Making smart choices about lean Six Sigma applications

There are four major approaches for organisation wide improvement efforts that fall under the label “lean Six Sigma,”
as evidenced by current practices at many industrial organisations, service organisations and consulting firms:

1. Traditional Six Sigma (TSS)
2. Lean Six Sigma plus (LSS+)
3. Lean Six Sigma light (LSSL)
4. Traditional lean (TL)

Each has its own strengths, but how do you determine which deployment model to use?

The first thing you need to understand is what a typical lean Six Sigma deployment involves. There are many permutations that have been practiced, but they all involve these four high level steps:

1. As a result of the strategic planning exercise, organisational gaps are typically identified. If the gaps and associated potential financial gains reside primarily in operations oriented functions, then the leadership team likely will opt to deploy lean Six Sigma.

2. The leadership team will set financial targets for the corporation and cascade the financial targets down to the business units so each business unit, function and department will have its own financial target.

3. Middle management will determine the resources required to
achieve the local financial targets, for example, in terms of number of lean Six Sigma belts and the number of projects.

4. The lean Six Sigma Champions will employ a structured process to identify potential lean Six Sigma projects, rank
them, select the best projects based on return on investment, organize the required resources and support, and launch the projects.

5. The Champions and Master Black Belts (MBB) will assist Black Belts (BB) and Green Belts (GB) to carry out their projects by managing them using the define, measure, analyze, improve and control (DMAIC) improvement strategy, which can be based on the LSS+ or LSSL model.

6. As a natural course of events, the organisation initially will gravitate toward easy, high return projects, which most people refer to as the low hanging fruit (LHF) projects. As time passes and LHF projects are completed, several things happen. Projects start to take longer because they are more complex relative to the initial projects. Project savings begin to decline relative to the initial projects because the higher return projects have already been completed. Project failure rates begin to rise along with the complexity of the projects.

Problematic perceptions

The cumulative results of lean Six Sigma deployment are directly proportional to the size of the LHF projects in the organisation before it started the lean Six Sigma deployment. Many of the early adopters of Six Sigma and lean Six Sigma in the mid 1990s had abundant opportunities in the organisation and therefore saw huge financial returns. It is perhaps natural for management to expect a very successful deployment of lean Six Sigma based on what other companies have done.

Many of the early adopters, however, pursued lean Six Sigma deployment vigorously for no other reason than because they had such abundant opportunities. Many of the organisations just starting lean Six Sigma deployments today perhaps do not suffer from the same acute need as their predecessors. This means that forecasts of monumental savings based on the early adopters’ results might prove to be less than accurate. This also means that as an organisation begins lean Six Sigma deployment, it will use up LHF projects faster and, in turn, see reduced savings per project sooner. Perhaps some uninformed managers then will begin to question the merits of the lean Six Sigma deployment.

When an organisation has reaped the benefits of LHF projects and even the more difficult, high priority projects, what remains are projects that are generally smaller in scope and require only simple tools to be executed to realize certain levels of improvement. As a result, there’s a natural tendency for some lean Six Sigma managers to gravitate toward simpler tools and methods to be used in the DMAIC process when projects start to become simpler.

The problem is that this mentality seems to appeal to some leadership teams and managers who simply don’t want to build a strong lean Six Sigma competency in the organisation. The perception seems to be that simple, non quantitative lean tools are sufficient and that more rigorous statistical tools traditionally components of Six Sigma are not necessary. As you would expect, the consulting industry will follow a client’s desire, and we now have multiple organisations pushing that LSSL model.

A problem becoming more apparent is that teams and deployment managers seem to think they can skip the core Six Sigma tools and proceed to focus exclusively on lean tools. This means only certain types of problems can be thoroughly addressed, and any problem that does not directly pertain to the flow of materials, information or transactions will simply be addressed via guesswork.

Potential solutions

The first thing to do to resolve some of the issues mentioned is to recognize that every lean Six Sigma deployment follows a similar lifecycle. In the early stages, more resources are expended, LHF projects are addressed, and return on investment
should be proportionately high.

For most organisations, LHF projects will become very difficult to find after 24 months or so, and the average savings
per project will be cut by a factor of four. While this could cause a leadership team to think lean Six Sigma has run its course and a method change is warranted, perhaps there is a more mature viewpoint.

At that time, a prudent leadership team will do four things: expand the GB effort, implement design for Six Sigma (DFSS), implement structured improvement in markting and expand lean Six Sigma into non operations business functions. Expand the GB effort: It is perfectly acceptable for an organisation to decide to focus on simpler lean tools as a lean Six Sigma deployment matures.

This allows people to use methods that are appropriate for common issues such as cycle time, substandard work procedures or inefficiencies due to process design. As project opportunities become scarce, what some organisations have
done very successfully, however, is convert existing BBs to coaches for GBs. The operative thought here is that many smaller projects can yield significant savings when fewer big projects are possible. The GBs are individuals who generally receive eight days of training in LSS+ tools and methods, but they will remain in their jobs and focus on lean Six Sigma improvement only on a part time basis. This means that many more GBs can be trained, and improvement can branch out into all areas of the organisation while using BBs as project facilitators and coaches on technical methods.

Implement DFSS: By definition, the DMAIC process is an inherently reactive problem solving process. We identify an
opportunity for improvement (because it exists), define the problem and assign resources to correct the issue. You then might argue that it is inherently obvious that an organisation should shift some of its BB resources to more proactive pursuits when the lean Six Sigma results become more difficult to obtain.

