The Lean Six Sigma

What is Lean added to Six Sigma? The answer is speed. It puts speed in the Six Sigma deployment. The first principle of Lean Six Sigma is: Delight your customers with speed and quality. The second principle says: Improve process flow and speed. Lean Six Sigma emphasizes that speed is directly tied to excellence.

Lean Six Sigma provides the opportunities to streamline the company’s core processes. and help determine what the core processes are, and then focus on making them flow smoothly.

For example, core processes in software development would be naming conventions and coding standards, a configuration management system, an automated build process, a suite of automated unit tests that are built and maintained as part of the code, daily build/integrate/test cycles, acceptance testing integrated into the development process, and usability testing immediately after the features are implemented. Assuring that these disciplines are in place is fundamental to the smooth flow of any software development process.

As they say, when you add Lean to Six Sigma, you start to think about the slow processes, because you begin to understand that a combination of speed, discipline, and excellence is a sure way to success.

Read more Why the Lean in Lean Six Sigma?

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Xeroxing the Six Sigma

Anne M. Mulcahy, chair and CEO of Xerox, was proud to announce that after Xerox deployed the Six Sigma project the comany can now claim a $6 million return in 2003 on a $14 million investment in lean Six Sigma. It expects an even bigger payoff for the years to come.

Xerox began its Six Sigma strategy in 2000. It integrated Six Sigma and lean manufacturing tools and processes into a comprehensive strategy called Xerox Lean Six Sigma.

While on its way to achieving Six Sigma, Xerox followed a disciplined, data driven method of reducing waste and variation in processes. As a result, it was able to consistently deliver products and services at the quality levels, speeds and prices customers value, thereby improving business results.

The company began an aggressive training program and by the end of 2003, Xerox had 25 full-time deployment managers, more than 300 Black Belt candidates and 900 people in Green Belt training. By the end of 2004, Xerox expected to have 1% of its employee population working as Black Belts, integrating lean Six Sigma tools into daily operations and into the services and solutions Xerox offers to its customers.

Realizing the high value of Six Sigma on the organization, Xerox is now working on over 250 projects and 2,300 managers have been trained with lean Six Sigma.

Xerox

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Six Sigma Deployment

A Six Sigma deployment is like a journey and like many other journeys, you need to prepare the following:

1. decide where we are going (Six Sigma or bust!)
2. understand where we are coming from
3. plan our route
4. follow the plan
5. monitor the progress
6. change plans to meet the unexpected challenge

This does not mean however that all companies embark on the same initial projects. Different companies start their deployments in different ways, depending on what program works well for the kind of organizational structure and culture the company is.

Normally, the deployment plan will follow this schedule:

1. Management Commitment?Week Zero.
2. Management Training?Week One
3. Six Sigma Discovery?Weeks Two to Four.
4. Champion Training, including Project Selection?Week Five.
5. Black Belt Training?Weeks Six to Eighteen.
6. Green Belt Training?Week Nineteen.

The schedule is not always followed thought In reality, you?ll need some lag time between these activities. Thus the five months may become seven or eight months in a fairly aggressive deployment.

But the the toughest part of deploying Six Sigma is building top management interest and commitment. A successful Six Sigma deployment requires this top management leadership. In larger corporations, it?s common to see pilot programs take root and end successfully because they are run by motivated, inspired leaders.

One of the major reasons top management hesitate to take on a Six Sigma deployment is that they do not see the benefits and savings of such undertaking. You’ll have to let them know how it will improve their business and reduce their costs.

According to Paul Keller in his book Six Sigma Deployment: A Guide for Implementing Six Sigma in Your Organization, deploying Six Sigma in any organization is a lot of hard work. Six Sigma Champions will need to assemble and train the right people, have committed leadership, select viable and fruitful projects, and integrate metrics for feedback into your business . These changes require determination, patience, persuasiveness and the knowledge imparted in this book.

Read more A Deployment Strategy

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A Six Sigma City?

