[vc_row][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_column_text]Most manufacturers have heard of Lean and Six Sigma. Several have successfully leveraged these proven process improvement methodologies to raise productivity, increase the bottom line and improve quality and the customer experience. Still, many manufacturers and businesses in general still have not discovered the value of Lean Six Sigma. There are many reasons organizations do not use Lean Six Sigma. Some are valid. Many are misconceptions. Still others are pure fiction. This article explores ten commonly cited reasons for this phenomena along with responses to consider.

Before we delve into the ten reasons, let’s review a quick primer on Lean Six Sigma.

Lean focuses on value through the relentless elimination of waste and acceleration in the velocity of processes. Its origins can be traced to Henry Ford of Ford Motor Company and Taiichi Ohno of Toyota. Value is defined in terms of what is important to the customer. Value-add work is something your customer is willing to pay for. For example, does the task add a desired function or feature to the product or service?[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_column_text]Or does the task enable a competitive advantage (faster delivery, fewer defects, lower price)? Non-value work, or waste, includes activities the customer is not willing to pay for. There are eight commonly known forms of waste that can be remembered using the acronym DOWNTIME: Defects, Overproduction, Waiting, Non-Utilized Talent, Transportation, Inventory (too much or too little), Motion, and Excess Processing. Increasing the velocity of processes is not about working faster, but speeding up the entire end-to-end process or lead time. Think of lead time as the time it takes once you order a book from Amazon to the time you receive the book.

Six Sigma is a well defined, customer focused management system that strives for the delivery of near-perfect products or services. Six Sigma’s goals are to reduce defects and variation so that processes are more consistent and predictable. Originated by Motorola in the 1980s, Six Sigma translates into 99.9997 percent quality or yield. Dial tone of traditional landline phones, for example, was designed to be available 99.9997 percent of the time.

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_column_text]Like Lean, Six Sigma places the customer first. It embraces data to make sound decisions. What has made Six Sigma so popular is the money it has saved companies. No other methodology comes close to Six Sigma for achieving financial savings. What is “sigma”? The Greek letter Sigma (σ) is a statistical term that measures standard deviation or how far a given process deviates from perfection. The “six” comes from the goal of fitting six standard deviations between the mean and the nearest customer specification or target. To achieve Six Sigma quality (99.9997%), a process must produce no more than 3.4 defects per million opportunities. A “defect” is anything outside of customer specifications. An “opportunity” is defined as the total number of steps in a process where a defect can occur. The central idea behind Six Sigma is that if you can measure how many defects you have in a process, you can systematically figure out how to eliminate them and get as close to zero defects as possible. This means we need to be nearly flawless in executing our key processes. Six Sigma follows a proven, closed-loop framework for tackling problems.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_column_text]It consists of five phases known as DMAIC: Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, and Control.  One of the key tenants that makes this framework work is the methodical discipline of identifying the most significant root causes of a problem before implementing solutions.

When we combine Lean and Six Sigma, we get something powerful — a business improvement methodology that maximizes shareholder value by achieving the fastest rate of improvement in Cost, Quality and Customer Satisfaction. It focuses on reducing waste by streamlining operations and reducing defects (i.e., services not delivered on-time or within budget). See Figure 1 below.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row row_type=”row” use_row_as_full_screen_section=”no” type=”full_width” text_align=”left” background_image_as_pattern=”without_pattern” background_color=”#002f6a” side_padding=”30″ padding_top=”30″ padding_bottom=”30″][vc_column width=”1/1″][vc_row_inner row_type=”row” type=”grid” text_align=”left”][vc_column_inner width=”1/1″][vc_column_text]

So, on to the Top 10 Reasons:

1. I’ve never heard of Lean Six Sigma?
2. Lean Six Sigma is a fad just like Total Quality Management, the Juran Quality Trilogy, Theory of Constraints, and Business Process Re-Engineering.
3. We don’t have time for a Lean Six Sigma program.
4. Our company can’t afford the costs of implementing a Lean Six Sigma program.
5. We’re too small. LSS is for large companies.
6. We’re not a manufacturer.
7. Lean Six Sigma involves a lot of statistics and advanced mathematics. Most of our employees are front-line operators — not engineers.
8. Lean is a better fit for our business. Six Sigma is too advanced.
9. We’ve tried Lean Six Sigma years ago and did not achieve good results.
10. Fear of the unknown or failure.

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