DFSS is meant to be a method that can be plugged into any existing design process; it does not replace the design process. Having MBBs and BBs who can play leadership roles in the use of quantitative tools, probabilistic design or statistical tolerancing, for example, is critical to the prevention of problems in the design of new products and processes.

Implement structured improvement in marketing: For many organisations, the marketing function is carried out based on qualitative guesswork more than quantitative research. Having core competencies in statistical analysis can greatly bolster an organisation’s ability to define new markets, define market segments, better position products and confirm market performance. Core Six Sigma skills can then be leveraged to support structured improvement in marketing where customer, market and product research would be the main objectives rather than cutting expenses using the DMAIC method.

Expand lean Six Sigma to nonoperations business functions: DFSS deployment is one example of leveraging lean Six Sigma principles outside of operations. It only makes sense to try to accomplish the same thing in marketing supply chain, administration and support functions. The lean Six Sigma DMAIC process will be more applicable in supply chain, administration and support, but the quantitative tools and methods involved in LSS+ can make significant improvements in marketing research, product planning and portfolio management.

As a result of the deployment of the LSS+ model, we have seen exceptional financial and operational improvement from
many organisations since the late 1980s. As LHF opportunities have become more scarce, there is a tendency to question the utility and effectiveness of the LSS+ model and more toward the LSSL model.

While simpler tools that focus on cycle time and flow problems are certainly warranted, they cannot be the only means by which organisations improve. Perhaps a balanced approach that includes the TL model, GB deployment, DFSS deployment, marketing improvement and expansion of improvement activities outside of operations is a better way to move forward.

Author Biography

DOUGLAS P. MADER is the CEO of SigmaPro Inc., a consulting firm in Fort Collins, CO, that specializes in deployment of lean Six Sigma and design for Six Sigma. Mader earned a doctorate in mechanical/industrial engineering from Colorado State University and is a senior member of ASQ and the Institute for Industrial Engineers.

Lean Six Sigma is a powerful method for improving existing products, processes and services. Six Sigma was developed by Motorola in 1987. Motorola’s Six Sigma yielded significant financial results and became popular with many other companies, even though Six Sigma was practiced without the benefit of the define, measure, analyze, improve and control (DMAIC) strategy, Black Belts (BBs), or a defined project selection process.

In the mid-1990s, consultants introduced the method to Allied Signal and General Electric (GE), tying improvement to bottom-line financial performance. GE and other organizations refined the Six Sigma method and focused on identifying and selecting key projects, as well as adapting operations-based Six Sigma to service and transactional processes. One way to improve the deployment of lean Six Sigma is to improve how lean Six Sigma projects are identified and selected. The typical approach to lean Six Sigma project identification and selection is heavy on selection techniques but light on identification techniques. There are four prerequisites to a
well executed lean Six Sigma project identification and selection process.

Prerequisite One: Understand The Strategic Plan

The first step in understanding how to identify and select lean Six Sigma projects is to ensure you are completely familiar with your organization’s strategic plan. A typical strategic planning process will involve the following steps:

• Planning to plan: Create a roadmap to accomplish the strategic plan.
• Values scan: Assess the interests of the stakeholders
• Mission formulation: Use the stakeholders’ input to formulate a mission statement.
• Business modeling: Create a viable business model, including cultural considerations and funding related to the restructuring or divestiture of existing business lines, as well as the addition of new business lines.
• Performance audit: Perform an assessment of the organization in terms of capabilities and financial strength. Success is often based on completing four prerequisites.
• Gap analysis: Compare the current performance with the desired state to create a list of gaps.
• Integrating action plans: Create and implement a detailed plan to accomplish the strategies of the organization and close any gaps.
• Contingency planning: Develop contingency plans to account for potential market changes, competitive pressures and other scenarios that might affect the strategic plan and the organization’s ability to execute it.
• Implementation: Deploy the plan throughout the organization via cascaded goals, quantifiable performance measures and clearly identified owners and timeframes. As part of action planning, organizations should launch strategic thrusts to close perceived gaps. Typically, strategic thrusts are initiatives with clear charters and budgets, led by senior executives and involve clear account-
  ability. Strategic thrusts might be broad or specific, depending on the perceived gaps. Lean Six Sigma, Six Sigma, design for Six Sigma and their various permutations are all strategic thrusts.

Prerequisite Two: Align, Improve Efforts With Strategy

The second step is to understand how improvement activities should be aligned with the action plans found in the strategic plan. As part of business modeling in the strategic planning step, an analysis likely will have identified where the line of business (LOB) falls with respect to market growth and competitive position. The intent is to determine an effective strategy for a particular LOB based on the rate of market growth and the competitive position for the LOB. For example, if a particular LOB has a strong competitive position in a fast growing market, the management team for the LOB might emphasize product development over operations
improvement. On the other hand, a particular LOB with a weak competitive position in a slow market might require extensive focus on improving the cost structure through lean Six Sigma. For other scenarios, the improvement strategy should be suited to the optimization of each specific LOB relative to its strategic goals.

Prerequisite Three: Understand The Policy Deployment System

The third step is to integrate the action plans into the policy deployment system. Policy deployment is a general reference to goal based plans cascaded throughout the various levels of the organization. Hoshin planning, management by objective and
other terms are varied implementations of policy deployment. Successful implementation of policy deployment involves:

• Setting high-level goals, targets, timeframes and owners based on the action plans from the strategic plan.
• Setting functional and departmental goals, targets, timeframes and owners based on cascading the high-level goals to the local level.
• Integrating the local goals into performance plans for individuals and teams.
• Doing regular performance reviews for high-level and local goal achievement.
• Integrating performance to goals in the bonus structure for management.

