PMI Blog

PMI is delighted to announce the winner of its annual competition to find the best business improvement story. The 2006 prize was awarded to Beverley Gibbs, Director of Service Development and Planning in a large UK based multinational.

Each year PMI sets out to find the most inspirational example of its improvement methodology being put to use. Each entrant is required to submit a documented example of their improvement work in which they must demonstrate a clear understanding not only of the tools, but also application of the principles that lie at the root of the PMI approach. Beverley impressed the judges with her well documented improvement programme within the IT division of the company.

The goals of the programme team were to instill process-thinking throughout the department, build up the expertise in service improvement and to see acceleration in the delivery of measurable benefits. The initial deliverables were a revised procedure for planned network outages and a reduction in the administrative burden of the Change Management process. The latter achieved a 62% reduction in number of approvers per change request and 56% reduction in cycle time. 

PMI have been helping businesses around the world achieve unprecedented, sustainable improvements since 1984. In July 2006 PMI became a partner of CQI the Chartered Quality Institute (formerly IQA), together PMI and CQI operate a unique range of Six Sigma training programmes open to delegates from any organisation. The award of a Royal Charter in January 2007 for CQI puts the partnership firmly at the forefront of the business improvement arena.

PMI would like to congratulate its six sigma partners IQA on receiving a Royal Charter. The IQA officially became the Chartered Quality Institute (CQI) on 18 January 2007.

Since the launch of the PMI and CQI partnership in July 2006, we have been making waves with our exciting range of six sigma services.

The public course programme has been filled to capacity and the comments and feedback from delegates in both London and the Midlands has been positive and encouraging.

The PMI and CQI collaboration will continue to grow with the launch of a new ‘real time’ online booking system and a wider range of courses.

For more information about our public training programme please see our training pages.

PMI is proud to announce sponsorship of the 4th annual Asian Network for Quality Symposium being held in Singapore.

PMI’s Jane Seddon and Jan Gillett have been invited to speak at the 2006 event and will present their paper: Human Motivation - the key to success in Six Sigma (PDF, 338K)

The symposium takes place 27th – 29th September 2006 and is an international forum for presentation of the research and development of philosophy, theory, methodology and application in the field of quality.

PMI is pleased to announce a partnership with The Institute of Quality Assurance (IQA) to provide an exciting and effective range of Six Sigma services including training and consultancy.

The IQA is the UK’s leading body for the advancement of quality, providing professional recognition and support for anyone working in business improvement.

IQA Director General Frank Steer officially launched this exciting new association with PMI on 6th July 2006. He commented: “IQA choose in PMI a partner with whom we could trust to carry our name into the Six Sigma training arena. It is our policy to seek partners that can deliver value for money training programmes across the whole field of quality training.”

PMI Chairman, Jan Gillett added: “This partnership enables us to widen our offering, and to increase our public training programme so that more SMEs as well as larger companies will be able to engage with developing their people with the essential skills for tomorrow's business world.”

The public training programmes will be jointly run from both London, at IQA near Hyde Park Corner, and the Midlands, at PMI’s training facility in Meriden.

To find out more please view our public course programmes.

PMI is delighted to have hosted Professor Tom Johnson at our Meriden office for a Systemic Management Masterclass.

Tom Johnson is a world leading management thinker.  His current research focuses on the intersection of systems thinking, modern physics, and sustainable operations management. He is exploring the application of natural living system principles to the design of ecologically-focused local business operations that emulate and extend the scope of the Toyota Production System.

The day turned out to be truly superb and we were joined by about 20 PMI Client’s. Tom delivered a fascinating presentation which led on to a stimulating group discussion. PMI is very proud to have hosted Tom on one of his rare visits to the UK.  The delegates at the Masterclass gained interesting and powerful insights into furthering the application of PMI’s systemic thinking methodology in their businesses.

We thank Tom for giving us and our delegates the opportunity to be part of such a special event.

If you would like details of future PMI Masterclasses please complete our contact form.

A selection of papers by Professor Tom Johnson can be downloaded from our publications and resources section.

The Automotive Academy, the body responsible for training excellence in the UK automotive industry, has recognised PMI as being 'Industry Recommended'. This prestigious status has been achieved thanks to PMI's track record of experience and success in the automotive sector. PMI is the first Six Sigma provider to hold the industry recommended accolade.  The picture shows Maggie Gray of Automotive Academy visting our premises to present the certificate to Jane Seddon. The certified courses are as follows; Six Sigma Green Belt, Six Sigma Black Belt and Mastering Process Improvement.  See the certificate (pdf 293kb).

PMI Lean experts Des Kelly and Tony Thomas presented at the international AutoCEE conference in Prague during October.  Des and Tony wowed audiences at this high profile event with vibrant discussion and demonstration exercises; both have many years of experience in lean implementation and practice and love to share their knowledge - so if you want to talk about lean why not give them a call? Tel: +44 (0)24 7641 9089 or fill in our contact form.

Jan Gillett and Jane Seddon of PMI presented papers to two important conferences in Asia during 2005:

• The International Congress for Quality, a triennial world conference held in Tokyo, Japan, attended by over 1,000 delegates from across the world. The paper is called Developing Systemic Leadership (PDF, 124K) and is available to download.
• The 3rd Asian Network for Quality in Taipei, Taiwan, attended by over 400 delegates from countries extending from Iran in the west to Korea and Japan. This paper is called Cooking up Improvement: PDSA Improvement Cycle (PDF, 1.9MB) and is available to download.