8 Basics of Lean Six Sigma For Manufacturing Firms

From Articles Bridge again, I’m sharing here the eight basics of Lean Six Sigma for Manufacturing Firms.

1. Information Accuracy - Any system is bound to fail if it is based on inaccurate data and inappropriate documentation.
2. Performance Management - A balanced scorecard is often successful in motivating key employees to perform.
3. Continuous Production Lines - Using the simple technique of sequential production, organizations can make timely deliveries and gain substantial profit margins.
4. Production Point Logistics - Cutting down existing inventory and making an attempt to move production parts and components to their point of use can prove to be substantial cost savers.
5. Shorter cycle times - By eliminating waste in production, companies are able to manufacture goods quickly.
6. Smooth schedules and linear production - Maintaining constant emphasis on the achievement of daily targets is necessary. It will create awareness among the team of how critical it is to execute timely production planning details.
7. Resource Planning -Timely planning with the appropriate workforce size is necessary. By reallocating employees onto other avenues rather than laying them off due to efficient processes, staff will become more confident in the organization.
8. Customer Satisfaction - Customer Satisfaction has to be grounded in reality, and cannot simply be perception-based. All communication regarding actual quality of products and expectations should flow directly from customers.

Read more…

Source:
Six Sigma Zone News

*Photo from Stock.Xchng

Filed under: Manufacturing, Lean Six Sigma, Tips, Lean Manufacturing, Six Sigma Zone

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Webcast: Successful Use of Six Sigma in Process Transformation

Date: June 4, 2008
Time: 2:00 PM - 3:00 PM ET Time Zone Converter

This webcast will discuss:

• Actions to gain executive leadership buy-in.
• CIGNA’s Lean Six Sigma Model’s implementation and deployment across the corporation.
• Key best practices and lessons learned from CIGNA’s Six Sigma Initiative.

Read more…

Panelist:
Leslie A. Behnke, Vice President, Six-Sigma Business Excellence, CIGNA Corporation

Moderator:
Robert Parent, Program Director, The Conference Board

Source:
The Conference Board, a Six Sigma Zone featured link

Filed under: General, Six Sigma References, Processes, Six Sigma Zone, Six Sigma

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Ranhill Bhd and Felda Holdings Bhd Saving Cost Through Six Sigma

These two leading Malaysian companies—the former an engineering corporation, the latter a services company —have claimed at the Six Sigma Asia Pacific Conference 2008 in KL to have made significant savings through Six Sigma.

Ranhill Berhad saved about RM656,000 since it adopted the programme, while Felda Holdings Berhad has recorded savings of RM30 million.

Source:
TheEdgeDaily, 22-02-2008: Ranhill, Felda control cost with Six Sigma formula

Filed under: Six Sigma Organizations, Six Sigma Zone, Six Sigma

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CMMI and Six Sigma

I had written about how Six Sigma can be integrated with other methodologies and technologies. But there were not very detailed discussions as to how Six Sigma can be incorporated with each.

InformIT shares a good discussion, taken from CMMI and Six Sigma: Partners in Process Improvement, on how Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) in particular can be integrated with Six Sigma:

Strategy 1: Implement CMMI-based processes (or, more simply put, CMMI process areas) as Six Sigma projects.

Strategy 2: Apply Six Sigma to improve process performance and serve as the tactical engine to achieve high capability and/or high maturity.

Strategy 3: Apply Six Sigma, specifically DFSS, as a tactical contributor to achieve highly capable engineering processes.

Strategy 4: Apply Six Sigma to improve or optimize an organization’s improvement strategy and processes.

Strategy 5: Institutionalize Six Sigma project results, and culture, via the CMMI’s institutionalization practices.

Continue reading…

Source:
Six Sigma Zone featured link

Filed under: Six Sigma Organizations, Six Sigma Zone, Six Sigma, CMMI

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Pricewaterhouse-Coopers Deploys Six Sigma

Pricewaterhouse-Coopers (PwC) is the world’s largest firm of accountants. I’m sure you know the nature of accountants’ work. It handles data, large figures even, and thus needs precision every step of the way.

