What is lean 6 sigma?

Answer 1

LEAN SIX SIGMA (LSS) is a methodology that allows organizations to 'maximize shareholder value by the fastest rate of improvement in customer satisfaction, cost, quality, process, speed, and invested capital'. It is a combination of well-known waste elimination and process improvement techniques of Lean manufacturing and Six Sigma.

Six Sigma's popularity and acceptance came through the work of Jack Welch, former CEO of General Electric (GE) in 1995. The standard framework for implementing a Six Sigma is define, measure, analyze, improve, and control (DMAIC) process. In this approach, key process input variables are narrowed to a vital few. Having control of a vital few allows for good control of the whole picture. DMAIC is widely used when a product or process already exists but performs inadequately. This management strategy seeks to make an organization more effective and efficient.

Because Six Sigma originated through quality, it provides time-tested tools that have enabled continuous improvement for organizations such as GE and Motorola that lead to better performance. Also, it has been widely used by companies which are looking to achieve higher level of customer satisfaction and profitability.

Lean thinking is fundamentally derived from the Japanese quality movement, specifically at the Toyota Production System (TPS) and was hugely popularized by Womack and Jones (1996).

"A Lean process is one in which the value-added time in the process is more than 25% of the total lead time of that process."

Lean practice can be used in all processes in any type of industry or organization to improve their efficiency. It is applicable to all stages in a supply chain and is thus collectively called the "Lean Enterprise." But the efficient & organization-wide implementation of Lean Thinking called for a new set of management skills. The management skills involved to deal with this issue is termed as 'Lean Thinking'.

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Answer 2

Lean is a body of knowledge and tools organizations use to remove all non-value-added time and activity (more simply waste) from their processes. Whether you work for a government agency, small business, large corporation, hospital, or whatever it maybe, your company exists to provide value to customers. You may feel that the term customer may not be appropriate for a hospital or a government agency, nonetheless, the term customer refers to that broad category of people who utilize the services. So, practically speaking, the patient is the customer for a hospital.

For some, Lean is a set of methods and tools for improving a process. For others, Lean is an improvement system, like the Toyota Production System, that sets the framework for how the whole enterprise operates. As much as Lean is a tool used to improve processes, it's also a philosophy and system by which to run an organization or company.

While all organizations are different, they are all the same in that they exist to fulfill some human or societal need. In fulfilling that need, all organizations take a certain set of inputs and transform them into certain outputs, called "products," "services," "transactions," etc. A school, for example, takes curriculum and course materials and, through the functions of teaching and administration, injects this knowledge into students' heads. At least that's what's supposed to happen, with the students' help!