Blending Lean and Six Sigma to Optimize Service

Why does Lean Need Six Sigma ?

As robust as Lean is for dealing with lead time and non-value-add costs, there are several critical problems you won´t find addressed in the seminal books of lean. Six sigma provides robust solutions to these problems, which explains why Lean needs six sigma

• ·         Lean does not explicitly prescribe the culture and infrastructure needed to achieve and sustain results

• ·         Customer critical-to-Quality needs are not front and center

• ·         Lean does not recognize the impact of variation

Why does six sigma Need Lean ? 

Just as there are gaps in Lean methodologies that can benefit from Six Sigma, let´s turn the tables and see where Six Sigma falls short compared to Lean has to offer. The overarching message is this: as many companies have demonstrated, you can make a lot of gains with six sigma. But there´s a hitch. No matter what tool you pick, if you don´t have a Lean component to it, if you´re not focusing on improving speed and reducing WIP, any gains will eventually die. The process will still be slow and cumbersome, and its costs will be too high. More specifically, here are five reason why Six Sigma benefits from Lean:

• ·         Identifying waste

• ·         Improving process speed or cycle time

• ·         Specific speed tools (5S, TPM, etc..)

• ·         Methods for rapid action (the Kaizen DMAIC process)

• ·         Six sigma quality is approached much faster if Lean eliminates non-value-add steps

The fact is that lean six sigma is a powerful tool for executing the CEO´s strategy, and a tactical tool for P&L managers to achieve their annual and quarterly goals. If executives aren´t engaged in Lean Six Sigma, the company will likely be out-competed by companies whose executives embrace Lean Six sigma.

Blending the key themes of lean and six sigma provides us with five “laws” that provide direction to our improvement efforts. Here are the five:

• 0         The Law of the Market: Costumer critical-to-quality defines quality and is the highest priority for improvement, followed by ROIC and Net Present Value. We call it the Zero Law because it is the foundation upon which all else is build.

• 1         The Law of Flexibility: the velocity of any process is proportional to the flexibility of the process

• 2         The Law of Focus: 20% of the activities in the process cause 80% of the delay

• 3         The Law of Velocity: the velocity of any process is inversely proportional to the amount of work-in-progress (or number of things-in-process. Little´s Law states that:

·         The number of things in process in turn is increased by long setup times, rework, the impact of variation in supply and demand, time and complexity of the product offering

• 4         The Lay of Complexity and Cost: the complexity of the service or product offering generally adds more non-value-add costs and WIP than either poor quality (low sigma) or slow speed (un-lean) process problems.