Six Sigma is slowly but surely touching not only manufacturing services and the hospitality industry but also the public service. Yes there is a Six Sigma City.

Fort Wayne City in Indiana may be the first city in the U.S. to implement Six Sigma. The city deployed Six Sigma to improve customer service and increase the effectiveness of city government. Mayor Graham Richard wanted to bring a high powered private sector program to government. It happened when he, together with his council, decided to implement Six Sigma. As a result, it has enhanced services for Fort Wayne citizens and inspired employees to do better in their respective jobs.

With Six Sigma, the city started a number of projects in the different departments, namely fire, community development, water pollution control, right of way, human resources, street, transportation engineering services, and solid waste among others.

Project summary reports show that the Six Sigma projects not only improved public service but it also put big savings in the city’s coffers.

Here are some of the project sumarries.

Water main replacement construction bid costs were reduced from an average of $61.00 per foot to $50.00 per foot ? saving over $315,000 in 2003.

The Water Plant now saves $78,000 a year by reducing the amount of sodium chlorite used in producing chlorine dioxide.

Fire code re-inspections were increased by 23% and the average number of days to a re-inspection was reduced from 51 to 34 days.

Missed trash pick-ups were reduced by 50%.

Responses to pothole complaints were reduced from an average of 21 hours to 3 hours.

The disposition rate of robbery cases in the Southeast Division was increased by 48%.

The Solid Waste Department was able to improve its communication strategy and increase public education.

A savings of $329 a week or $15,874 a year has occurred as a result of the 100% reduction in processing/logging contractor payroll information. Other benefits include improved organization and communication.

Read more City of Fort Wayne, Indiana

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Six Sigma and Design of Experiment

Much has been said about Six Sigma and the benefits and savings it brings to every organization. The latest to join the roster of successful companies that turn to Six Sigma are 3M, Starwood Hotels, Sears, Home Depot, Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, a city government, and John Hopkins Medical.

According to Peter Peterka, the leading consultant for 6sigma.us, Six Sigma?s success revolves around the fundamental elements needed for any successful organization. Once the organization has created their own vision of Six Sigma, the business leaders need to define their organization?s objectives in numerical terms. These ?high-level metrics,? often called big Y?s in Six Sigma, are the foundation for identifying project y?s that Six Sigma Belts will execute projects on. With big Y?s in hand, business leaders called Six Sigma Champions breakdown these organizational level Y?s into smaller y?s that a project leader called a Green Belt or Black Belt can work from. Once an organization has decided on the method and the project y?s, Belts are marched off to training ?waves? bringing management-approved projects to class. DMAIC Green Belt training is normally two one-week sessions separated by one month. Black Belt training waves are extended by two additional months with two more weeks of training. The emphasis during the extended two weeks of Black Belt training is often on learning more details about advanced tools such as Design of Experiments (DOE).

People might be surprised that the DOE fits into the Six Sigma methodology. But there is such a connection. Six Sigma is about understanding and controlling the variation of key process variables known as inputs or x?s to obtain improved results on project outputs or y?s. Design of Experiment terms on the other hand treat these inputs or x?s as factors and the outputs as responses. In nearly all Six Sigma projects the relationship of the project y?s takes on the form of y=f(x1,x2,…xn). In Six Sigma terms it is discovering the relationship between outputs called y?s and inputs called x?s.

Present Six Sigma Belts therefore focus their use of Design of Experiments in the Improve phase of DMAIC and the Optimize phase of IDOV. And during the DMAIC Six Sigma training, they learn two of the common experimental designs: factorial and fractional factorial designs. In some trainings, too, the curricula include the response-surface designs and optimization designs at a high level. DFSS includes the experimental designs in all levels of DMAIC training and expands to include the concept of robust designs. A number of consulting companies also teach Taguchi designs.

Peterka further observes, “As Six Sigma professionals learn more about the power of properly planned experiments, Design of Experiments will be integrated into most phases of the Six Sigma roadmap and not just considered an advanced tool for the improvement and optimization phases. Experienced practitioners of statistical methods like Design of Experiments should learn the language of Six Sigma and help integrate new methods into the Six Sigma process to improve its effectiveness.

