What is Lean Six Sigma (LSS)?

By: David Patrishkoff

Dec. 11, 2011

Lean and Six Sigma are individually powerful waste reduction and quality improvement tools. Lean creates speed by eliminating wasteful activities in business processes. Lean projects can be done in a high speed 3-5 day Blitz (Kaizen) mode of operation. Six Sigma eliminates quality and customer dissatisfaction issues by implementing disciplined problem solving techniques to get to the true root causes of complicated problems.

When Lean and Six Sigma are combined as shown on the graph on the right, they offer a powerful combined toolbox of skills that we call Lean Six Sigma (LSS). LSS can create organizational breakthroughs in speed, quality and customer satisfaction. This new toolkit is used to solve one difficult problem at a time in a business by the LSS students who apply what they learned from their training. LSS tools are not intended to be used on every problem, just the ones with the highest levels of complexity.

LSS uses the DMAIC problem solving methodology. The DMAIC steps are summarized below.

• Define: Thoroughly Define the problem to be solved, identify a problem solving team, create a project charter, find and an interested management sponsor and gather customer requirements and historical baseline data on the problem.
• Measure: Brainstorm what the possible root causes of the problem could be and collect accurate data on all of those possible root causes. Ensure that your data and information collection methods are accurate. Do detailed process mapping on the business processes that need to be improved, looking for waste in the processes. There are 54 forms of waste I discovered with my 8 years of research, not just the 7-9 forms of waste identified in classic and modern-day Lean textbooks.
• Analyze: Use statistical root cause verification tools to sort out the false root causes and identify the true and statistically validated root causes by using tools such as hypothesis testing, Single and Multiple Variable Regression Analysis and Design of Experiments. On projects where the battle is to improve the efficiency of business processes, detailed Value Stream Maps, Process Maps, Time and Motion studies and Spaghetti charts are among the tools of choice.
• Improve: Here is where the trainee and their team brainstorm how to create solutions to address the confirmed root causes and test those solutions during time-limited test periods called Pilots. “Before” and “After” data is collected from the process and scrutinized to determine if there has been a marked and statistically valid improvement or not.
• Control: Once confirmed improvements have been verified, it’s time to figure out how to maintain these gains. Your solutions should not only work with your “A-Team” but also for your B, C and D-Team. New and improved processes need to be robust, error-proofed and documented.  Employees need to be trained in the new processes and monitoring systems need to be put in place to ensure that the improvements are sustained.

My consulting company was one of the first to ever officially combine those two disciplines under one training umbrella back in 2001. My company implemented this training for all Green Belts, Black Belts and Master Black Belts for Walter Industries at the time. Walter Industries is a highly diversified company based in Tampa, Florida.

Green Belts, Black Belts and Master Black Belts are usually trained in statistical problem solving software like Minitab and even Datafit (User-friendly non-linear regression analysis software). A rigorous training agenda is shown on the links here for Green Belt, Black Belt and Master Black Belt training programs.

There are various levels of increasing competency in LSS, starting with White Belts, then moving on to Yellow, Green, Black and Master Black Belts. The higher levels of competency are achieved with more training that expose students to more tools to solve more serious levels of problems. A Green and Black Belt could be exposed to over 200 concepts for problem solving during the course of their training.

There is a huge difference between being just LSS trained and being a LSS practitioner. A LSS practitioner has successfully completed the training as well as proven that they can successfully apply these techniques to solve a real life problem. The problem solving with these techniques should be completed between 2 and 6 months. It is incredibly unrealistic to assume that a LSS student can go straight from a LSS class to applying these techniques correctly on their first project without expert support. Expert coaches are required to help students navigate through the details of successful LSS implementation.

The challenges for a successful Lean and Six Sigma implementation program are listed below.

·       Top level LSS training must start with top management so they know how to use it and integrate it into their management systems.

·       Expert mentoring must be used to coach trainees while they work on their first few projects and learn how to apply the new techniques.

·       The most effective LSS learning experiences are achieved when students bring real life problems to the class with them so serious LSS application discussions can be started between the trainer and the student.

·       Not all LSS instructors have the capability to relate with employees on a practical level during training so choose your trainers wisely.

·       Employees need to be more empowered to follow the DMAIC process to be successful.

·       Lean and Six Sigma trainees also need to be given the extra time to implement LSS improvement projects.

·       Management must allow workers to follow the Lean Six Sigma methodology and not rush or force them to violate the rules of the DMAIC methodology.

·       If LSS implementation fails in a company, ask 6 questions:

1.     Is management really on board or are they just tolerating and not supporting LSS?

2.     Was management trained in how to support and not hinder LSS successes?

3.     Were the LSS projects scoped too big?

4.     Were the right people sent to the training?

5.     Is your LSS training program sub-standard?

6.     Are the right people coaching your LSS students during their projects?

Lean and Six Sigma are not magical tools. They are very powerful if put into the hands of the right people who are empowered by management. LSS is a critical element required to achieve enterprise-wide efficiency. The merging of Lean and Six Sigma is the beginning of mergers, not the end. Other tools and techniques are being merged with LSS such as Structured Innovation tools. When top to bottom enterprise-wide efficiency improvements are on the agenda, other techniques need to be linked with LSS.

About the Author: David J. Patrishkoff is President of E3 Extreme Enterprise Efficiency® LLC headquartered in Orlando, Florida, USA. He has held worldwide senior executive positions at large multi-national companies in the USA and in Germany. He is a Lean Sigma Master Black Belt, speaker, management consultant, writer, trainer and consultant in many advanced problem solving and avoidance techniques. Ever since 2011, he has dedicated his full time to E3 by consulting and training companies in over 55 different industries, worldwide. David has trained over 3,000 professionals and can help you improve your organization’s performance levels. Visit his company website for more information: http://www.LeanSixSigmaAndBeyond.com. David is also listed in LinkedIn.