What Comes After the Low Hanging Fruit?

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.

Using Change Management Process to achieve sustainable benefits in a Lean Six Sigma deployment

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.