Prerequisite Four: Understand Core Business Processes

Every organization operates in some form as a system that converts inputs (transactions, information or raw materials) into outputs desired by customers (a product or service). The organization will attempt to define processes to create the desired out-
come for customers and ostensibly document those processes. To clarify how to look at process performance for opportunities for improvement, the following terms apply:

• Level one (L1) process: A core business process that corresponds to a business function and has accounting traceability.
• Level two (L2) process: A subprocess of an L1 process that involves a distinctly related sequence of process steps.
• Work steps: A logical work unit of an L2 process that involves a sequence of work tasks and is performed by a person or a small team.
• Figure 1 shows an example of the use of the terms. The typical approach to identifying opportunities for improvement is to first understand what the key L1 processes are within the organization.

Then the key L1 processes will be broken down so key L2 processes can be identified. A typical lean Six Sigma
project then will address a sequence of work steps within one or more L2 processes. Project Identification and Selection Process
Champions, Master Black Belts (MBBs) and Black Belts can and should follow a structured method for identifying, prioritizing and selecting lean Six Sigma projects. Initially, the responsibility of a Champion in the project identification and selection process is to assist a trained MBB to execute the following steps:

• Review the strategic plan.
• Understand the high-level goals and targets for the organization.
• Compare desired performance with actual performance for the organization.
• Understand the local or depart mental goals and targets for all business functions.
• Compare the desired performance with the actual performance for each business function.
• Identify key L1 processes based on risk/return/goal analysis.
• Understand key L2 processes based on risk/return/goal analysis.
• Brainstorm all potential improvement opportunities.
• Rank and prioritize all potential improvement opportunities based on risk/return/goals.
• Communicate the results of the ranking activity and seek consensus.
• Launch lean Six Sigma projects based on the priorities. After becoming familiar with the process, the Champion is expected to lead these steps for the organization on a regular basis. Champion’s Role Is Integral. The role of a lean Six Sigma Cham-
  pion is varied and diverse depending on the size of the organization and the scope of the lean Six Sigma deployment. The DMAIC method does not come without the risk of failure, but it is a very successful and proven approach to solving problems and optimizing process performance. The success of lean Six Sigma projects often hinges on the Champion’s ability to resolve organizational issues and manage risks to the project, including:
• Funding
• Time.
• Staffing.
• Customer relations
• Project size and complexity
• Overall structure 
• External factors
• Dependencies among projects

Most of these risks can be addressedand possibly alleviated—by having a well-run project identification process,
communicating the priorities of the organization, communicating the potential lean Six Sigma projects, and building consensus among the key stakeholders

Champion responsibilities do not end after projects have been selected. The Champion is also responsible for ensuring that each lean Six Sigma project has a solid plan, buy-in for the required resources, and effective management. The Champion is also responsible for running effective project reviews at the end of each phase of the DMAIC process. Project reviews should not only look back at preceding activities, but also look ahead for the successful execution of upcoming phases. A well-trained MBB should assist the
Champion before and during the project reviews. The BB will be well versed in the technical tools, but it is the responsibility of the Champion to enable sufficient resources and remove organizational roadblocks that might stall the project.

Author Bigraphy

DOUGLAS P. MADER is an international speaker, seminar leader and certified master instructor for Six Sigma and design for Six Sigma. He is the founder and president of SigmaPro Inc., a consulting firm in Fort Collins, CO, that specializes in integrated deployment of Six Sigma, design for Six Sigma and lean systems. Mader earned a doctorate in mechanical engineering from Colorado State University and is a senior member of ASQ and the Institute for Industrial Engineers.

There is usually no shortage of projects to work on in an organisation, in fact there are nearly always too many. However these can be conflicting in both objectives and resources used to carry out these projects.

For example a sales department may be under pressure to convert more business through its sales pipeline, whereas the operations department is struggling to cope with the variety of work. The two departments are not strategically aligned thus creating tension in the business.

So how do you choose the right projects to spend your valuable time and resources on? This article seeks to lay down some general guidelines when selecting Six Sigma projects.

All too often projects are selected based on the immediate pressing need of the organisation - a reactive strategy. This generally deteriorates into a fire fighting downward spiral with most of the time spent sorting out problems and very little time spent managing the strategic direction of the business.

In the same way that strategy should and must drive the selection of projects and programs in an organisation’s portfolio, Six Sigma projects must also be derived from organisational strategy.

Identifying Projects for a Strategic Plan

So, what ways are there to identify projects to set within a strategic plan? The Six Sigma toolbox provides a number of methods such as:

• Value Stream Mapping
• CTS Flow Down
• Cost of Quality

Value Stream Mapping

Value Stream Mapping, or VSM as it is called, when carried out at the enterprise level will help an organisation identify critical areas within the organisation that do not flow, occupy too many resources or take too long to complete. A value stream is any flow of material, information or ideas through an organisation to meet a customer’s need.

This current state map can then be converted into a future state map by redesigning the process to reflect what the organisation really wants it to be. The gap between current state and future state then becomes a series of projects to deploy through the organisation for resolution.

VSM is an extremely powerful technique when undertaken correctly and serves to align projects across departments to meet the needs of the value stream and therefore the customer.

