Lean Six Sigma is an organizational process improvement methodology. Motorola initiated Six Sigma in the 1980s to address company quality issues.
GE under Jack Welch popularized Six Sigma deployments in the mid-1990s. Many companies have followed the GE Six Sigma model. The GE model for Six Sigma incorporated process improvement practitioners called black belts and green belts to facility improvement efforts. Champions are to be executives that support the completion of the process improvement efforts, which are to have significant financial benefit.
Lean was added to Six Sigma around the beginning of the 21st century.
Six Sigma is traditional considered a methodology for reducing defects. Lean efforts focus on reducing organization waste. The seven types of lean waste are overproduction, waiting, transportation, inventory, over-processing, motion, and defects.
The metrics often associated with Six Sigma are striving to achieve a process output response of Six Sigma or 3.4 parts per million non-conformance rate. This rate of issue occurrence could be expressed as defects per million opportunities. Other metrics associated with Six Sigma are process capability indices such as Cp and Cpk.
Both Six Sigma and lean deployments have issues relative to metric reporting and silo implementations. These issues are overcome with the Integrated Enterprise Excellence (IEE) system.
How to implement lean Six Sigma so that a long-lasting system is created that benefits the enterprise as a whole? This is an important question; however, the last 14 words of this inquiry are typically not included in the statement but are very important.
Enhanced Approach to Answer the Question: How to Implement Lean Six Sigma Read More »
While a great deal of process improvement work has finally begun to take hold within healthcare around patient safety and hospital operational efficiencies, what about the other non-clinical aspects of the overall healthcare system which can consume physician resources and adversely impact hospital finances? Healthcare insurance processes can have a major impact on both patient care as well as operational efficiencies. This paper describes how one healthcare insurance company has begun to use Six Sigma to not only make itself more efficient and effective internally, but is now also directing its energies toward lowering medical costs while improving patient service and outcomes
Enhanced Approach for Lean Six Sigma in Healthcare Insurance Industry Read More »
Six Sigma in small businesses have similar issues to those that occur in larger organizations; e.g., making improvements so the big picture benefits.
Six Sigma in Small Businesses Read More »
As an introduction to a lean Six Sigma deployment, organizations need to address the article-described issues (provided in a PDF below) so there will be big-picture will benefits.
Introduction to Lean Six Sigma: Important Implementation Aspects Read More »
An enhanced Design for Six Sigma approach integrates DFSS techniques within an overall business management system. This enrichment for DFSS is accomplished through the Integrated Enterprise Excellence (IEE) methodology.
Enhanced Design for Six Sigma Approach Read More »
This described predictive reporting technique overcomes issues that occur with the traditional Six Sigma metrics of sigma quality level and process capability indices (e.g., Cp , Cpk, Pp, and Ppk). The provided 30,000-foot-level report-out template provides a process stability assessment and a futuristic statement for stable processes in words that are easy to understand —
Enhancement to Six Sigma Metrics Read More »
The benefits of an organizational lean Six Sigma Implementation is enhanced through an Integrated Enterprise Excellence (IEE) deployment of this process improvement methodology.
Benefits of Lean Six Sigma: An Enhanced Approach for Bottom-line Success Read More »
