LEAN SIX SIGMA

Lean Six Sigma is a structured, data-driven approach to improve efficiency, customer satisfaction, productivity, and profits.

Both Lean and Six Sigma aims at eliminating the redundant i.e., the waste from the organisation and improve the productivity. However, both the processes see the root cause of the ‘waste’ differently. Though these two are interchangeable in many aspects, Lean is more about considering waste as the increased number of steps, processes, features that a customer might feel not worthy to deserve their money, whereas Six Sigma holds the results from process variation.

Lean Six Sigma training is a method that recognizes the role of every stakeholder i.e., a collaborative team effort to improve performance by systematically removing waste and reducing variation. It combines lean manufacturing/lean enterprise and Six Sigma to eliminate the eight kinds of waste (muda):

Defects
Over-Production
Waiting
Non-Utilized Talent
Transportation
Inventory
Motion
Extra-Processing

LEAN VS SIX SIGMA

Lean Six Sigma is a synergized managerial concept of Lean and Six Sigma. Lean traditionally focuses on the elimination of the eight kinds of waste/Muda classified as defects, over-production, waiting, non-utilized talent, transportation, inventory, motion, and extra-processing. Six Sigma seeks to improve the quality of process outputs by identifying and removing the causes of defects (errors) and minimizing variability in (manufacturing and business) processes.

Synergistically, Lean aims to achieve continuous flow by tightening the linkages between process steps while Six Sigma focuses on reducing process variation (in all its forms) for the process steps thereby enabling a tightening of those linkages. In short, Lean exposes sources of process variation and Six Sigma aims to reduce that variation enabling a virtuous cycle of iterative improvements towards the goal of continuous flow.

DMAIC PHASE

DMAIC is the phase applied in Lean Six Sigma. It compromises aspects of Lean’s waste elimination and Six Sigma’s agenda of reducing defects, based on quality improvements.

The DMAIC toolkit of Lean Six Sigma training comprises all the Lean and Six Sigma tools. The training for Lean Six Sigma is provided through the belt based training system similar to that of Six Sigma. The belt personnel is designated as white belts, yellow belts, green belts, black belts and master black belts, similar to judo.

5 KEY PRINCIPLES OF LEAN SIX SIGMA

Focus on the Customer: The main objective is to benefit the consumer as much as possible. To do this, a company must comprehend its clientele—their wants, needs, and factors influencing loyalty or sales.
Analyse the Value Stream to Discover Issue: Establish standardized data collection methods and have goals for data collection that are specified, including the data to be collected, the reason for the data collection, the expected insights, and the assurance of measurement accuracy.
Eliminate the clutter: Process operations that don’t increase the value to the consumer should be eliminated. Tools help find the outliers and problem areas if the value stream cannot indicate where the issue is.
Involve all stakeholders: Six Sigma procedures can significantly impact a business, so the team must be knowledgeable about the guiding principles and methodologies. As a result, to lower the risk of project or re-design failures and guarantee that the process operates at peak efficiency, specialist training and knowledge are needed.
Ensure an adaptable and responsive ecosystem: When a flawed or ineffective process is eliminated, it necessitates a shift in work procedures and employee behavior. A strong culture of adaptability and responsiveness to protocol adjustments helps guarantee efficient project execution.

METHODS TO APPLY LEAN SIX SIGMA

Applying Lean Six Sigma to your continuous process improvement initiatives follows five simple steps:

Definition: Define the issue from the viewpoints of the company, the stakeholders, and the customers. Determine the level of the problem and the quality expectations that customers have.

Measurement:

Analyse the existing procedure and how it adds to the issue.
Check to see if the system can satisfy the clients’ previously stated quality requirements.
Match each step of the process to your quality standards.
Provide actual performance statistics to back up your measurements.

Analysis: To determine the precise nature of the issue, its extent, and its cause, review all the information obtained until now.

Improve:

Fix the issue, then check the improvement.
Work together to design a fix that eliminates the issue’s root cause.
Use your data to ensure the answer is appropriate for the current problem.
Analyze the solution’s performance to support it and test it.

Control:

Track progress and make further improvements as needed.
Establish final performance standards.
Create a strategy that can adapt to new situations, maintain gains, and stop the initial issue from recurring.

BENEFITS OF LEAN SIX SIGMA

Businesses may enhance the work experience for employees and the customer experience for customers by making key procedures more efficient. Both inside and outside of a corporation, this can increase loyalty.
Streamlined and made simpler processes can give an organization more control and make it easier to seize new possibilities.
They may also result in increased income and sales, decreased expenses, and better company outcomes.
Participating in a team project or company-wide efficiency drive can help employees develop new skills (including project management and analytical thinking), increase their career advancement possibilities, and foster camaraderie.
Companies save time, money, and labor by preventing faults rather than having to find and fix them later.
Employees, clients, suppliers, and the corporation all gain from the business process.

WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN LEAN SIX SIGMA AND SIX SIGMA?

Lean Six Sigma and Six Sigma are methods for resolving issues with processes. Both can assist businesses in examining their operations to find ways to increase quality, efficiency, and time usage. Both employ the phases/method of DMAIC. Both strategies center on developing a culture of problem-solving at work. Lean Six Sigma aims to enhance workflow and add more value for customers by decreasing or eliminating faults and the wasteful use of resources. On the other hand, Six Sigma concentrates on lowering errors and process variability to raise process output and quality to satisfy client expectations. Lean Six Sigma improves process flow, maintains continuous improvement, and helps organizations achieve their goals by combining elements of Six Sigma (such as data analysis) and elements of the Lean methodology.