CTS Flow Down

CTS is an acronym for Critical To Satisfaction and asks the question what is critical to the satisfaction of the customer, internal or external? CTS can be broken down in to areas such as quality, cost and delivery and is usually carried out in a cascaded organogram style format.

Identifying what is critical to customer satisfaction can be achieved through a number of, what is called, VOC or Voice Of Customer techniques such as focus groups or customer journey methods. Strategies can then be put in place to satisfy the customers’ requirements.

Cost Of Quality

Cost of quality refers to identifying the cost to the organisation of the wider cost of poor quality delivered to the customer. It not only takes into account the obvious costs such as scrap, overtime, rework and returns but also the less visible costs such as lost sales, additional administration, lost customer loyalty etc. The cost of quality can be as high as 40% of total costs. Identifying and prioritising these costs can lead to clear strategic goals for an organisation.

Selecting Six Sigma Projects

Given a number of projects identified within the strategic plan, how do the drivers that are at work in an organisation result in some projects being Six Sigma projects, and others not?

There are three types of metrics that influence project type or the approach.

• Business Metrics - typically measure financial performance aspects
• Operations metrics - measure various aspects of the operations for the enterprise at a macro level
• Process Metrics - provide detailed information about the processes employed in the day to day operations

All of these metrics support one another, and ultimately the organisational strategy. But Six Sigma uniquely supports the detailed process level activities, and thus any projects that will ultimately be measured by process metrics are candidates for Six Sigma projects.

A number of criteria can be used to select Six Sigma projects:

• A project should have identifiable process inputs and outputs.
• A good project should never have a pre-determined solution. If you already know the answer, then just go fix it!
• For projects that have operator or operator training as an input, focus on ways to reduce operator variation, thereby making your process more robust to different or untrained operators.
• All projects need to be approached from the perspective of understanding the variation in process inputs, controlling them, and eliminating the defects.

Prioritising projects can be based on financial benefit to the organisation, required timescales, resources available or other business needs.

To avoid the business damaging fire fighting spiral, projects must be selected from within a strategic framework and deployed throughout the organisation.

Techniques such as Value Stream Mapping, Critical To Satisfaction and Cost Of Quality techniques may be used to turn customer needs and requirements into discrete measurable goals. Projects can then be organised to achieve the goals identified within the strategic plan. The use of Six Sigma is especially effective where achievement of improved process metrics is the goal.

SigmaPro work with all kinds of organisations to identify, select and run Six Sigma projects and support the alignment of projects to a strategic deployment process. Call us now for help in organising and managing your business critical projects.

So what we can we do to ensure we get the support we need?

The tool set we use to obtain support in Six Sigma is called ‘Stakeholder Analysis’, and it consists of five simple steps:

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1. Identify project stakeholders (individuals or groups)
2. Define the current level of support & influence for each stakeholder or group
3. Determine the desired level of support needed for the influential stakeholders or groups
4. Define an influencing strategy to deliver and sustain the necessary stakeholder support
5. Create action and communications plans

Lets go through these steps in a little detail:

1. Identify project stakeholders (individuals or groups):

Stakeholders are individuals or groups who have some ‘stake’ in your project, usually having some influence over it, or being influenced by it. When uncovering who they are it is useful to consider those in your team (including Champion and Process Owner); those in the process you are working on; general management and the wider environment

2. Define the current level of support & influence for each stakeholder:

It is useful to put these on a stakeholder map like the one below where the position of the blob shows the level of support and the size of the blob represents the level of influence

3. Determine the desired level of support needed for the influential stakeholders:

Now it is neither possible nor necessary to get all stakeholders o a hundred percent support but you may need to move the more influential ones in a positive direction. You can easily show this by means of arrows on the diagram. Be realistic about what you need – and be certain to work to achieve it.

4. Define an influencing strategy to deliver and sustain the necessary stakeholder support

Next you need to decide how you are going to create this positive movement. There are many tools you can use (far too many to cover in such a short article) but one of my favourites is called the ‘3Ds’. The first D stands for ‘Data’. In other words seek to use data to convince the stakeholders of the importance of your project and why they need to support it. The second D stands for ‘Demonstrate’. Here you seek to demonstrate how Six Sigma has led to improvements elsewhere and you use this as an argument to gain support. The last D stands for ‘Demand’. If all else fails then get someone in authority to twist their arm a little.

5. Create action and communications plans:

When creating your communication plan remember that the messenger and medium are just as important as the message, and that it is good to use informal as well as formal methods of communication.

The stakeholder tool set is simple to take in intellectually but difficult to master in reality and it is next to useless if it used as an intellectual exercise only: resulting in little or no concrete action. I can’t tell you how many excellent communication plans I have seen that were never properly actioned. So make sure the Stakeholder Analysis is always followed up with a solid action plan.

And don’t forget that communication must be two way. The tools are designed to create a dialogue. You want to have that difficult discussion, and if you can’t win the argument then perhaps you have the wrong project!

We have seen that obtaining organisational support for a Six Sigma project is one of the major success factors, and we have discussed the tool Six Sigma Black Belts usually use to achieve it – Stakeholder Analysis.

Good luck with your project and make sure you don’t overlook the softer tools in the tool box. They are just as important as the data ones.

Author Biography

Mike Titchen

Mike is a highly experienced MBB and has worked in both manufacturing and financial services industries. Mike joined SigmaPro as a Master Black Belt and lead trainer in 2006. His consulting and training experience has involved the development and delivery of training materials for six sigma programmes for several high profile clients, and Mike has helped clients deliver improvement savings totaling over £5M.