What complicates things for PwC is that it has offices in different countries all over the world. How to coordinate all the company’s operations, and succesfully? PwC found the answer in Six Sigma.

Kathy Murray, managing director of infrastructure at PwC, saw MES (meeting and event services) as a prime candidate for the Six Sigma project “because it’s very process-oriented.” Meeting management had been centralized for years; however, Murray says, “individual meeting planners were doing their own thing. It was crying out for consistency.”

The Six Sigma project for MES started in April 2005, and as they say, the rest is history. Below are the improvements.
Process improvements:

• A stronger meeting and event policy
• Better cost avoidance
• Better service

Technology improvements:

• Better record-keeping
• Increased automation
• Improved tracking

Organizational improvements:

• More staff
• Division of tasks

Read how PwC leveraged Six Sigma and got benefitted by it.

Related story:
PricewaterhouseCoopers Deploys Six Sigma for Meetings Policy

*Photo from MorgueFile

Filed under: Six Sigma Organizations, Finance, Team Dynamics, Deployment, Technology, Six Sigma Zone, PricewaterhouseCoopers

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Roadblocks on Six Sigma Teams

Teams drive your Six Sigma deployment. Good teams and brilliant teamwork move your Six Sigma initiative more efficiently.

There are however situations and circumstances that teams encounter problems. This happens for several reasons. Are you in that stage where you feel that your team is not going anywhere? And that you’re trying to see what’s stopping your team from moving forward?

You may be encountering the roadblocks below, and may have yet to discover the solution. Check each one out and its corresponding solution.

Pitfall No.1: Starting a team when you have no data (line graph and pareto chart minimum) indicates you have a problem that cannot be solved using Six Sigma. Without data to guide you, you don’t know who should be on the team, so you end up with different people trying to solve different problems.
Solution: Set the team up for success. (1) Work with data you already have; don’t start a team to collect a bunch of new data. (2) Refine your problem before you let a group of people get in a room to analyze root causes.

Pitfall No.2: Question data. To throw a team off its tracks, some member who doesn’t like the implications of the data will state in a congruent voice that the data is clearly wrong. If you let it, this will derail the team into further data analysis. I know from experience that all data is imperfect. It has been systematically distorted to make the key players look good and to manipulate the reward system, but it is the “systematic” distortion that allows you to use the data anyway.
Solution: Recognizing that this member is operating on gut feel, not data.

Pitfall No.3: Whalebone diagrams. When searching for root causes, if your fishbone diagram turns into a “whalebone” diagram that covers several walls, then your original focus was too broad.
Solution: Go back to your pareto chart. Take the biggest bar down a level to get more specific. Write a new problem statement. Then go back to root cause analysis.

Continue reading…

Source:
ExpressComputer, a Six Sigma Zone featured link

*Photo from Stock.Xchng

Filed under: Team Dynamics, Deployment, Six Sigma References, Six Sigma Zone, Six Sigma

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10 Reasons for a Six Sigma Certification

Time and again, we hear companies saying that Six Sigma works for them. Other companies however do not and cannot claim benefits from their Six Sigma deployments.

If you throw these issues to quality practitioners, even Six Sigma proponents, they would say that the Six Sigma of Six Sigma depends on many factors. It’s true.

However, just in case you really think Six Sigma can add value to your company, let me share with you 10 reasons why you need a Six Sigma certification.

1. To save money - These programs are designed to reduce the amount of waste that is created when you are manufacturing your products. What these processes will do is look at you entire manufacturing process, one step at a time and see where you can make any changes or improvements that will increase your productivity. These programs increase your productivity because they get rid of waste and poor quality, which means you are producing more quality products and you are not wasting time or energy on production costs.
2. To make quality your companies priority - make your products and services worth your customers’ money, and that your products add value to your customers’ organization.
3. To reduce operational costs - focuse on reducing the number of defects that are produced, reducing the cycle time, and cost savings.
4. To make your manufacturing plant more efficient and help improve safety, meaning less accidents will occur at your manufacturing plant.
5. To train everybody in the company from upper management on down - everybody in the company is on the same page and being on the same page ensures that everybody is doing things the same way.
6. To teach people how to problem solve - with the training mentioned in #5, everyone in the organization is going to learn how to approach a variety of situations and figure out how to solve the problems they face.
7. To increase your floor space - you will be more organized, which means there will be less clutter in places so you can actually see what is going on. This makes sense because if you can’t see what is going on there is no way to figure out what needs to get improved.
8. To take a narrower focus on what needs to be improved, rather than a broad focuses - this helps boost employee morale and show people that it is going to work.
9. To take a look at one section at a time and to actually look at your quality standards to see if they need to be improved
10. To focus on cost cutting measures that can reduce the value and quality - basically six sigma focuses on getting rid of costs that have no value to the customer.

