Lean Six Sigma

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Lean Six Sigma for Dummies

Part - I

Chapter 1 – Defining Lean Six Sigma

1) Lean Thinking enhances the customer value by improving and smoothening


the process flow and eliminating the waste.
2) It has evolved a lot from Henry Ford’s first production line but the major
development has been done by Toyota Production System (TPS).
3) Toyota, built on Ford’s production ideas, changing from high volume, low
variety to low volume, high variety.
4) Lean was called “Lean” not because it leans the cost of your organisation, but
because Krafcik wrote the features of Toyota system and compared it with the
mass production and then commented: “It needs less of everything to create
a given amount of value, so let’s call it Lean.”
5) Taiichi Ohno, the father of TPS inspired the Lean Production in U.S. His TPS
approach was focused on reducing the timeline from ‘receiving the order from
the customer’ to ‘collecting cash’ by removing the non-value-added wastes.
6) The TPS approach really is about understanding how the work gets done,
finding ways of doing it better, smoother and faster, and closing the time gap
between the start and end points of our processes. And it applies to any
process. Whether you’re working in the public or private sector, in service,
transactional or manufacturing processes really doesn’t matter.
7) The Toyota Production System (TPS) was established based on two
concepts: "jidoka" (which can be loosely translated as "automation with a
human touch"), as when a problem occurs, the equipment stops immediately,
preventing defective products from being produced; and the "Just-in-Time"
concept, in which each process produces only what is needed for the next
process in a continuous flow.
8) Heijunka (English: Production smoothing or levelling): A technique to facilitate
Just-In-Time (JIT) production, it means production levelling (finding and
keeping average production volumes) and is used to smooth out production in
all departments as well as that of the supplier over a period of time.
a. Levelling: It involves smoothing the volume of production in order to
reduce variation, that is, the ups and downs and peaks and troughs
that can make planning difficult.
b. Sequencing: It involves carrying out the process in date order. It
focuses on following the correct sequence.
c. Standardising: It seeks to reduce variation in the way the work is
carried out, highlighting the importance of ‘standard work’, of following
a standard process and procedure. It links well to the concept of
process management, where the process owner continuously seeks to
find and consistently deploy best practice. Remember, however, that
you need to standardise your processes before you can improve them.
Once they’re standardised, you can work on stabilising them, and now
that you fully understand how the processes work, you can improve
them, creating a ‘one best way’ of doing them.
9) Jidoka concerns prevention of production of defective material. Under this, a
machine stops working if it detects and fault. The two main elements under it
are:
a. Automation: It allows machines to work autonomously and shutting
down if something goes wrong. The “No” is highlighted because it
states that no defects are allowed to pass.
b. Stop at every abnormality: A machine can stop automatically or by a
person if he spots any error. This can seem painful at first, but once a
root cause is identified, it can make the same problem occurring in
future easy.
10) Just-In Time: This involves providing the right thing at the right time, right
location and right quantity. Three elements under JIT are:
a. Single piece flow: Each person checks the quality of a product before
sending it to the next process. If any defect is spotted, Jidoka is
enacted.
b. Pull Production: It reduces the need of costly storage space by
producing the required items required for the next process. It prevents
overproduction which is listed as one of the major waste by Mr. Ohno.
c. Takt Time: It measures how quickly things can be performed
measuring the amount of volume demanded by the customer. “Takt” in
German means “Clock”.
11) The five principles of Lean thinking are:
a. Understand the customer and their perception of value.
b. Identify and understand the value stream for each process and the
waste within it.
c. Enable the value to flow.
d. Let the customer pull the value through the processes, according to
their needs.
e. Continuously pursue perfection (continuous improvement).

