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.
A lean Six Sigma improvement project needs to following a DMAIC roadmap so that the best lean or Six Sigma tools are used at appropriate times. A consistent define-measure-analyze-improve-control (DMAIC) roadmap is also needed so that the same approach (with all its execution details) for executing improvement projects is used across the organization.
Lean Six Sigma Improvement Project and its Benefits Read More »
The following lean six sigma cost savings case study example can provide some thoughts relative to cost practices for lean Six Sigma improvement projects. One of my past students called this week with help estimating the savings for a project that reduced the number of re-runs of a test protocol. The retests were due to
Lean Six Sigma Cost Savings Case Study Example Read More »
Described are items that should be considered when re introducing Lean Six Sigma methodology (LSS methodology) into an organization; however what is described would also apply to the initial adoption of LSS practices into a company that has existing Black Belt-trained employees that could be involved in the LSS deployment.
Re Introducing Lean Six Sigma Methodology Into A Business: Lessons Learned Read More »
How to do lean Six Sigma is a question that is often asked. Described are what might be considered traditional lean Six Sigma best practices.
How to do Lean Six Sigma Read More »
How to determine lean Six Sigma project benefits? Should benefits only be reflected in the financials or should other aspects be considered?
Lean Six Sigma Project Benefits: Business Impact Read More »
Use of lean six sigma training catapult in classroom sessions has many benefits, including hands-on experience to improve a process response; i.e., projection shots of the catapult.
Using a catapult in lean six sigma training (optimization) Read More »
You may hear that Lean Six Sigma is only for the improvement of existing processes. That is not true, it is more versatile, but you may not realize it. Design for Six Sigma is a requested class by many organizations because they think it is needed to work on any design or research project. You should know that you can work on these processes without taking any additional classes and be successful. In this webinar we will provide examples of how to re-order the project road map tool sequence in order to use the standard Lean Six Sigma tools to improve design processes and products. Most Lean Six Sigma practitioners do not realize how to apply their tools outside of a typical project to help their organization, and this is a big way to help.
Measure of effectiveness lean Six Sigma deployment is a metric that should interest leadership since they have invested in the program. The question is how to best provide this information.
Measure of Effectiveness of Lean Six Sigma Deployment Read More »
Organizations in a lean Six Sigma deployment often work at prioritizing Six Sigma projects from a pipeline list of potential undertakings; however, should there be other considerations?
Considerations when Prioritizing Six Sigma Projects within an Organization Read More »
When selecting a Six Sigma or a lean Six Sigma certification program, several questions need to be addressed. In addition to the following discussion, the recorded webinar link below addresses many of these questions. This webinar is titled “A Mini Kaizen Event – Selecting a Provider: Not All Black Belt Training is Created Equal”. Focus
