Lean Six Sigma Spurs Innovation and Drives Product Development
Posted by: meikah | 30 March 2010 | 9:16 pm
Quality Digest has a good discussion on how Lean Six Sigma spurs innovation and drives product development.
The company that is a testimony to this is Xerox. It uses Lean Six Sigma to develop its Xerox iGen4. Specifically it uses Design for Lean Six Sigma (DFLSS) in gathering the voice of the customer (VOC).
Filed under: Six Sigma
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How to Choose and Begin a Six Sigma Project
Posted by: meikah | 29 March 2010 | 11:02 pm
In several Six Sigma workshops that I’ve been to, the most common question that participants ask during the open forum is how to begin a Six Sigma project.
Not many actually know how to begin despite the available mountain of info about DMAIC, statistical tools, among other things. So, I’m sharing here a first of a series of how-to’s. I stumbled upon this article on eHow.com. The article cites six ways to begin a Six Sigma project:
- Train the team. Train executives, champions, black belts and green belts. Training takes up to four months as a black belt and employees will often need to leave their daily duties.
- Define an opportunity. Decide what is most important for the customer. Collect any background information pertaining to the process.
- Collect data to measure the performance of the process. Use parameters set when the opportunity was defined.
- Use statistical tools to analyze the data. Use the procedures learned during Six Sigma training.
- Implement solutions. Use what was learned from data analysis. All levels of the team need to support the solutions and believe in them.
- Check the improvements. Don’t take anything for granted. Don’t get frustrated because progress is slow.
But the crucial part actually before beginning a Six Sigma project is choosing a project. This is often asked, too: how do we choose a project?
For that, I suggest the following:
- Evaluate your existing processes. Find out which of the process works, which slows down the whole system, or which process is repetitive. Those that don’t work is a good candidate for a Six Sigma project.
- Do a value stream mapping. The basic idea behind Value Stream Mapping is this: if the underlying process is right, the outcome will be reliable. To get the process right, you have to understand the sequence of activities that provide value to your customers. In other words, it tells you if you are reaching your customer and are satisfying them. After all, it’s the customer who is in the best position to tell you if you are successful or not in your business.
Filed under: Deployment, Six Sigma, Six Sigma References
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Using FMEA in the Different Six Sigma Project Phases
Posted by: meikah | 29 March 2010 | 9:12 pm
FMEA or failure mode and effects analysis tool may take many variations, but it has only one fundamental purpose, that is to identify, evaluate, and take actions to reduce risk of failure.
These variations of the FMEA have many uses for the tool within Six Sigma projects. Though it is introduced in the Improve stage of training, FMEA has a place in other phases of Six Sigma as well.
An article on iSixSigma has a good discussion on this.
In Measure, for example, the FMEA can be used as a prioritization tool to understand and fine tune the focus of a Lean Six Sigma project. In addition, it also can be used to determine what can go wrong with the process, and what data the team should collect as part of its process metrics.
Example: A team launched a project to reduce reprocessing of materials in a sterilization line. To determine where to focus the initial efforts, the team created a detailed process map, followed by an FMEA to identify failure points in the process that resulted in re-sterilization. Once the FMEA was created, resulting in severity, occurrence and detection estimates, the team focused their project on four areas to eliminate or mitigate failure points.
Filed under: DMAIC, Deployment, FMEA, Six Sigma
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Managing Change in Your Six Sigma Team
Posted by: meikah | 24 March 2010 | 9:08 pm
Change is inevitable. Cliche, but true. Anything is bound to change sooner or later, especially these days when people leave for greener pastures or have left because of streamlining.
During changes, team-based projects are the one that get most affected. New members come in and so adjustments have to be made.
If your Six Sigma team is undergoing changes right now and is facing challenges, here’s a tip from Thomas S. Ostasiewski, PE, PMP. He shared his insights on Six Sigma IQ (non-italics are my thoughts):
- Find a way to break down your Six Sigma project into reasonable chunks and celebrate the achievement of each of them. So perhaps before an impending team member’s leaving, you celebrate with the team milestones and achievements.
- Bring the others in as needed. If team members realize each one’s value to the team, they will be more receptive to new members coming in.
- Make sure you have Champion and management support, and make your expectations in this area clear with your team. Emphasize with your team members the things that are expected of them, “un-reward” or reward them accordingly. Recognition and rewards system when carried out well can strengthen the team.