The Six Sigma Method and Design of Experiments

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Methodologies for Six Sigma

Six Sigma is a proven disciplined approach for improving measurable results for any organization. To achieve Six Sigma Certification, you must complete an actual Six Sigma project. The key to Six Sigma is the completion of leadership sponsored projects. And the key to successfully carrying out these projects is the methodology you are using.

Below is an overview of some of the methodologies.

The DMAIC. You use the DMAIC methodology when a product or process is in existence at your company but is not meeting customer specification or is not performing adequately. The DMAIC methodology involves the following five phases: Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control. In some businesses, only four phases (Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control) are used; in this case the Define deliverables are then considered pre-work for the project or are included within the Measure phase. There is even a DMAIIC, where the first I stands for Improve and the second I stands for Implement.

The DMAIC methodology breaks down as follows:

Define the project goals and customer (internal and external) requirements.
Measure the process to determine current performance.
Analyze and determine the root cause(s) of the defects.
Improve the process by eliminating defect root causes.
Control future process performance.

The DFSS. It is the acronym for Design For Six Sigma. You use DFSS to design or re-design a product or service from the ground up. The expected process Sigma level for a DFSS product or service is at least 4.5 (no more than approximately 1 defect per thousand opportunities), but can be 6 Sigma or higher depending the product. Producing such a low defect level from product or service launch means that customer expectations and needs (CTQs) must be completely understood before a design can be completed and implemented.

Unlike the DMAIC methodology, the phases or steps of DFSS are not universally defined. Each company or training organization will define DFSS differently, depending on their kind of business, industry and culture; other times they will implement the version of DFSS used by the consulting company they commission to assist them in the deployment. Because of this, DFSS is more of an approach than a defined methodology.

One popular Design for Six Sigma methodology is called DMADV. The five phases of DMADV are:

Define the project goals and customer (internal and external) requirements.
Measure and determine customer needs and specifications; benchmark competitors and industry.
Analyze the process options to meet the customer needs.
Design (detailed) the process to meet the customer needs.
Verify the design performance and ability to meet customer needs.

A slight modification on the DMADV methodology is DMADOV: Define, Measure, Analyze, Design, Optimize and Verify.

There are a few other variations of DFSS that you might be interested to know about: DCCDI, IDOV and DMEDI.

How do you decide which methodology is best for your organization? The popular advice is to seek help from consultants or the published cases studies or books. In any case, according to Kerri Simon, a certified Six Sigma Quality Black Belt for a Fortune 100 company, “if you follow a detailed DFSS methodology, you may achieve high quality levels for new products and services. If you are interested in improving your existing products or services, DMAIC is a more appropriate methodology to use.”

Read more What Is DFSS? And how does Design For Six Sigma compare to DMAIC?

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Real-Life Six Sigma Projects

Six Sigma may have started with Mikel Harry of Motorola, but after him many other quality advocates have also studied and adapted Six Sigma. One of them is Thomas Pyzdek. Pzydek has been into process improvement for 38 years. He has written more than 50 books, software and training products, including The Six Sigma Handbook, The Handbook for Quality Management Handbook and The Quality Engineering Handbook, and is considered a leading quality and Six Sigma authority. He is a multi-awarded Quality man, including the ?Outstanding Writer and Author? by The International Who?s Who in Quality and the Quality Progress Reader?s Choice award for his articles on the future of quality.

Pyzdek has provided consulting to major clients in a broad spectrum of industries. He provides consulting guidance from the executive suite to “Belts” working in the trenches. Among his latest work is an outline on real-life Six Sigma projects in different fields. These project synopses have omitted significant factors, such as the leadership and infrastructure necessary to make the projects succeed.

First Project was on accounts receivable. Sponsored by the CFO, the Six Sigma team was to improve the collection process. The team used the average age of uncollected accounts on the last business day of the month as their metric. Using X-bar charts, the team determined that the process was in statistical control with a mean of 57 days. They made a flowchart of the as-is AR collection process and used it to guide an observational study. The team noted and corrected several discrepancies.

