This is a short guide on the basics of Lean Six Sigma for beginners just starting out and wanting to know more. But before we jump into Lean Six Sigma, let’s find out what Six Sigma is all about.
What do you understand by Six Sigma?
Six Sigma is a complete and flexible system for achieving, sustaining and maximising business success by improving quality standards.
What allows Six Sigma, to stand aside?
The main objective of Six Sigma is based on a comprehensive understanding of customer needs, disciplined employment of facts, data analysis and statistical analysis and diligent attention to managing, improving and reinventing business methods. The whole philosophy is to achieve greater business success.
What is the Methodology of Six Sigma?
The methodology is developed around the concept of “process variation” can be reduced with advanced statistical tools. What does this mean? For example it can mean changing between the waiting time at a call centre call between ten seconds and three minutes.
The ideal goal is to create a process so that it will be 99.9997% defect free or it may produce only up to 3-4 defects per million opportunities. Put in real world terms, this means only 3-4 broken light bulbs per million produced or 3-4 customer calls from a million with waiting times exceeding a minute.
Put in statistical terms, this implies that a process centring the target has six standard deviations (sigma) between the process mean and the nearest specification limit. Hence the name, “Six Sigma”.
The Five Different Stages of Six Sigma:
Six Sigma is built based on a DMAIC framework of five stages:
- Define,
- Analyse,
- Measure,
- Improve, &
- Control
All of these phases contain a special set of techniques that helps the problem solver through the process of improvement from beginning to end.
What do you understand by “Lean”?
Lean is a specific set of tools developed specifically to reduce waste related to the flow of materials and information in a process from start to finish. The ultimate goal of Lean is to recognise and eliminate every unnecessary and value-less steps that a business process may have. This helps in streamlining production, improving quality and gaining customer loyalty.
What do you understand by Lean Six Sigma?
This is the result of a lot of theorists working on creating a system that can be more and more efficient. Starting in the 80’s, consultants trained in both techniques realised their potential to work in conjunction with each other and worked on creating a different set of tools for Six Sigma which is both aiming to improve quality while also being Lean and reducing waste. This is how Lean Six Sigma was created.
Lean Six Sigma is a combined approach to management where the strengths of each process is maximised and weaknesses minimised. Lean Six Sigma has become ever popular these days. LSS first works on using Lean techniques and tools to identify and reduce waste and increase production velocity. After which, Six Sigma is implanted to identify and eliminate process variation. Combined, they create a comprehensive system.
Lean-Insight is providing Lean Six Sigma training in Bangalore, Chennai and Hyderabad. Online training is also available. Along with training Lean-Insight is also providing certification for six sigma courses. For more details call: 901-993-3000
