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
Cleaning Up Misconceptions of the 5S Methodology However you say these five actions, just be sure to do them—regularly
Mon, 03/17/2014 - 10:29
While reading a list of 5S activities, I thought, “Am I mistaken?” The activities on the list didn’t match what I thought they should be. I dug a little deeper and discovered there has been a lot of variation in the translation from Japanese to…
The Future Ain’t What It Used to Be Somebody promised us flying cars, a moon base, and a Mars colony
Mon, 12/16/2013 - 17:42
The famous baseball player and sometimes philosopher Yogi Berra is credited with saying, “The future ain’t what it used to be,” and he really got that prediction right. Things are nothing like I imagined they would be 25 years ago. Maybe in my teen…
SPC, Where Are You? It’s never a good idea to ignore the voice of the process
Wed, 10/16/2013 - 11:40
Recently, a friend from my undergraduate days complained that he was written up at work for low productivity. He operates a forklift in a warehouse and was informed that he only reached 97 percent of the previous week’s productivity. I asked for…
Defining Quality: An International Challenge As long as there are quality professionals, the debate will continue
Fri, 09/06/2013 - 11:47
It seems like every few years somebody, somewhere around the world asks, “What is quality?” or “What does quality mean?” I recently had the opportunity to make my own attempt at addressing this question when it was asked by the Deutsche…
Quality Across the Wall In East Germany, quality assurance helped make the most of scarce resources
Fri, 08/09/2013 - 16:30
I recently had an opportunity to learn about quality in industry in a Soviet Bloc nation, the former German Democratic Republic, better known as East Germany. I was invited to dinner with a family that included somebody who worked in a cotton mill…
Life in a Service Desert Small failures can create big problems
Mon, 07/15/2013 - 10:36
I live and work in Germany, and I recently learned a useful German phrase: “Service Wüste.” Well, half-German; the service part is actually English. Translated into English it would mean “service wasteland” or “service desert.” That’s how many…
Statistics for the Rest of Us R.I.P. George E. P. Box, 1919–2013
Mon, 04/08/2013 - 10:47

Thursday, March 28, 2013, was not a good day for the field of quality. On that day we quality practitioners lost the great statistician George E. P. Box, who died at age 93. I’m not a statistician; however, as a quality professional, I am…
The Legacies of Genichi Taguchi The statistician demonstrated the advantages of designing quality into a product
Thu, 03/21/2013 - 10:55
Genichi Taguchi passed away in Tokyo on June 2, 2012, at the age of 88. He started his career by studying textile engineering with the expectation of entering his family’s kimono business, but was drafted into Japan’s Imperial Navy during World…
What’s in Your Supply Chain? A vigilant audit can protect your company and customers
Mon, 02/25/2013 - 13:27
Tests have detected the presence of horse DNA in European meat products that were supposed to be beef. So far, many food products, from hamburgers in the United Kingdom to frozen lasagna in Germany, have been affected. The problem is believed to…
A Chronology of Quality, Part 4 Quality today
Wed, 02/20/2013 - 12:20
Editor’s note: This is part four of a four-part series about the history of quality. For a description of the earlier years in the quality movement, see part one, part two, and part three.
The Six Sigma methodology is used to identify and…