For example, a team member from billing asked why the term “Net 30 Days” was used. An experiment was conducted where the term was changed to “Due on Receipt” for a random sample of invoices. The results showed that the average time to collect for the experimental group was 45 days vs. 57 for the control group. The difference was highly significant, both financially and statistically. Next, the team contacted randomly chosen customers who had paid late and asked why they had been late. Fully 70% of the reasons for late payment were factors under the company’s control (e.g., invoice errors or the bill being sent to wrong address). The team constructed a Pareto diagram and set about correcting the biggest problem areas. Within six months, the average age of uncollected invoices dropped to 37 days. The resulting savings were substantial.

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PCI

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Improving IT Security Policy Through Six Sigma

Are companies these days really sure that their security policy is really secure? I think not. Can CIOs improve their policies and win the active support of management and staff?

Gary Lynch and Karen Avery of Booz Allen Hamilton think so. Using a fictitious pharmaceutical company that is struggling to enforce its security rules, they apply the DMAIC process (define, measure, analyze, improve, control), to troubleshoot and improve its security policy.

XYZ Pharmaceuticals has to protect some vital information: drug patents, clinical trial patient data, and a new diet pill. CIO “Jane Doe” is worried that the organization’s security policies are being followed. Her fears were founded. Someone squealed that XYZ would soon announce a new drug. This prompted CIO Jane Doe to deploy Six Sigma. How did she do it?

Read more How to Improve Your IT Security Policy: A Six Sigma Approach

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Seagate: A Six Sigma Excellence Awardee

The world’s leading disc drive company, Seagate Technology, earns the Six Sigma Excellence Award for the Best Design For Six Sigma Project. The award is given annually by sixsigmaIQ to reward best practices and highlight exceptional innovation.

Besting other finalists such as Ford Motor Company and Raytheon, Seagate received the award for its project, “Deployment of Design for Six Sigma in Seagate’s U Series Disc Drive.”

Steve Genheimer, Seagate vice president of Six Sigma, said, “Seagate’s continuous focus on process, design and manufacturing improvements are helping us deliver what our customers want. Our continued investment in Six Sigma design, supply chain and manufacturing flexibility, and customer-focused business processes have solidified Seagate’s position as a storage category leader. Seagate’s greatest strength is its ability to respond quickly and intelligently to the change that is inherent across the industry.”

For the project, Seagate’s team used the DFSS to change the design review process to focus on key customer requirements. This was also known as CTQ (Critical to Quality) requirements. It provided the impetus to create the most cost-efficient design, with features customers would expect from a more expensive drive. Seagate SP used CTQs to drive product specifications, component tolerances and process measures throughout the development cycle. The project gave the organization a very high market-share.

When Chip Huber,Seagate’s Executive Director of Design for Six Sigma, was asked why the project won, he said, “Good use of tools, persistence over time, impact on our business. In the consumer goods market a relatively new market for Seagate, this product enabled us to take a leading share.”

Articles
Seagate Earns Six Sigma Excellence Award From sixsigmaIQ

Interview with Chip Huber, Executive Director of Design for Six Sigma, Seagate

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The Six Sigma Money Belt

A common Six Sigma structure include Green Belts, Black Belts, Master Black Belts, and Champions. In normal circumstances this structure is enough. After several successful Six Sigma projects however some organizations found themselves faced with accounting issues. These organizations decided to add another role in the structure–the Money Belt.

The role of the Money Belt is to evaluate the financial benefits projections and the actual results achieved by Six Sigma projects. The individuals in this role are often financial analysts or accountants. Money Belt helps maintain truthful accounting results. Other important aspects of the Money Belt role include:

Providing feedback and learning to the project selection process
Evaluating how incentives impact the Six Sigma program
Ensuring that credit is given where credit is due

Read more Green Belt, Black Belt, Now the Six Sigma ?Money Belt

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