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Become a process improvement star with Lean Six Sigma!
Thinking Lean? Not in terms of weight loss, but operational efficiency? Then you can get into the Lean mindset with Lean Six Sigma For Dummies. A popular process improvement strategy used in many corporations, Lean Six Sigma exemplifies eliminating waste and optimizing flow at an operational level. With the strategies outlined in this book, you’ll have your projects, team, and maybe even your organization running at peak efficiency.
Written by two experts that have been teaching Lean Six Sigma for over 20 years, Lean Six Sigma For Dummies explains the jargon surrounding this organizational practice, outlines the key principles of both Lean thinking and the Six Sigma process, and breaks it all down into easy-to-follow steps.
With handy checklists and helpful advice, Lean Six Sigma For Dummies shows you how to implement Lean Six Sigma in any industry, within any size organization. Pick up your copy to successfully lean into the Lean Six Sigma mindset yourself.
Martin Brenig-Jones is CEO of Catalyst Consulting, Europe’s leading Lean Six Sigma solutions provider. He has 30 years of experience in Quality and Change Management.
Jo Dowdall has 21 years of experience as a Continuous Improvement professional, coach, trainer, and advocate. She is an accomplished Quality Manager and Master Black Belt.
Introduction 1
About This Book 1
Foolish Assumptions 2
Icons Used In This Book 2
Beyond This Book 3
Where to Go From Here 3
Part 1: Understanding Lean Six Sigma 5
Chapter 1: Defining Lean Six Sigma 7
Introducing Lean Thinking 7
Bringing on the basics of Lean 8
Perusing the principles of Lean thinking 13
Sussing Six Sigma 13
Considering the key elements of Six Sigma 14
Getting to grips with variation 15
Calculating Process Sigma values 18
Bringing Lean and Six Sigma together 22
Adding More to the Mix 22
Managing change 22
Applying Agility 23
Employing innovation 24
Practicing Project Management 24
Chapter 2: Understanding the Principles of Lean Six Sigma 27
Considering the Key Principles of Lean Six Sigma 27
Focus on the customer 28
Identify and understand how the work gets done 28
Manage, improve and smooth the process flow 28
Remove non-value-adding steps and waste 29
Manage by fact and reduce variation 29
Involve and equip the people in the process 29
Undertake improvement activity in a systematic way 29
Improving Existing Processes: Introducing DMAIC 30
Defining your project 31
Measuring how the work is done 35
Analyzing your process 35
Improving your process 36
Coming up with a control plan 36
Reviewing Your DMAIC Phases 37
Taking a Pragmatic Approach 40
Part 2: Lean Six Sigma Foundations 43
Chapter 3: Identifying Your Process Customers 45
Understanding the Process Basics 45
Pinpointing the elements of a process 46
Identifying internal and external customers 47
Getting a High-Level Picture 49
Drawing a high-level process map 50
Segmenting customers 53
Chapter 4: Understanding Your Customers’ Needs 55
Considering Kano 55
Obtaining the Voice of the Customer 57
Taking an outside-in view 58
Seeing customer segments 58
Prioritizing your customers 59
Researching the Requirements 60
Interviewing your customers 62
Focusing on focus groups 63
Considering customer surveys 64
Using observations 64
Avoiding Bias 65
Considering Critical To Quality Customer Requirements 65
Establishing the Real CTQs 69
Prioritizing the requirements 69
Measuring performance using customer-focused measures 70
Chapter 5: Understanding the Process 73
Finding Out How the Work Gets Done 73
Practicing Process Stapling 74
Drawing spaghetti diagrams 76
Painting a Picture of the Process 78
Keeping things simple 80
Developing a deployment flowchart 80
Constructing a Value Stream Map 84
Identifying moments of truth 94
Chapter 6: Managing People and Change 97
Getting into the Grey Matter 98
Gaining Acceptance 98
