Lean And Six Sigma By Dave Turbide
Written by Dave Turbide
The essence of Lean is a focus on eliminating waste in all its forms. Lean is usually not focused on technology. That is not to say, however, that technology does not belong in a Lean initiative or that Lean is against technology. To the contrary, technology is often employed to help achieve Lean objectives. The confusion comes from the fact that the roots of Lean are in the Toyota Production System and the Japanese emphasis on physical and manual tools like kanban, kaisen, poka-yoke, and the 5 s approach.
While these physical and manual tools and techniques can deliver terrific results without the expense and difficulty of buying and implementing technology solutions, information systems can help 'take it to the next level' by providing insight and oversight that is not available otherwise. Comprehensive integrated systems like extended ERP and supply chain systems, coupled with industrial-strength measurement and reporting applications (what we used to call business intelligence but more recently refer to as performance management tools) serve a vital need in coordinating improvement activities and keeping them all in line with the overall goals of the initiative. In isolation, it's far too easy to spend time and effort improving a process and only realize later that the improvements don't affect the overall performance of the company. I'm reminded of the company that spent millions on an automated warehouse at the same time that the company's lean initiative was eliminating much of the inventory that the warehouse would no longer have to handle.
Broad-based information systems are also essential for keeping score – measuring the effect of improvements and reinforcing the new processes and procedures to make sure the improvements are maintained. It is far too easy to slip back into the bad-old-ways of doing things without constant reinforcement and encouragement. Measurements can help keep the focus where it ought to be.
What does all this have to do with Six Sigma? Six Sigma, as you probably already know, is a quality measurement and improvement program that aims at reducing defects to a level of about 3 or 4 defects per million. Six Sigma depends rather heavily on technology – to measure, analyze and control processes and their results. Lean initiatives focus on reducing or eliminating non-productive (non-value-adding) activities and reporting is considered a non-value activity. Furthermore, most Lean initiatives greatly reduce production lead-time and any reporting that's left in or added to the process becomes a bigger factor in proportion to that shorter production time. So, there's an apparent conflict between lean's efforts to take activities out and Six Sigma's requirement to add reporting and measurement.
Quality improvement is a very important part of lean, however, and Six Sigma is the most powerful quality improvement tool in our current arsenal. So, the marriage of lean and Six Sigma makes sense. The challenge is to implement Six Sigma in such a way that it has minimum impact on operations and adds as little additional reporting and maintenance activity as possible in the plant.
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For more than twenty-five years, Dave Turbide has been a consultant specializing in manufacturing technologies, consulting and education. He has extensive first-hand knowledge of manufacturing functions and management practices, automated information systems and vendor manufacturing software offerings. He also has experience in industry analysis, writing, engineering, project management, technical analysis and management. He has exceptional analytical and communication skills as demonstrated by his published books, articles, papers and speeches.