Companies searching for that one quality management strategy must have tried to differentiate one from the other. The common advice from books is to choose the one that best fits the puzzle, which is your organization, and if I may quote Tom Vander Well of QAQNA: “what is best for your customer; for the organization who builds satisfaction and retains its’ customers will be profitable and stand the test of time.”
Then today, I stumbled upon Robert Thomson’s blog Qualitas where he differentiated Six Sigma, Lean, and TOC. The post is well-written and offers valuable points that I’m sure will help all quality managers out there.
Just a preview:
Six sigma uses statistics to understand variation. Lean uses visuals like process mapping, flowcharting, and value stream mapping to understand the process flow. TOC is holistic: It addresses emotions, intuition, and the thinking process of the whole person… The Theory of Constraints (TOC) takes the concepts of Lean Thinking to another level of systems thinking. You will see a lot of similarity between TOC and Lean. Both are focused on reducing waste and increasing process flow. However, TOC goes beyond Lean with its focus on throughput. Read more…
*Photo credit: MorgueFile.com
