Written by Mike Waight. IMEC Regional Manager
Over the years, operating and management strategies have taken on new names, new packaging and even become their own “fads” within industries. Who can forget Quality Circles in the late 70’s or TQM in the 1980’s? Today, there’s TPM, TPS, Lean Manufacturing, Six Sigma, Training Within Industry (TWI), and Value engineering. There’s ISO, TS, QS, AS 9100. There’s SPC, PPAP, APQP, fishbones, paretos, scatters, and many hundreds more.
Regardless of what you call them or what buzz words are attached, most companies want to deliver products of impeccable quality, on time, at costs that will generate the highest profit margins. If the pursuit of these goals is viewed as a short-term strategy, with a defined life span, it doesn’t fit the most appropriate and impactful name of all: Continuous improvement.
Local companies I have visited often tell me their lean manufacturing deployments are stalled. Some leaders say they’ve done “all they can”. Still others have invested considerable dollars and time in a continuous improvement methodology - Six Sigma, for instance – but are not seeing the return on their investment.
Integrating Lean Manufacturing and Six Sigma (and other continuous improvement strategies) is actually a simple concept. If you consider all the tools both methods have to offer, and you select the right tool for the task at hand, it really doesn’t matter what you call your strategy… as long as you have one.
Get the best out of both methods
By integrating Lean and Six Sigma, companies are able to tackle problems more effectively. Simply put, lean tools are a good choice for eliminating waste. Six Sigma works best when a company needs to tackle a specific problem and minimize variation in a process.
The processes, however, are not mutually exclusive. In fact, if you deploy Six Sigma alone, you may end up spending months fixing a process that in itself could be wasteful. Conversely, if you only implement Lean, you may never get to the root cause of specific problems that, if corrected, could transform your quality or cost structures. By combining Lean and Six Sigma you have the opportunity to:
•Address all key processes
•Seamlessly integrate waste removal, time & variability reduction, and increased productivity
•Deliver products more quickly with exceptional quality
•Impact business improvements rapidly
•Achieve a competitive edge in the market
Where to begin
When trying to rationalize the two approaches, think of it this way: When you build a home, you have a blueprint. Each project calls for a specific set of tools and guidelines to ensure that sections of the structure are being built with utmost quality and safety. Yet, at the same time, you are following a process to build the home in the most timely and cost effective fashion.
The same analogy is true in your business. You can’t select your tools until you have a defined set of objectives for your projects. Value Stream Mapping, for example, is one of the foundations of a Lean Enterprise. It allows you to look at every step in the operational process and identify the actions that do and do not add value to the end customer. Using this roadmap, you’re able to identify performance gaps, define improvement projects, charter improvement teams and select the right tools for closing the gaps. One such tool might be Six Sigma.
Too often, companies see Lean and Six Sigma as distinctly different initiatives. Without integrating the two programs, these implementations can compete for resources and end up limiting the success of either. IMEC advocates using a unified approach to conserve valuable company resources and achieve maximum results at a more rapid rate.