Before he joined SigmaPro, he has implemented and has been responsible for Six Sigma with Norwich Union, Textron and General Electric. Mike has an MBA and a BA (Arts), and away from work he enjoys golf, tennis, snooker and listening to music.

Once you’ve made the decision to deploy Lean Six Sigma you then need to plan the deployment to make sure it succeeds.  A deployment is a big undertaking for an organisation and usually involves significant investment of energy, commitment and funding, and so you need to make sure every aspect  is covered, every eventually foreseen.  Many companies have been through the deployment scenario – and some have got the scars to show for it! What can we learn from previous deployments? Is there template for success?
Preparing the soil:

Before you get into detailed planning you need to ensure the organisation is ready for Lean Six Sigma. This means more than a half hearted ‘If that’s what you want to do then that’s OK’ from the boss. You need to ensure that you have achieved the following:

• Obtained executive commitment for the business case
• Appointed an Executive Champion for the programme
• Positioned the initiative as consistent with existing programmes
• Agreed the programme’s objectives
• Decided upon the infrastructure required to support the programme: black belts, green belts numbers, budgets, compensation, IT, communication, finance etc.

If possible it is good to get your Executives (or at least a selection of them) through some Lean Six Sigma Champion training, so they have some idea what they are letting themselves in for.

And then you are ready to create a high-level, and then a detailed, implementation plan – which includes risk analysis and contingency planning.

When creating the plan you need to consider:

• The Goals of the Deployment. Here you need to define and communicate a common vision and objective for the programme
• The Processes necessary for the Deployment. Here you need to consider how you will choose your belts, select and review projects etc
• The Organizational structure necessary to support the Deployment. Here you will consider things like who your BBs will report to.
• The People necessary for the Deployment. Here you will consider the training, motivation and  career planning for the belts
• The Rewards available for successful belts. Here you will consider how you will recognize success and learn from failure

Don’t forget to utilize the tried and tested planning tools such as Work Breakdown Structure (breaks down the deployment into logical groupings of tasks with time per task), Network/Dependencies Diagram (shows task dependencies), Critical Path (draws the longest duration path through the network diagram) and Gantt Chart (combines the above exercises on one page) when undertaking the detailed planning process.

We have seen the importance of sound planning for a successful Lean Six Sigma deployment. There may be no simple template for success, but we can certainly learn from the experience of other earlier deployments to increase our likelihood of success.

Focusing effort and resources to deliver maximum benefits to the organisation

Choosing the right six sigma projects is key to the success of an organization in terms of delivery of business objectives, business plan strategies and development opportunities for the workforce.
However, there is a cost associated to running six sigma projects that isn’t always captured or even considered when an organization embarks on six sigma.
Choosing the right projects is crucial to the credibility of six sigma and its’ ability to live within the bounds of its’ own philosophies by being efficient and cost effective with the resources it employs.

Any organization embarking on a strategy that includes Six Sigma as it’s methodology for improvement should ask itself one question, “What do I want to improve within my business”.

This might seem like a straight forward question but for many businesses, the answer to this question can determine whether Six Sigma is going to be successful or fall by the wayside like some other improvement initiatives. To understand the requirement and deliverables for Six Sigma the organization should listen to TWO VOICES.

1) Voice of the Customer (VOC)

This is the more powerful of the two voices in question as customers are the reason why we are in business. Many projects are initiated as a response to a particular customer requirement or complaint.

2) Voice of the Business (VOB)

Although not as powerful as the Voice of The Customer, projects or initiatives that are initiated from within the business tend to start from either a need to improve efficiency, reduce cost or ultimately to respond to a historical customer requirement or problem.

Where both of these two voices meet is through the link to the direct outputs of the process. The outputs of any process are produced to satisfy a requirement. If the output is to an external customer then it should satisfy the Voice of the Customer. If the output is to an internal customer, then it should satisfy the Voice of the Business.

In understanding the requirements from these two voices, we have clear direction on the types of projects we should be delivering within the organization within which we work.

The vast majority of Six Sigma Projects, particularly when talking about

DMAIC Six Sigma projects will fall into one of the following three categories.

1) Cost Saving

Where the case for the project is focused around reducing bottom line costs within the business, that are directly attributable to Profit and Loss account cost indicators.

2) Efficiency Improvement

The case for this type of project is based around process improvement, linked to either cycle time improvement (achieved through the use of Lean Sigma tools and techniques) or reductions in process variation (achieved through the use of DMAIC six Sigma) which ultimately lead to increased right first time yield

3) Revenue / Sales Growth

The case for these projects is focused around significant shifts in sales growth based on improving product and service to the customer.

Any project selected should look to improve the performance of the process or processes under investigation against at least one of the above performance indicators. The ultimate test of a project is in its ability to deliver benefits in all 3 areas. Ensuring that the benefits achieved satisfy all 3 performance indicators will inevitably lead huge benefits for the organization.

Any sustainable six sigma initiative relies upon a steady flow of projects to Six Sigma Black Belts. A list of initial project ideas should be collected either from within the business, or from the senior management team to resolve particular business issues. These projects should then be reviewed against criteria set by the business to give a prioritised list of projects.

Project teams should be clearly tasked with a realistic benefits target at the outset of the project. This benefits target should look to satisfy or fulfill one or more specific business objectives and should be measurable against one or more of the performance indicators identified above. The reality of this benefits target can then be confirmed once data around the baseline performance has been obtained.

