is the ability to bring well-presented information to management. I almost typed “data,” but that would probably be incorrect. Chances are you are not holding a presentation to show top management data; you…
A Simplified Management Model Even a child’s lemonade stand can use a sound business plan
Mon, 04/13/2015 - 15:31
I see a weakness in management models. It’s not the models themselves that are the problem, but rather their application in smaller organizations. Those of us with either business experience or a business-related degree can be expected to have an…
Guided by Gurus New names from around the world are joining the original ‘greats’
Tue, 02/24/2015 - 11:28
A list of quality gurus can range from just a few individuals to 50 or more. Several people make it onto most lists: W. Edwards Deming, Joseph Juran, Armand Feigenbaum, Phil Crosby, and Walter Shewhart, all from the United States; and Japanese…
Exploring Tukey’s Exploratory Data Analysis EDA for weather and widgets
Wed, 01/21/2015 - 10:42
There are many tools available for investigating quality problems. One useful and easy-to-use set of statistical tools is John W. Tukey’s exploratory data analysis (EDA), which quality engineers can use for generating hypotheses. Tukey’s EDA…
Essential Actions for Root Cause Analysis When a customer demands that you leap into action, you’d better have a plan
Mon, 12/08/2014 - 00:00

Have you ever received a customer complaint with blurry photos and a demand for immediate action, but insufficient detail to actually take that action? Or the customer, in his or her haste to get the complaint out, neglected to mention which…
Science Should Discover Deming There’s a monster threatening scientific research. It’s called measurement.
Tue, 10/14/2014 - 10:57
W. Edwards Deming was a frequent critic of quotas. One of his famous 14 points presented in Out of the Crisis (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1982) is “Eliminate work standards (quotas) on the factory floor. Substitute leadership.” There is…
On Lesser Gods and Devils It’s possible to learn from anybody
Thu, 07/24/2014 - 09:27
Bruce Hamilton recently wrote about his former colleague Manny S., whom he referred to as a “Lesser God.” The article reminded me of my former colleague Jose P., who trained me in my first quality job after college. By that time I had read W.…
The Guru and the Bard As airline wreckage eludes discovery, lawyers cast for the big catch
Thu, 04/03/2014 - 10:35
Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 disappeared on March 8, 2014, and has yet to be definitively found. But the lack of wreckage or even an idea as to what happened isn’t sufficient to stop the first lawyers from filing lawsuits. The lawyers are already…