Six Sigma

1) Bill Smith coined the term “Six Sigma” after he used an improvement process
for his company Motorola.
2) A sigma or standard deviation is a measure of variation that measures the
reveals the average difference between any one item and overall average of
larger population of items.
3) It is represented as “s”.
4) Formula for this is :

5) A customer has CTQs


(Critical to Quality) in terms of speed, accuracy and completeness.
6) While calculating sigma, we need to understand these main terms:
a. Unit: The item produced.
b. Defect: an event that does not meet the specification of CTQs.
c. Defect Opportunity: a chance of not meeting CTQs. Number of defect
opportunities is equal to the number of CTQs.
d. Defective: A unit with one or more defects
7) Calculating PROCESS SIGMA VALUE:
Chapter 2 – Understanding the Principles of Lean Six Sigma

1) Key principles of Lean Six Sigma are:


a. Focus on the Customer: The main focus should be towards the
CTQs.
b. Identify and understand how the work gets done: The value
stream describes all the steps in our process, from customer order
to the final delivery and from receiving the amount from the
customer. By understanding such a process, one can identify the
waste in the process and can get rid of it, hence making the
production efficient. To undertake the process, you need to go to
the Gemba, a Japanese word referring to a place where work is
carried out. Process stapling refers to going to the place where
work is being carried out and understanding how the actual process
carries out, not how you wanted. This can help in analysing the
process being carried out and identifying the waste.
c. Manage, improve and smooth the work flow: Overproduction is a
waste. We should rather pull instead of push, meaning we should
produce the required amount of items only required for the next
process.
d. Remove non-value-adding steps and waste: The Japanese word
for waste is Muda. It is being classified into two broad types and
seven categories.
e. Manage by fact and reduce variations: Using accurate data and
facts avoids jumping to conclusion and solutions. Fact helps in
measuring the right things in right way.
f. Involve and equip people in the process: People in process
should be able to feel, challenge and improve their process and the
way they work.
g. Undertake improvement activity in a systematic way: In lean six
sigma, DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyse, Improve and Control) is
used to improve the existing processes. When a new process
needs to be designed, DMADV (Define, Measure, Analyse, Design
and Verify)
2) Under DMAIC, you first identify the problem. Then the DMAIC project
comes into action. You first describe the improvement needed. Then you
measure the data and facts available regarding it. Then, you are ready to
analyse the root cause by using facts and data. Then we are at the
improvement phase and can identify the potential solutions. Finally, we
are ready to implement the solution in control phase. Control phase is
the most important as implementing the solution, the customer should be
able to feel the change.
DMAIC

1) DEFINE:
As under Define, we describe the problem. One major output from Define
is the Improvement Charter. It is an agreed document describing the
purpose and goals of an improvement team.
a. Under Improvement Charter:
 A high-level business case providing an explanation of
why undertaking the project is important.
 A problem statement defining the issue to be resolved.
 A goal statement describing the objective of the project.
 The project scope defining the parameters and identifying
any constraints.
 The CTQs specifying the problem from the customer’s
perspective. Unless you already have the CTQs, these
might not be known until the Measure phase.
 Roles identifying the people involved in and around the
project, expectations of them and their responsibilities. The
improvement charter forms a contract between the
members of the improvement team, and the champion or
sponsor.
 Milestones summarising the key steps and provisional
dates for achieving the goal.
Tools like affinity and interrelationship diagrams can be used but
mainly in DMADV.
b. Creating and affinity diagram, follow these rules:
i. Use one idea per sticky note
ii. Use statements rather than questions
iii. Write clearly
iv. Don’t write in upper case as lower case words are easier
v. Avoid one word statements
vi. Include a noun and verb in each statement
vii. Don’t write an essay

Once everyone has finished writing their sticky notes, maintain the silence and place
them on the wall. Move the notes into appropriate themes or clusters. Finally,
give each theme or cluster a title describing its content. Ensure that each title
provides enough description; doing so is helpful for when you move into the
interrelationship diagram.