Source:
BusinessKnowledgeSource.com, a featured link of Six Sigma Zone

*Photo from Stock.Xchng

Filed under: Certification, Six Sigma Zone, Six Sigma

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Innovation + Six Sigma = The Balanced Innovator Book

Probably like most of us, Robert Carter also wondered why some products succeed and others fail. In the same manner that some companies are successful and others are not. The only difference between him and us is that he is discerning enough to know and find out the balance among the what, how, and why questions, and actually sit down and right his insights.

The book, The Balanced Innovator shows readers how to understand the importance of achieving the What, How, Why Balance, but also how to measure it and what to do to achieve it.

Carter will challenge us to think beyond world class performance, and describes how to render competitors efforts irrelevant. He also explains the strategies for listening to the ‘chorus of the customer’, and his approach makes it clear just how everybody in an organization is responsible for business growth.

Read more…

The book is a result of Carter’s experiences in innovation and Six Sigma. Check it out!

Source:
MacroWorld Investor, a Six Sigma Zone featured link

Filed under: Six Sigma References, Innovation, Six Sigma Zone, Six Sigma

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Six Sigma Improves Hospital Processes

I went to Makati Medical Center last week to visit a friend. Normally, I would take the stairs for lower floors, but since his room was on the 7th floor, I decided to take the elevators. But boy, the elevator lines were long and slow! There were only three working elevators, and this was one of the premier hospitals in the country!

Not wanting to waste my lunchbreak, I found myself taking the stairs after all. Good thing, his wife sent me a text message to meet me instead at the Floating Restaurant for lunch. Three floors up would do me good, too.

I believe good working elevators are a must for hospitals. Definitely, among other processes at Makati Med, their elevators need improvement. Maybe, they’d like to have a try at Six Sigma, which could improve hospital processes as shown in the American College of Chest Physicians (ACCP) study.

The study shows that performance improvement practices such as Six Sigma might help hospitals decrease in-patient mortality, length of hospital stay, and healthcare costs. Click here to read how Six Sigma helps in patient care.

Source:
Quality Digest, a featured link of Six Sigma Zone

*Photo from Stock.Xchng

Filed under: Services, Healthcare, Processes, Six Sigma Zone, Quality Digest, Six Sigma

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American Government Agencies Get Serious about Six Sigma

As Rob Thomson puts it, Six Sigma has escaped from the shop floor. So true. I have a wealth of information here (just check out the categories on the right side bar) that shows that Six Sigma has invaded all aspects and kinds of business operations.

Latest news has it that the Department of Defense (DOD) is really getting serious at employing Lean Six Sigma, and has in fact been enjoying the fruits of their labor.

FCW.com (Federal Computer Week) reports that:

• DOD has been successful in cost avoidance and has saved cycle time
• Naval Air Systems Command will save more than $1 million in fiscal 2007 because of Lean Six Sigma improvements in its contract closeout processes.
• Department of Agriculture uses Lean Six Sigma for its grants management process.
• FBI also uses the technique.
• The Defense Acquisition University developed a DOD-specific Lean Six Sigma course covering how to apply the methodology and become Lean Six Sigma certified.

Read more…

Source:
DOD is serious about Six Sigma, a Six Sigma Zone featured link

Filed under: Benefits and Savings, Lean Six Sigma, Six Sigma Organizations, Deployment, Military, Defense, Six Sigma Zone

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