Selection of six sigma projects relies upon a clear understanding of the business objectives, a management team that supports the assignment of internal resources to deliver the projects, and more importantly than anything else, a clearly defined business case and benefits statement that details the objectives of the project in terms of deliverables.

Projects teams are a hidden cost to the business so it is vital that the solutions generated by these teams have real impact that is tangible and highly visible. The benefits achieved by these projects should more than cover the cost of any six sigma resources within the first year, with exponential increases in benefits over the forthcoming years.

If you wish to find out more about how to select the right six sigma projects, or would like more information on Lean Six Sigma and the DMAIC methodology, then please contact SigmaPro.

Many companies struggle to get good traction with their Lean Six Sigma deployments. They spend time training Six Sigma Green Belts and Six Sigma Black Belts and launch an initial set of projects only to find that very few of the projects actually get completed, and that even fewer are able to create truly sustainable benefits. Why is this and how can it be prevented?

The main reason for these issues of traction is that those responsible for the deployment (or perhaps the General Leadership within the Company) fail to take account of the fact that introducing Lean Six Sigma is a major change for a Company, and that to be successful Change Management techniques need to be employed.

Jack Welch, who introduced Lean Six Sigma into General Electric (GE), was well aware of this fact and utilized a GE programme called ‘Change Acceleration Process’, or CAP for short, to manage the Change Management side of the deployment.

One of the key concepts of CAP is the E=Q*A equation, where ‘E’ stands for ‘The effectiveness of any change programme’, ‘Q’ stands for the ‘Technical Quality’ of the programme, and ‘A’ stands for the ‘Organisational Acceptance’ of the programme.

Now imagine we were to mark both the ‘Q’ side and the ‘A’ side of a deployment with scores ranging between 1 and 10. Since the overall effectiveness of the programme ‘E’ is the product of both ‘Q’ and ‘A’, then it is clear that we need to get good scores for both to be truly effective (a score of at least 60), and obtain the traction required to achieve a sustainable Lean Six Sigma programme.

Most of us in the Lean Six Sigma community, being the type of people that we are, will ensure that the ‘Technical Quality’ of our Lean Six Sigma training is high. This can be achieved by utilizing a recognized deployment model from a selection of the well known consultancy companies, and so we should easily obtain an 8 or more score for the ‘Q’ side of the equation. How many of us could put our hand on our hearts and say, however, that we deserve such a high score for the ‘A’ side of the equation? Thus if we can only truly deserve a 2 or 3 for ‘Organisational Acceptance’ then it is not surprising that we struggle to get traction (as the equation would predict -  8*3=24).

Some organizations don’t help the Belts with really good Six Sigma Champions and Process Owners, fail to free them up to spend the time they need on their projects, don’t ensure that the correct systems and structures are in place to support them, and then complain when the belts fail to deliver!

So important was Change Management to Jack Welch that he urged those engaged in change within his company to spend 50% of their time on ‘A’ side activities. Yes  - you did hear that right – 50%. Now GE’s CAP programme had a whole bunch of propriety tools to assist the change agents achieve a good ‘A’ score, but there are many other tool sets you can use.

One such model is known as the ‘Star Model’ of change:

 
Where:

Goals - define and communicate a common vision and objective for the programme

Process  - develop an implementation plan, tools, milestones, and determine how to measure results

Organisation  - implement an organizational structure to support people/skills as mapped to processes and goals

People  - training, motivation, career planning & communication

Rewards  - plans to recognize success and learn from failure
Such a model will help ensure you consider all the vital elements, but never underestimate the time and effort that will be required to ensure you obtain the high ‘A’ score vital for a successful deployment.
What if you are already within a deployment and suffering from a lack of traction? Well it’s never too late to start addressing the Organisational Acceptance element of a deployment. Take a sounding of the gripes of the Belts, the workers and the management and put a plan together to address the issues.

And remember that sending out a bunch of unsupported BB’s and GB’s into an environment that has not been property prepared is about as effective as sending the troops into ‘no mans land’ to face the machine guns. Always consider the need for ‘Change Management’ unless you’re happy to risk your Belts being shot down.

Despite Lean Six Sigma being around for over twenty years now, it is remarkable that a significant number of companies and individuals still don’t really know what it is. Oh, they’ve heard of it, and may even have been involved in it, but when it comes to defining it or reaping the huge benefits it can offer, then far too many are still in the dark.
A few of the frequently asked questions from students and companies regarding Lean Six Sigma and how to use it are rehearsed below, together with some answers to these questions.

What’s the difference between Lean Six Sigma and other problem solving methods?

There are any number of ways to solve problems, some work better than others, however.
The trial and error problem solving method, sadly still in use, is the equivalent of groping in the dark, with little or no data, little or no method and often little or no idea. The result, quite predictably is ‘little or no improvement’.

The ‘Just do it’ method, where the problem solver is encouraged to jump straight into process changes, can be effective if the problem and root cause are understood and the person doing it knows what they are doing but the method lacks rigour and repeatability.

More advanced methods such as CEDAC (Cause and Effect with the Addition of Cards) or 8D (Eight Disciplines) are more structured. These methodologies utilise simple and often subjective tools such as the Fishbone Diagrams and Pareto analysis, however, and lack statistical rigour. 8D for example is a useful method to employ when reacting to customer problems.