An interrelationship diagram identifies the key causal factors or drivers for your
programme or project, by enabling you to understand the relationships between
the themes or clusters. In looking at the different pairs of clusters you’re trying to
see if a cause and effect type of relationship exists, so does ‘this’ have to be
done before ‘that’, or does ‘this’ drive ‘that’.
Interrelationship Diagram
Affinity Diagram
2) Measure: Same as defined
3) Analyse: Same as defined
4) Improve:
After analysing the root causes, we begin to generate some
improvement ideas. It involves three phase:
a. Generate ideas about possible solutions: Solution should
address the problem and its cause.
b. Select the most appropriate solution: After generating the
improvement ideas, select the one which solves the major
criteria of your problem.
c. Plan and test the solution: Carrying a solution with detailed
planning is likely to be helpful.
5) Control:
The main purpose of the Control phase is to make the customer
actually feel the improvement as per the CTQs. A control plan can be:

Your various DMAIC projects help the organisation move towards a


situation where processes are completely understood, and are focused
on meeting customer CTQs involving the minimum possible non-value-
added activity.

Review the DMAIC Project

At the end of every DMAIC phase, a review should be done, it should be done in
the form of a tollgate. At the end pf every phase, the improvement team leader
should conduct this in order to check that you have conducted the phase properly
and to review the output from it. Asking questions like:
 How are things going?
 Are we on course?
 What have we discovered?
 What went well?
 What can we conclude?
Part – II

Chapter – 3 Identifying your Customers

A process is a series of steps carried out to produce an output in form of a product or


service. Each process add value in the eyes of a customer.
All work is a process and process is a blend of PEMME:

1. People: Those working in or around the process. Right number of people


at right place, right time and processing the right skills for the process being
carried out,
2. Equipment: Equipment are the items required for the carrying out of the
process. It can be as small as a stapler or as large as a lathe used in
manufacturing.
3. Method: Methods is the steps/procedure used in carrying out the process.
4. Materials: Raw material is considered under materials.
5. Environment: Covers the working area where we need to be informative
about the room temperature required or does it need to be dust-free.

The concept of PEMME applies almost on every routine of ours. A simple diagram of
PEMME can be:

High Level Picture


The

SIPOC model helps in identifying your customer and the outputs they need. The
SIPOC model is defined as:
1) Supplier: The people providing you with the input needed to carry out the
process are the suppliers. The external customer is also considered as a type
of supplier when he send you enquiries. In short, all those people bringing
information to the company for the process are considered to be suppliers.
2) Input: All the items that are being brought in by the suppliers are considered
to be inputs.
3) Process: Process defines the steps at high level.
4) Output: Things provided to the internal and external consumers that meet
their CTQs are termed as outputs.
5) Customers: The internal and external customer are are the customers.

Chapter – 4
Understanding your Customer Needs

The CTQs are the vital elements in Lean Six Sigma helping in meeting the customer
requirements. The voice of customers (VoC) help us understanding the CTQs.
The Kano model developed by Professor Kano at University of Tokyo helps us in
understanding the consumer requirements. It has three main categories:
1) Must-bes: These are some of the requirements that a customer does not
want to spell out because these are so must and obvious that one understand
it on its own. This will not increase the customer satisfaction. These are the
requirements a customer is already expecting.
2) One Dimensional: These are referred as the satisfiers as they relate to the
product feature, delivery service or both. The more these are met, the more
satisfaction it provides to the customers.
3) Delighters: Under this, a customer is delighted by something we’ve done and
his satisfaction will increase even if some of the elements haven’t been
delivered.
Such three behaviours are immutable. They can take each other’s behaviour
according to the changing time span. Some segments to study your customer are:

✓ Industry ✓ Age
✓ Size ✓ Gender
✓ Spend ✓ Socio-economic factors
✓ Geographical location ✓ Frequency of purchase/use
✓ End use ✓ Impact/opinion leader
✓ Product characteristics ✓ Loyalty
✓ Buying characteristics ✓ Channel
✓ Price/cost sensitivity ✓ Technology

It is very important to prioritise your customer and to know their requirements. To


know the requirements, one should do a proper research about their customer.
Some of the ways for customer requirements are market research, survey,
interviews etc.

