Lean Six Sigma And The Effects On Operations And Technology Strategy

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,

The driving factors for a success or failure of implementing Six Sigma is largely dependent on the inputs set forth at the conception and duration of the integration. This whitepaper will compare and contrast these critical inputs for a successful deployment. In order to accomplish this five various companies: GE Electric, W.R. Grace, Royal Chemicals, Diversified Paper and Lemforder. Some of these organizations had very successful results while others failed to reach their full potential. What is clear is the similarities of those that succeed and those that failed.

Six Sigma can help companies achieve performance levels that externally are invaluable to customers and internally can reduce costs. These projects can now be found in very diverse industries and can span far-reaching …these two initiatives can be complementary, especially for "Greenfield" process improvements… UPS Supply Chain Solutions 2 business processes and geographies

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

The other commonly used process to transform healthcare is Six Sigma. Six Sigma is a statistically-based method to reduce variation in processes, work flow and policies. It was originally created in 1986 by engineer Bill Smith for the company Motorola (Nicoletti, 2013). Six Sigma is a management strategy with the goal of reducing the amount of defects in production, offering error-free products 99.9997% of the

The basic principle of improvement by the processes of Six Sigma methodology is by the reduction of diffusion. The six sigma approach aims to reduce defect levels to only a few parts per million for an organization's key products and processes. The Six Sigma philosophy is based on the fact that all processes from design, through to manufacturing and to services provided to customers, display aberrances, which may result in product errors that cost time and money. These errors are variations of processes that can be reduced by various methods in order for the real cause of the problem to be systematically identified and

Six Sigma is a quality improvement philosophy and a methodology and collection of statistical techniques used to implement that philosophy. Six Sigma’s focuses on reducing or removing identifiable sources of changes in order to decrease the number of defects in a product. Six Sigma was developed by Bill Smith and was used to standardize the way in which defects are tallied (Meredith, 2013). As a new way of doing business, six sigma can have a significant impact on the end result of business. There are many way six sigma can be applied. For example, the scientific component of methodology is a structure approach that takes

Six Sigma was first introduced in the 1980’s by none other than Motorola. It was not however necessarily a novel concept at the time so much as it drew from a conglomerate of proven manufacturing principles. It is strikingly similar to the scientific method in design. Six Sigma approaches areas that may not necessarily be viewed as problematic with an open mind. It seeks to analyze problems or questions with a stepwise, statistical, and quantitative focus in order to discover, fix, or disprove problems that may or may not exist within a process. By doing this Six Sigma can improve efficiency and therefore improve positive outcomes for whatever the endpoint may be (Mast, Bisgaard, & others, 2007).

This approach consists of Lean Thinking and Six Sigma, which are two processes that are currently famous in the health industry. Their popularity in this industry originates from the fact that they both provide a systematic manner to promote incremental process innovations. While they are mostly used in administration and service areas, Lean Thinking and Six Sigma have undergone parallel developments in the recent years (de Koning et. al, p. 4).

Successful Lean Six Sigma (LSS) deployments rely on the ability of a deployment to effectively apply Six Sigma DMAIC methodologies with the ability to concurrently apply Lean tools in order to drive Continuous Improvement into the culture of the business. Designing a Lean Six Sigma deployment to be an integrated model ties together the Six Sigma well structured approach with the Lean approach of matching quantity and quality to satisfy customers. Various companies have begun

Lean Six Sigma is a methodology that creates processes within an organization to cut waste and improve the company’s performance. However, studies have shown that over the past decade applying Lean Manufacturing and Six Sigma can create problems for companies financially and potential problems for employees. Companies should take great care before implementing a Lean Six Sigma solution because in some instances, going lean can do more harm than good both financially for the organization as well as destroying employee loyalty and moral.

As a management system six sigma permeates all aspects of an organization. Many of those who have had the opportunity to participate in six sigma projects have experienced the transformation of six sigma principle and concepts into the fabric of the management system of the companies in which they are employed by witnessing improvements that will have continuous, long term influences within the company. This is accomplished by creating alignment within the company leadership. Six sigma offers a way of thinking that facilitates improvement by reducing the amount of variation in each process. Statistical tools are used to provide insight so that management can predetermine process outcomes. It also provide a method to analyze a process to determine areas of possible improvement.

The concept of Six Sigma was developed in the early 1980’s at Motorola Corporation (Harry and Schroeder, 2000). Six Sigma can be defined as a statistical measure of the performance of a process or product (Kumi et. al., 2006). It is used as a quality control mechanism, which seeks to reduce defects or variations in a process to 3.4 per million opportunities thereby optimizing output and increasing customer satisfaction (Sambhe, 2012). Sigma is representing the standard deviation, a unit of measurement that designates the distribution or spread about the mean of a process (Six Sigma Academy, 2002). In addition, the Six Sigma uniquely driven by close understanding of customer needs, disciplined use of fact, data, and statistical analysis, and diligent attention to managing improving, and reinventing business processes (Pande, P., et. al. 2000). The Six Sigma methodology uses statistical tools to identify the factors that matter most for improving the quality of processes and generating bottom-line results. The Six Sigma DMAIC (Define, Measure,

Many organizations use different methods to improves the performance, quality, and customer satisfaction to make the perfect products. Six Sigma is a one of the business process which used by statistical methods for removing defects in any process from manufacturing phase to deployment phase. Six Sigma approach was first proposed and developed by Motorola company in 1986. As it proved proven management strategy, which satisfies the customer needed all domains with a new technology. Six Sigma is a step by step project improvement approach where to select the project based on the organized strategy. It is a statistical tool and this process produce less than 3,4 errors per million opportunities. Six Sigma concept follows two procedures DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, and Control) and DMADV (Define, Measure, Analyze, Design, and Verify) which are based on the Deming’s Plan-Do-Check-Act cycle.

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