Note: You can also access SixSig.info on Six Sigma IQ Blog Index.
Filed under: Six Sigma, Six Sigma Team, Team Dynamics
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Six Sigma Marketing
Posted by: meikah | 24 March 2010 | 8:00 pm
I’m sure you have heard that Six Sigma is no longer exclusive to manufacturing processes or to the shop floor. It has evolved and has been used to improve processes in the service industry as well.
In fact, you can use Six Sigma principles to marketing and sales. Here is a presentation featured in Six Sigma Zone about how to use Six Sigma principles to marketing.
Filed under: Marketing, Six Sigma
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Businesses in San Bernardino County Learn Lean Six Sigma
Posted by: meikah | 22 March 2010 | 9:24 pm
In the face of layoffs and closures, businesses San Bernardino County in California will learn Lean Six Sigma to better cope.
According to the article on The Sun, these businesses will undergo the Lean Six Sigma training to:
- help them avoid layoffs and grow their operations
- help businesses operate more effectively and efficiently
- to cut unnecessary costs and increase their profitability, and they won’t have to cut jobs
The endeavor is a project of the county’s Workforce Development Department and Economic Development Agency.
Filed under: California, Lean Six Sigma, San Bernardino County, Six Sigma
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Webinar: Successfully Integrating Project Management and Six Sigma
Posted by: meikah | 22 March 2010 | 9:07 pm
When: March 25, 2010
Description:Six Sigma has been creating unprecedented returns for organizations around the globe in every industry. These laser-focused tools and techniques are critically important to organizations trying to dramatically improve their project management capabilities. It’s not enough to have common processes – you must have the “right†common processes. This webinar will help participants understand how the powerful tools and techniques of project management can be integrated with the powerful tools and techniques of Six Sigma to dramatically improve project outcomes.
Filed under: Project Management, Six Sigma, Webinar
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The SixSig Roundup
Posted by: meikah | 22 March 2010 | 8:02 pm
It’s time again for some link-loving and see what other blogs are saying about Six Sigma, Lean, Lean Six Sigma and other quality improvement processes.
Over at You Can Be Great If You Want To blog, Tony Jacowski shares some basic characteristics of Six Sigma deployments.
The Innovation World shares how the merging of Six Sigma and Lean Manufacturing principles can be a powerful combination.
Listen to Chuck Overbeck talk about Six Sigma and Sales Process or Sales Sigma at Medical Sales Recruiter – Tips & Quips.
Lean Manufacturing Blog shares a video on how to use BPM with Six Sigma and Lean Methodologies.
Over at The Latest Tech News for Tech Geeks blog, the writer shares with us how to understand Lean Six Sigma principles with a simple illustration.
Check out those links and learn!
Filed under: BPM, Deployment, Lean, Lean Manufacturing, Lean Six Sigma, Six Sigma
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Innovation of the Week: Testing Testing, The New Innovation Game
Posted by: meikah | 19 March 2010 | 12:25 am
This week’s edition of innovation update features the new innovation game in business which is testing.
Business innovation, once the province of teams in white lab coats doing research and development, is moving into the front lines. Increasingly it derives from continual tiny experiments in such areas as business processes and customer relationships rather than a single, company-transforming idea.
Internet-based companies, which can alter their “storefront” at will — “What will happen if we put the shopping cart on the left side of the screen?” — are certainly the most adept at such granular testing. Big players like Google and Amazon.com can sometimes get a statistically significant amount of data to make a decision in a matter of hours.
Filed under: Innovation, Innovation Update, Six Sigma
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Is Lean Beating Out Six Sigma?
Posted by: meikah | 17 March 2010 | 7:05 pm
I have read quite a number of articles saying that Lean is making headway with Six Sigma. The latest is from ApplianceMagazine.com which even has figures to support the claim.
These numbers are based on the Avery survey:
- Lean talent demand exceeded Six Sigma by almost 35%, significantly widening its lead over last year’s lead of just 11% as compared to 2005′s results, which showed that Six Sigma talent demand exceeded Lean by more than 50%.
- For companies looking for Lean talent, only 41% require candidates to possess Six Sigma knowledge as well.
- Of companies seeking Six Sigma talent, almost 55% are now requiring candidates to possess Lean knowledge as well, a requirement that has shown steady growth.
Do you believe that Lean is beating out Six Sigma?