As you plan for your research, be aware of the following issues:


1) Ask your customer “Why you need this?” unless you get the real answer. He
may answer in the form of solution and not the real need.
2) Different customers may see same product differently. For example someone
is fine in buying branded clothes and feel inferior wearing non-brand clothes
while some do not care about the brand logo.
3) External customer need product form which they will be valued. Internal
customers will need products in which they can add value.

Interviewing the customer


Interviewing the customer helps in knowing things a single customer want from a
particular product/service and to use that information while doing the performance
management. The three phases of customer interviewing are:
1) Beginning: To know what is important to the customer for the development of
hypotheses about the customer values.
2) Middle: To understand why the particular issue is important to the customer.
3) Ending: To get ideas, suggestions and to try the new innovation ideas on the
customers.

Advantages Disadvantages
1. Flexibility 1) Costly

2. Ease in complexities 2) Difficult to analyse

3. Wide reach 3) Sample size may be small

4. High response rate 4) False answers

5. Assurance of full steps 5) Less reliable

Focus Group
Focus group is interviewing 6-10 people at the same time. This interview generally
last for 2-3 hours. The main purpose of this group is to identify to capture new ideas
and evaluate the product/service or test new ideas on the customers.
Critical to Quality (CTQ) Requirements
CTQs should always be written down in the measurable form.

Developing a CTQ Tree


Some types of CTQs are:
Chapter 5 – Determining the Chain of Events

There are two types of process maps: the deployment flowchart and the value
street map. These maps are built on high level SIPOC diagram.
Before drawing any kind of process maps, one should visit the workplace (Gemba)
and see that what is happening there.
Process Stapling is the best way to understand the chain of events and the process.
It is simply taking a customer order and walking it through the required steps, step by
step and you go to various processes where the order goes. Doing this helps in
understanding some of the questions like “what happens, who does what and why,
how, where and when they do it.” Process stapling helps in the improvement when
you start understanding the processes.

Spaghetti Diagram
A spaghetti diagram helps us in linking the activities of workplace.

Everything is labelled and the linking threads tells us about the distance we cover
while reaching other process. This can help in identifying the waste and can help in
better arrangement of the workplace. Some other things for better performances can
be:
1) Painting a picture of process: This is not done for official bases, but for your
own self for the better understanding of what you see on the Gemba.
2) Keeping things simple: Rather than making things complicated, it should be
done in a simpler way so that they can be understandable by everyone.
Things can be labelled like circle for start process, square for steps and
diamond for decision making.
3) Developing a deployment flowchart: Such a chart helps in determining who
is involved in the process.
4) Seeing value in a value stream map: It is an addition or alternative to the
deployment chart. This chart shows al the value-creating task and the non-
value creating task. Value map need some steps while drawing:
a. Identify the process according to the start and end
b. Set-up a small analysis team
c. Go to the Gemba
d. Draw a process map of material in the whole value stream
e. Identify the performance data you need to know
f. Collect data for each step
g. Add arrows to show the information flow
h. Add an overall timeline to show the average cycle for an item
Part III
Assessing Performance
Chapter 6 - Gathering Information

Managing by facts is one of the key principle of Lean Six Sigma. We need accurate
data to make the right decision in life. Many organisations sometimes focus on
wrong data which is not required and they waste time in measuring that data.
Sometimes the data maybe right but is presented in the wrong way that it is difficult
to interpret. Effective data collection involves five step:
1) Agree the objectives and goals linking to the key outputs from your processes
that seek to meet the CTQs.
2) Develop operational definitions and procedures that help ensure everyone is
clear about what’s being measured and why.
3) Agree ground rules to ensure that you collect valid and consistent data.
4) Collect the data.
5) Carry on collecting the data and identify ways to improve your approach.

