Lean Six Sigma

Lean Six Sigma is a method that relies on

a collaborative team effort to improve
performance by systematically removing
waste[1] and reducing variation. It
combines lean manufacturing/lean
enterprise and Six Sigma to eliminate the
eight kinds of waste (muda):

Defects
Over-Production
 Waiting
Non-Utilized Talent
Transportation
Inventory
Motion
Extra-Processing

Lean six sigma not only reduces process

defects and waste, but also provides a
framework for overall organizational
culture change.[2]

Waste
Waste is defined by Mr. Fujio Cho of
Toyota as "anything other than the
minimum amount of equipment, materials,
parts, space, and workers time, which are
absolutely essential to add value to the
product."[3]

As mentioned above, there are eight

different types of waste. Each one is
defined below:

Overproduction is an excess amount of

product that is produced. Idle time waste,
or wait time waste, is downtime that is
spent waiting for a product to be created.
The delivery waste, or transportation
waste, is the time spent getting the
product shipped to the recipient. Waste in
the work, inventory, and operations is time
spent loosely and does not make money.
Waste in the work is also known as extra-
processing waste, and waste in operations
is also known as motion waste. Rejected
parts waste, or defects waste, is when
certain pieces should be thrown out or
reworked because they are not within
tolerance. Lastly, we have non-utilized
talent waste which is when a person that
is untrained for a position is put there to
try and complete work.[4]

History
1980s-2000s
What has today to become Lean Six Sigma
can be traced to Motorola in the United
States in 1986 to compete with the Kaizen
business model in Japan. In the 1990s
Allied Signal hired Larry Bossidy and
introduced Six Sigma in heavy
manufacturing. General Electric's Jack
Welch consulted Bossidy and began Six
Sigma at General Electric.

During the 2000s Lean Six Sigma forked

from Six Sigma.

2000s-2010s
The first concept of Lean Six Sigma was
created in 2001 by a book titled Leaning
into Six Sigma: The Path to Integration of
Lean Enterprise and Six Sigma by Barbara
Wheat, Chuck Mills, Mike Carnell.[5]

In the early 2000s Six Sigma principles

expanded into other sectors of the
economy, such as Healthcare, Finance,
Supply Chain, etc.

Description
Lean Six Sigma is a synergized managerial
concept of Lean and Six Sigma. Lean
traditionally focuses on the elimination of
the eight kinds of waste/Muda classified
as defects, over-production, waiting, non-
utilized talent, transportation, inventory,
motion, and extra-processing. Six Sigma
seeks to improve the quality of process
outputs by identifying and removing the
causes of defects (errors) and minimizing
variability in (manufacturing and business)
processes. Synergistically, Lean aims to
achieve continuous flow by tightening the
linkages between process steps while Six
Sigma focuses on reducing process
variation (in all its forms) for the process
steps thereby enabling a tightening of
those linkages. In short, Lean exposes
sources of process variation and Six
Sigma aims to reduce that variation
enabling a virtuous cycle of iterative
improvements towards the goal of
continuous flow.

Lean Six Sigma uses the DMAIC phases

similar to that of Six Sigma. Lean Six
Sigma projects comprise aspects of
Lean's waste elimination and the Six
Sigma focus on reducing defects, based
on critical to quality characteristics. The
DMAIC toolkit of Lean Six Sigma
comprises all the Lean and Six Sigma
tools. The training for Lean Six Sigma is
provided through the belt based training
system similar to that of Six Sigma. The
belt personnel is designated as white
belts, yellow belts, green belts, black belts
and master black belts, similar to judo.

Lean Six Sigma organization structure

For each of this belt, levels skill sets are

available that describe which of the overall
Lean Six Sigma tools are expected to be
part at a certain Belt level. These skill sets
provide a detailed description of the
learning elements that a participant will
have acquired after completing a training
program. The level upon which these
learning elements may be applied is also
described. The skill sets reflect elements
from Six Sigma, Lean and other process
improvement methods like the theory of
constraints (TOC) total productive
maintenance (TPM).

How Lean and Six Sigma

come together
Lean six sigma organizes lean and six
sigma to cut production costs, improve
quality, speed up, stay competitive, and
save money. From six sigma they gain the
reduced variation on parts. Also, lean
focuses on saving money for the company
by focusing on the types of waste and how
to reduce waste. The two coming into lean
six sigma to better each other creating a
well balanced and organized solution to
save money and produce better parts
consistently.[4]

Tools for lean and six sigma

Lean: Kaizen, Value Stream Process
Mapping, 5S, Kanban, Error Proofing,
Productive Maintenance, Set Up Time
Reduction, Reduce Lot Sizes, Line
Balancing, Schedule Leveling,
Standardized work, and Visual
Management.[4]

Six Sigma: Recognize, Define, Measure,

Analyze, Improve, Control, Standardize,
and Integrate.[4]

See also
Business process
Design for Six Sigma
DMAIC
Industrial Engineering
Lean IT
Lean manufacturing
Six Sigma
 Total productive maintenance
Total quality management

References
Citations

1. " "Xerox cuts popular lean six sigma

program" " . democratandchronicle.
Retrieved March 10, 2015.
2. Summers 2011, p. 9.
3. Summers 2011, p. 135.
4. Summers 2011.
5. Leaning into Six Sigma: The Path to
Integration of Lean Enterprise and Six
 Sigma. Boulder City, Colorado. 2001.
ISBN 978-0971249103.

Bibliography

George, Michael L. (2002). Lean Six

Sigma: Combining Six Sigma Quality with
Lean Production Speed (1st ed.).
McGraw-Hill Education. ISBN 978-
0071385213.
George, Michael L.; Rowlands, David;
Kastle, Bill (2003). What is Lean Six
Sigma?. McGraw-Hill Education.
ISBN 978-0071426688.
George, Michael L. (2004). The Lean Six
Sigma Pocket Toolbook: A Quick
Reference Guide to 100 Tools for
Improving Quality and Speed (1st ed.).
McGraw-Hill Education. ISBN 978-
0071441193.
Kowansky, Elaine; Friberg, Norm (2006).
How NOT To Implement Six Sigma: A
manager's guide to ensuring the failure of
the world's greatest Quality Improvement
and Waste Reducing Machine. Xilbris.
ISBN 978-1425712266.
Bass, Issa; Lawton, Barbara (2009). Lean
Six Sigma Using SigmaXL and Minitab.
McGraw-Hill Education. ISBN 978-
0071621304.
Pyzdek, Thomas; Keller, Paul (2014). The
Six Sigma Handbook, Fourth Edition (4th
 ed.). McGraw-Hill Education (published
May 13, 2014). ISBN 978-0071840538.
Morgan, John; Brenig-Jones, Martin
(2015). Lean Six Sigma for Dummies,
Third Revised Edition (3rd ed.). John
Wiley & Sons (published Nov 6, 2015).
ISBN 978-1119067351.
Summers, Donna C.S (2011). Lean Six
Sigma: Process Improvement Tools and
Techniques. One Lake St, Upper Saddle
River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall.
ISBN 978-0-13-512510-6.

External links
Lean Six Sigma for Real Business
Results , IBM Redguide
Retrieved from
"https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?
title=Lean_Six_Sigma&oldid=898597646"

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