Lean Six Sigma uses the DMAIC process of Define, Measure, Analyse, Improve and Control to solve problems. The methodology is data centric with excellent tools that are more powerful because they offer statistical validity. They are sill easily learnt, however, if taught by seasoned professionals. Usually run as a project based strategic deployment or improvement method, Lean Six Sigma has proved to be an effective problem solving method with average savings, according to the DTI, of £150,000 per project.

I want to progress my career and wondered if training in Lean Six Sigma will help me?

In a word YES! The disciplined and structured approach combined with the tools and method of Lean Six Sigma are all highly effective and will help you to be more successful at solving problems and making improvements in your place of work. Typically, people who bring a Lean Six Sigma qualification to a job can command 10 to 15% higher salaries than an equivalent untrained applicant.

What’s the best way to identify projects for Lean Six Sigma?

The good thing about Lean Six Sigma is that there is a whole suite of tools to use to identify projects. An enterprise level Value Stream Map can be used to highlight projects in context to the whole company.
A Cost of Quality analysis usually identifies a host of projects to work on and techniques like Voice of Customer and Customer Journey will illuminate the customer’s perspective of what are the important projects to choose.

Undoubtedly though, the best way to identify projects is through a strategic deployment process, which takes in to account the external and internal customer perspective and aligns projects and goals to strategic objectives.

How do I keep my projects on track?

Well, the best way to keep projects on track, is to employ the age old adage of discipline. However a number of techniques, employed in Lean Six Sigma, can be useful to aid you in keeping projects on track.

It is important to spend time and effort upfront defining your Project Charter (a semi formal contract between the Belt and the Company detailing the problem to be solved and the resources required to solve it) and get buy-in from stakeholders. This can’t be emphasised too strongly. Poor planning and communication are the main reasons projects go wrong. The SigmaPro Lean Six Sigma tools will come in handy here.

Plan your activities and assign responsibilities, then meet regularly to review progress. The frequency of meetings will determine the pace of the project. Hold well structured meetings, here’s where the discipline comes in, and tackle delays and issues quickly to keep the project on track.

Treat your project as a process. Define it, choose KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) such as DMAIC stage reviews and monitor progress. A good way to do this is to have a ‘war room’ or notice board with project measures and progress easily accessible and simple to understand. Hold your meetings there, stood around your progress charts. This usually keeps meetings focused and short! And don’t forget - “what gets measured gets done!”

What is your favourite Lean Six Sigma tool?

Lean Six Sigma has such a wide variety of rich tools to choose from but if I were to pick a favourite it would be Regression Analysis. It is simple but extremely powerful.

A company once needed help to set up a Design Of Experiments trial and analyse the results to optimise the drying times of various sized components in an oven. There were 5 variables and each trial could take up to three hours to complete. Even using experiment reduction techniques the work to set-up and run the experiment would have taken over a month to complete with considerable disruption to production.
However, good quality data on the five variables had been taken over a period of time. It was a relatively simple task, taking less than a day, to run the data through a regression analysis and produce an algorithm describing the drying time as a function of these five variables.

The model proved to be highly accurate and simple to use. Needless to say the company was extremely pleased and enrolled several of their staff on a Lean Six Sigma course in order to have their own capability in-house.

Lean Six Sigma is an effective tool for improving business processes of all kinds. By adopting a grading system from Yellow Belt at the starter level, through Six Sigma Green Belt and Six Sigma Black Belt to Six Sigma Master Black Belt at the expert level, Lean Six Sigma can effectively engage a range of people with varying levels of ability and disciplines to make impressive improvements in any business.

If you would like to know more or find out how you can join one of our public or in-company training six sigma courses contact SigmaPro now.

Influencing people or organizations through the use of Lean Six Sigma employs different tools and techniques depending upon the organization, it’s continuous improvement maturity, and it’s appetite for change.

We’ll explore different ways of using some of the key techniques in the Lean Six Sigma Toolkit to both communicate the need for change and demonstrate change within an organization, through an evidence based approach that makes it impossible to argue against the benefits of Lean Six Sigma.

We shall explore the impact that this methodology and philosophy can have on an organisations’ culture, people, customer’s and ultimately profitability.

Many organizations have, at some time in their history, attempted initiatives to improve quality, increase productivity and reduce cost. Unfortunately, in many cases, quality, productivity and cost reduction are tackled as separate improvement initiatives, the result being a disjointed approach to improvement which is departmentally focused and doesn’t look at the organization as an overall “System”, delivering an output to the customer.

Lean Six Sigma is probably the best tool around for delivering benefits in terms of quality, productivity and cost. However, it’s success as a methodology is embedded in its interaction with 2 critical sets of stakeholders – the Customer and the organisation’s People.

Lean Six Sigma’s ability to engage people across all levels and all disciplines within an organization is based upon the involvement of both Customers and People in identifying issues requiring improvement and in developing solutions which should, in all cases, lead to an improvement for the customer.

The influential element of Lean Six Sigma is through the use of data from within an organization, whether this is customer information about performance, or internal indicators relating to Quality, Cost, Delivery and Productivity.

Many organisations who have a mature system for gathering performance data find that the information they collect doesn’t inform them about the performance of the process. Instead, the focus will more often than not be focused on customer lagging indicators (measures of outputs) which tell the organization how poor they are at delivering against their customer’s requirements.

Lean Six Sigma is very much focused upon the customer and the use of process performance data (Leading Indicators) to understand the variability within a process. When we understand the Variability within a process we have some measure of it’s Predictability.