Sampling is used to when it is too difficult or too expensive to collect and analyse
data. Process Sampling is used to measure, analyse and control the process. Two
types of process sampling are: Systematic sampling is taking the sampling of every
third or tenth item or every 45 minutes. Sub-group sampling is taking the sample of
some particular number of goods every day.

Population Sampling is looks at the population to study the customer base or else
something which is already been processed.

Precision is how narrow you want the range of your estimation.

Confidence Interval shows the range that are possible for the analysis of your
sample. Precision is half the width of confidence interval.
Chapter 7 – Presenting Your Data

1. Variation comes in two types:


a. Common or Natural Variation: It is the result we expect to see after
designing and managing the process. The result may not meet the CTQs
but are stable and predictable. For the CTQs purpose, DMAIC can be used
for the improvement.
b. Special Cause Variation: it is the variation that we don’t expect. This can
happen because of the ignorance of some special variables which influence
the result of your process.
2. It is very important to understand what type of variation is happening. If we
identified special variation as natural variation then we might temper with the
process.
3. Data should be presented in the form of figures or charts for the better
understanding.
4. A process can be in one of the four stages:
a. Ideal State: the process remains in statistical control and meets the
customer requirement.
b. Threshold State: the process is in statistical control but is not meeting the
customer requirement.
c. Brink State: The process meets the customer requirement but is not in the
statistical control. It has the special cause variation and is unpredictable.
d. Chaos State: the process neither meets the customer requirement, nor is
under statistical control. Using control chart, we can monitor the special
cause and can implement the improvement process.
5. Two capability indices can be used to help assess our performance:
a. Cp Index: it compares the variation in product and compare it with the limits
of CTQs.
b. Cpk Index: it helps in describing the location that how well we are leading
the process and at what position.
Part IV – Improving the Process

Chapter 9 – Identifying Value Added Steps and Waste

1. For a step to be value added it must meet 3 criteria:


 Customer should care about the step
 The step must bring some kind of physical change
 It should be actioned Right First Time

2. One should always think from the customer point of view in order to stand at par
with the CTQs.

3. The seven kinds of wastes (Muda) are:

a. Over-Production
b. Waiting
c. Transportation
d. Over-Processing
e. Inventory
f. Motion
g. Defects/Corrections

a. Over-Production: It is producing too many items earlier than the next


process or the customer needs.
b. Waiting: Waiting is a type of failure that hampers the process. Reasons
maybe machine failure, electricity cut etc.
c. Transportation: It involves unnecessarily movement of the material. It can
be incomplete order being sent or unfinished process being transferred to
the next process or carrying the over-production.
d. Over-Processing: It includes the involvement of unnecessary steps in the
process. Processing unnecessary information is such an example of this
waste.
e. Inventory: Inventory waste happens because of the Over-Production
waste as producing too many items will create problems of storage.
f. Motion: Motion waste generally happens because of the poorly designed
workplace.
g. Defects/Correction: Correction is the reworking done because of the
failure of meeting the CTQs.
Chapter – 10 Discovering the Opportunity for Prevention

1. The Five Ss’ aims to provide tools and materials we need to do the job only
when we need them. It helps in leading to the more safe and pleasant working
environment. The Five S are:
a. Sort: It organises the tools on the basis of frequently, occasionally,
never etc. This prevents the chaos to be created in the working
environment.
b. Straighten: This means straightening things up that are used
frequently.
c. Scrub: This includes keeping things clean, tidy and appropriately
maintained.
d. Systemise: This involves designing a simple way of working so that
tools and information stays sorted, straightened and scrubbed.
e. Standardise: It is sticking to the system every day and keep doing it.

2. A Red-Tax Exercise is performed to identify the unneeded items.

3. Using a Visual Management helps understanding the process and know the
tasks are being carried out and storing the things properly.

