LEAN SIX SIGMA DEPLOYMENT TRENDS



More and more organizations are realizing the combined benefits of investing in both Lean and Six Sigma at the outset. The benefits of investing in both, in a well-tailored, disciplined, knowledgeable and accountable deployment, result in:

  • Significant added value to customers.
  • Top and bottom-line growth.
  • Increased intellectual capital from projects.
  • Involvement and excitement throughout the workforce.
  • Continuous improvement becomes culture-based, not project-based. Both internal and external relationships also improve.

How do the benefits track over time when investing in Lean Six Sigma? Air Academy has found the following three deployment trends and characteristics summarized in the following graph:



 

Trend No. 1 depicts an organization that invests in Lean Six Sigma, but the effort fails to gain broad support from management and acceptance by the work force. Other key elements that further characterize this deployment include:

  • Localized L6σ effort within one function or business unit.
  • Initiated by a single, visionary leader.
  • Commissioned projects usually within manufacturing to demonstrate proof of concept.
  • Limited active alignment and support by leadership.
  • Non-aligned leaderships are content in letting L6σ “die.”
  • No full-time Black Belts

Trend No. 2 depicts an organization that has succeeded in deploying Lean Six Sigma. However, the rate of benefit increase stalls over time often due to competing interests and market forces. Commissioned L6σ projects, though more encompassing and complex than those found in Curve No. 1, above, fail to fundamentally improve key value streams. Other key elements that characterize this deployment include:

  • Major implementation effort within at least one key business unit of the company.
  • Support for L6σ extends to a committed group of executives and mid-level managers.
  • Projects are cross-functional in scope and focus on cycle time reduction, improving product and service quality and solving difficult operational problems.
  • Some projects focus strictly on customer satisfaction.
  • A full-time or combination of full and part-time Black Belts exist that approaches about 1% of the total workforce.

Trend No. 3 depicts an organization in which continuous improvement has transcended from being project-based to culture-based.  L6σ is thoroughly integrated in all of the business units including the corporate headquarters. Benefits, both hard and soft, increase over time. Other key elements that characterize this deployment include:

  • A broad-based, active L6σ campaign, including Design for Six Sigma (DFSS) and/or Design for Lean Six Sigma (DFLSS) within research and development, new product/service development, sales and marketing operations, legal, etc.
  • L6σ also extends to organizations involved in merger and acquisitions.
  • Trend No. 2 type projects are extended to entire value streams and involve both customers and suppliers.
  • At least 2% full-time L6σ Black Belts plus a growing cadre of other X-Belts within the range of 5-10% of the total workforce exists.
  • Succession planning for existing L6σ Black Belts is in-place and being implemented.
  • A culture-based, transformational impetus for L6σ exists that is both tactical and strategic, applied to all aspects of the business and which provide both the top and bottom-line growth through the involvement of both customers and suppliers.

Air Academy Associates promotes Trend No. 3 type Lean Six Sigma deployments while also supporting early self-sustainability.  Our success is solely a function of the success of our clients in their respective investments in Lean Six Sigma.

Why invest in both Lean and Six Sigma simultaneously? A brief answer to this question is apropos. Market forces, including global competition, commoditization and product/service complexity continue to challenge business. “Price” is established by the market, not by the business. To maintain reasonable profit margins, the options for business include reducing waste, queuing times and extraneous variation or cutting the costs of operations in terms of labor, material costs, material utilization, debt, etc. Lean and Six Sigma combined effectively attacks waste, queuing times and variation. Investing in both prevents the need to use substandard materials while providing for reasonable profitability through improved operational efficiencies.

Lean Six Sigma is also referred to as “to simplify and perfect,” a phrase coined by our founder and President, Dr. Mark Kiemele. The synergy from simultaneously investing in both is illustrated in the table, below:

 


The percentages contained within the table reflect the rolled throughput yield based on the number of steps in a process (or the number of parts in an assembly) and the sigma capability of each process step (or each part of an assembly). As an example, a process containing ten steps with each step having a three sigma capable process would have a rolled throughput yield of just 50.1%. If the process is simplified using Lean principles and tools from ten to seven steps and perfected using Six Sigma principles and tools such that each step now has a sigma capability of four, the resulting rolled throughput yield would increase to 95.7%!

Rolled throughput yield represents the probability of a discrete event or entity progressing through a series of steps without the need for any rework. This concept applied to traditional manufacturing operations or transactional services.

Air Academy Associates encourages a tailored, accountable and knowledgeable implementation of Lean and Six Sigma. Data from such efforts shall result in both significant and early benefits while simultaneously supporting self-sustainability. First year net benefits should outweigh costs as should each year thereafter.