Case Study On Six Sigma

Lean Six Sigma is a method which helps Administrators to focus on identifying and delivering quality service to customers. Criminal Justice Administrators must engage personnel by

Lean Six Sigma concepts were introduced in the book titled Leaning into Six Sigma: The Path to Integration of Lean Enterprise and Six Sigma (Lean Six Sigma). Lean Six Sigma methodologies combine lean manufacturing and Six Sigma strategies to rely on improved performance from a collective team effort that systematically reduces variation and removes seven kinds of waste, known as Muda. Muda includes any unnecessary motion, transport, wait time, inappropriate processing, excess inventory, overproduction, and defects (Lean Six Sigma). Furthermore, Lean Six Sigma methods aim to provide customers with the best possible quality, cost, and delivery (ASQ.org, n.d.). In all, Lean Six Sigma is a business performance improvement strategy that uses a systematic approach to improving the way people advance processes. Its methodologies allow for systematically enriched processes to satisfy the customer and make money. Simply put, Lean Six Sigma as a business enhancer, ingrained with tools and techniques people can use to learn how to improve their processes (iSixSigma,

Successful deployment of Lean Six Sigma is often considered a function of the inputs with those being shown below in figure 1.1. As the companies are evaluated keep in mind those critical X’s are often evaluated as the function Y = f(X) or Outputs = f(Inputs). In other words by controlling the inputs an organization can predict the output of the Lean Six Sigma implementation. This point is key when evaluating the difference between successful and not-so-successful implementations.

Lean production and Six Sigma help a company to make the production and the workers work more efficient. The processes allow different types of programs to be put in place to ensure the workers and the production process operate at the optimal levels. The processes ensure that each element of the production and looks at each step to ensure that the process is working in a more efficient way (Wisner , Tan, & Leong, 2012).

Lean Six Sigma combines Lean’s time-focused waste-elimination philosophy to dynamic analytical problem solving toolkit of Six Sigma.

Lean operations emphasizes the understanding of the customer by producing units only as they are needed. As individual units are manufactured this reduces inventory drastically. This also would reduce any waste of products created and not sold. Both of these processes would have been a benefit to my company as there were several units of certain brands that were not desirable or meeting customer needs. This caused a loss of revenue by having units that were produced but not sold. The lean operations and Just In Time methods would eliminate this problem from the manufacturing side of my company.

Pharmaceutical professional David Hanlon is certified in both Lean Six Sigma and Design for Six Sigma. These two business methodologies were created to allow companies to cut waste and streamline their systems for higher efficiency. Both processes use science and empirical research to determine where a company can remove excess and improve output.

The company mission statement indicates that it envisions becoming a principal pharmaceutical manufacturing corporation with a special dedication to advance innovation in medicine with the

Lean Six Sigma is a combination of two business-improvement systems, Lean and Six Sigma. Lean refers to the reduction of waste, or the elimination of unnecessary steps to increase speed and productivity. Six Sigma is the reduction of variance to improve system performance. Ultimately, the depot’s bottom line is a process that frequently produces a high-quality product, on time and within or below established budgets, so that equipment can be returned to the Warfighter quickly and at the lowest possible cost to the taxpayer.

An integration of the two approaches and a general focus on process innovation regardless of the origin of the tools and approaches would be more productive. Lean and Six Sigma have complementary strengths that are useful for systematically developing healthcare service innovations. An integrated Lean-Six Sigma approach incorporates the organizational infrastructure and the thorough diagnosis and analysis tools of Six Sigma with Lean analysis tools and best-practice solutions for problems dealing with waste and unnecessary time

"The convergent framework blends: lean/JIT Manufacturing techniques; Six Sigma methodologies; Theory of Constraints (TOC) and Learning Organization/Knowledge Management concepts." (EMA, Inc., 2003) This process offers the company a plan that can narrow the scope down to the fastest process with the lowest cost in monitoring the implementation and provide the company with the greatest return for their expenses. The team brainstorms problems that are validated through the analysis phase of the process. The metrics put in place allow the organization to locate priority sources that are enhancing defective merchandise and helps to validate the progress of every supplier and vendor as they implement Six Sigma processes. The graphic below shows the five phases of Six Sigma and how the phases are intertwined with one another to obtain the best results.

Lean Six Sigma approach is recognized widely and has been implemented predominately in manufacturing rather than other industries. To illustrate the point, this paper draws attention to the adoption of Lean Six Sigma in various industries with a case study. The combination of Lean tools and Six Sigma methodology is used to improve the process and quality by eliminating the variations and creating workflow in a process. The hypothesis of this study was that the Six Sigma technique can be used along with lean tools in order to improve process and quality in any area of industries. The review of case study discovered the use of

Nave D. ( 2002) has compared Lean, Six Sigma and Theory of Constraints and described essence of these methodologies in following

Looking at the success of Motorola, many companies like Texas Instruments, Allied Signal etc started using Six Sigma methodology to bring organization-wide improvements.

Table I shows a summary of the various approaches and some of their key characteristics. Despite some differences between Total Quality Management (TQM), the Theory Of Constraints (TOC), Six Sigma and Lean the desired outcome of each methodology is ultimately customer focused. TQM, and Lean trace their origins to the quality evolution in Japan shortly after the Second World War though the concepts within each have developed differently. Many TQM concepts and tools have become integral parts Lean methodology, but they differ in their primary focus. While six sigma is often viewed as a direct descendant of TQM it brings a more disciplined approach to process improvement, organizational structure and focus. TOC was introduced to overcome the perceived shortcomings of both Lean and TQM. Both were thought to lack focus on the throughput of a product that was considered to provide a greater benefit in terms of improving an organization’s financial performance.