4. Failure Mode Effects Analysis (FMEA) is a prevention tool that helps us


identifying and prioritising potential opportunities for taking prevention action.

5. Error Proofing also referred as Poka-yoke in Japanese meaning avoiding


inadvertent errors is a key in improving your process. It either prevents the
mistake or make the mistake visible. These are based on simplicity, ingenuity,
inexpensive and are very effective. Three type of error proofing are:

a. Contact Error Proofing: it involves product having physical shape that


creates a mistake. For example: Product falling out from a pipeline with
a certain diameter.
b. Fixed Value Error Proofing: it identifies when a part is missing or not
used and essentially ensures appropriate quantities. For example: An
egg tray specially designed to carry a certain number of quantity.
c. Motion Step Error Proofing: it ensures that the process operator has
taken the correct path or number of steps. For example: A word being
highlighted if its spelling are wrong in MS Word.

6. Jidoka and Heijunka have already been understood in Page No 1.


Chapter 11 - Identifying and Tackling Bottlenecks

1. Eli Goldratt, an Israeli business management guru, suggested a Theory of


Constraints which involved five steps:
a. Identify
b. Exploit
c. Subordinate the other steps
d. Elevate
e. Repeat
___________________________________________________________________

Chapter 12 – Introducing Design for Six Sigma

1. In this chapter, we will understand DMADV and a tour through House of


Quality.
2. There are a lot of concepts, tools and techniques used in DfSS, though House
of Quality is an important one.
3. Benchmarking is seeking out of best performing product/service and
understanding how does they are produced.
4. Quality Function Development (QFD) doesn’t stop at just one house. In
analysis and design phase, house of quality can go to several phase.

House of Quality Room 1 – Customer Needs: Before reaching to the QFD stage,
we have to identify and segment the customer needs from the customer research
done by us. The collected information is just represented in the form of CTQs.
House of Quality Room 2 – Prioritising Needs and Competitive Comparison:
After that, the CTQs are prioritised in the form of importance. In designing phase,
you must understand the priorities from customer point of view. Also, customer
should be asked to rate us according to the competition as this will help us to
improve or redesign our product.
House of Quality Room 3 – Characteristics and Measures: Under this, we move
from ‘WHAT’ to ‘HOW’ of the customer requirements. This studies the basis on
which we have to measure the CTQs.
House of Quality Room 4 – Relationships: In this, we pick CTQs from room 1 and
characteristics and measures from room 3 in order to relate the WHAT and HOW.
House of Quality Room 5 – Competitive Benchmark: Benchmarking means
looking both inside and outside the organisation in order to see how well others are
doing in similar products/services as yours and how BEST PRACTICE organisation
provide theirs product/services.
House of Quality Room 6 – Target and Limits: In this, we set goals and targets
against the measures and characteristics of Room 3.
House of Quality Room 7 – Correlation: This room is also known as the roof. It
looks at the impact of each measure on the CTQs and how they affect each other.
We have to assess the impact of each measure whether it is increasing, decreasing
or hitting the target CTQs.
Part V - Deploying Lean Sigma
Chapter 13 – Leading the Deployment

1. Successful deployment of Lean Six Sigma is done by Doing the right work,
Doing the work right and Creating the right environment.
2. Dong the right work includes strategic alignment, project selection and
managing by fact. It ensures that project is focused towards right issues and
is linked towards your business objectives.
3. Doing the work right includes Lean Six Sigma tools and methods,
programme management, project management and process management. It
ensures that project runs effectively, using good quality people, applying
sound management techniques and many more.
4. Creating the right environment includes leadership behaviour, effective
sponsorship, mentoring, coaching, effective teamwork and resourcing.

Chapter 14 – Selecting the Right Project

1. Kaizen means the change for the better. It is associated with short, rapid and
incremental improvement.
2. Kai Sigma is developed from the Kaizen approach and use the DMAIC
process.
Part VI – The Part of Tens

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