Customers want stability; they want to know that the service they receive next time is going to be at least as good, if not better, than the service they received last time. Therefore, through gathering of the Voice of The Customer we can marry up the requirements of the customer to the quality of our processes and the resulting quality of the outputs of our processes.

If the focus for the business is to satisfy or delight the customer, then Lean Six Sigma is the perfect methodology to link Customers, People and Processes through the use of Project Teams.

When engaging people around the business on improvement initiatives it’s more important to tell them “WHY” you are doing something before telling them what you are doing. The “WHY” could be a need to reduce cost, something all businesses are looking to do in the current climate, improve quality which may result in winning new business or orders, or increase productivity due to increased demand.

People within an organization are far more likely to volunteer for involvement in Lean Six Sigma project teams if an organization is willing to fulfill some of the basic requirements of it’s people

1) They want their voice to be heard
2) They want to take responsibility for the solutions they develop
3) They want to be able to see things through to the end and see their ideas put into practice
4) They want to do the right thing and not waste time and effort on solutions that won’t deliver benefits.

All of the above can be fulfilled through effective project leadership, support from senior managers through project sponsorship and trust from the management team that people within the organization are best placed to improve the processes they work within on a daily basis.

Lean Six Sigma is very much an evidence based system and people are influenced positively when there is real evidence that the time, effort and energy they have put into a project has resulted in real, tangible benefits to the organization.

Lean Six Sigma uses data to measure the current or “As-Is” performance of the process or processes under analysis (the Baseline Performance).

Once a solution has been developed, a “To Be” process can be tested and it’s performance measured. A comparison can then be made between the “As-Is” and the “To Be” processes to identify the level of benefit achieved.

It is this systematic application of process measurement which has the biggest influence on people within an organization. Their natural position when a methodology like Lean Six Sigma is employed within an organization is to be skeptical about the ability of Lean Six Sigma to deliver real benefits to an organisation.

It is when these benefits are measured and are tangible benefits that demonstrate that something has “Changed” and has delivered real improvement that Lean Six Sigma gains credibility within an organisation.

It is then this credibility that ensures that the momentum of improvement is delivered through the people, who are now looking to get involved in projects to improve their own processes.

Lean Six Sigma isn’t just about processes, it’s more about the delivery of real value to an organisation’s customers and the culture of people involvement that sets Lean Six Sigma organizations apart from others.

Companies using Lean Six Sigma to deliver improvements find that the solutions developed are more sustainable, as the people who developed the solutions are the people who work in the process on a daily basis and as a result, have a vested interest in seeing the solutions become a success.

If you are a Senior Manager within an organisation and are looking for a way to significantly improve the performance of your business then look no further than Lean Six Sigma. It has no functional boundaries, a process is a process wherever you work and all processes have Variability.

If you want those significant improvements to be long term then Lean Six Sigma, with it’s use of the organisation’s people to develop solutions, will ensure that solutions stay implemented within the process.

If you are interested in learning more about Lean Six Sigma and how it can have a huge impact on your organisation, then please contact SigmaPro who will be glad to offer advise, support and six sigma training to deliver Lean Six Sigma within your organisation.

Author Biography

Company Director and Six Sigma Master Black Belt

Paul has over 20 years of experience within quality management and Continuous improvement. The majority of his career was spent within the automotive industry, working with companies such as Toyota, Honda, Nissan, Ford and Volkswagen, using methodologies and tools within Six Sigma to improve quality, delivery and service for customers while reducing costs and improving internal performance for the organizations he worked for. After the automotive sector Paul spent time within the Financial Services, FMCG and Food Industries applying Continuous Improvement techniques to improve performance. His most recent work has been with the Ministry of Defence and the Forensic Science Service.

He was trained as a Six Sigma Black Belt by Caterpillar and attained his Six Sigma Master Black Belt Status via SigmaPro’s Master Black Belt training course.

He is an associate consultant with SigmPro, delivering Six Sigma Training and support to their clients.

Current state – the ‘as is’ map of the process
Future state – the vision for the future including all the Lean Improvements

A value stream map contains all flows of information and materials utilised within an enterprise from raw material right through to the customer. It typically contains:

Information management e.g. Order processing, purchasing etc

Physical transformation e.g. Materials, logistics and production

Intellectual property e.g. Improvement ideas, designs, project management etc

Whenever there is a product, service or process for a customer there is a value stream in operation and lean practitioners can work on it to take out waste and improve effectiveness and efficiency.

What’s not commonly understood however, is that Value Stream Mapping, if carried out at a high level (typically at a business unit or for a product group), can prove to be a valuable tool to identify Lean Six Sigma projects. It is particularly useful because it helps provide Lean Six Sigma projects which are:

Strategically Aligned

Focussed on the key blockages (Theory of Constraints)

Grouped into Powerful Clusters

With a good balance between Lean and Six Sigma events

The event is usually facilitated by a Six Sigma Master Black Belt or experienced Six Sigma Black Belt and involves a mixture of line management, technical and process level participation. With good preparation it can usually be carried out in three or four days and provides a project blue print which can keep a local Lean Six Sigma Deployment going for six months or more.

The high level process is shown below where it can be seen that the process begins with a review of high level business strategy. It then involves the executive team identifying and prioritising the value or revenue streams within the organisation. This is done by looking at volumes, revenues and profit information together with market and strategic inputs.

This activity is followed by the actual value stream mapping event (current state and future state), the output of which is a detailed list of projects and events.