Sizing Up the Status Quo 99
Using a forcefield diagram 99
Analyzing your stakeholders 100
Coping with Change 101
Creating the Vision 103
Busting Assumptions 105
Part 3: Understanding Performance and Analyzing the Process 109
Chapter 7: Gathering Data 111
Managing by Fact 111
Realizing the importance of good data 112
Reviewing what you currently measure 112
Deciding what to measure 113
Developing a Data Collection Plan 114
Step 1: Agreeing on the measures 114
Step 2: Creating clear operational definitions 116
Step 3: Validating your measurement system 118
Step 4: Developing the Sampling Plan 120
Step 5: Collecting the data 128
Identifying ways to improve your approach 130
Chapter 8: Presenting Your Data 133
Delving into Different Types of Variation 133
Understanding natural variation 134
Spotlighting special cause variation 135
Distinguishing between variation types 135
Avoiding tampering 135
Displaying data differently 136
Recognizing the Importance of Control Charts 137
Creating a control chart 138
Spotting special causes 139
Choosing the right control chart 142
Examining the state of your processes 143
Considering the capability of your processes 145
Handling a histogram 149
Using Pareto charts 151
Chapter 9: Identifying Root Causes 153
Unearthing the Suspects 153
Generating Your List of Suspects 154
Creating a cause and effect diagram 154
Applying affinity mapping 155
Digging deeper with the Five Whys 156
Understanding the key drivers 157
Confirming the Causes 158
Investigating the suspects and getting the facts 158
Succeeding with scatter plots 159
Measuring the relationship between X and Y 160
Handling hypothesis tests 162
Moving on 165
Chapter 10: Identifying Non-Value-Adding Steps and Waste 167
Defining Value-Adding 167
Providing a common definition 168
Carrying out a value-add/non-value-add analysis 169
Assessing opportunity 171
Looking at the Eight Wastes 172
Troubling over transportation 172
Investigating inventory 173
Moving in on motion 173
Playing the waiting game 174
Owning up to overproduction 175
Picking on overprocessing 175
Dealing with defects 176
Realizing the potential in people 176
Going greener with Lean Six Sigma 177
Considering customer perspectives 177
Going for a Waste Walk 178
Chapter 11: Getting the Process to Flow 179
Applying the Theory of Constraints 179
Identifying the weakest link 180
Improving the process flow 180
Building a buffer 182
Managing the Production Cycle 183
Using pull rather than push production 183
Moving to single piece flow 184
Recognizing the problem with batches 184
Looking at Your Layout 185
Identifying wasted movement 185
Using cell manufacturing (a.k.a autonomous working) 185
Applying cell manufacturing in the office 187
Identifying product families 187
Taking takt time into account 188
Part 4: Improving and Innovating 191
Chapter 12: Thinking Differently and Generating Solutions 193
Getting Immersed in Ideas 193
Showering and storming 194
Negative brainstorming 194
Using words and pictures 195
Brainwriting 195
Identifying the attributes 196
Additional tools for idea generation 197
Prioritizing the Ideas 198
Feeling dotty with n/3 199
Using a criteria selection matrix 199
Testing the Ideas to See What Will Fly 201
Chapter 13: Discovering the Opportunity for Prevention 203
Looking at Prevention Tools and Techniques 204
Introducing Jidoka 204
Recognizing risk with Failure Mode and Effects Analysis 205
Error proofing your processes 206
Workplace Organization 208
Introducing the Five Ss 209
Carrying out a red-tag exercise 210
Using Visual Management 210
Profiting from Preventive Maintenance 213
Avoiding Peaks and Troughs 213
Introducing Heijunka 214
Spreading the load 214
Carrying out work in a standard way 215
Building in Business Process Robotics 216
Chapter 14: Introducing Design for Six Sigma 217
Introducing DfSS 217
Introducing DMADV 218
Defining What Needs Designing 219
Getting the measure of needs 220
Analyzing for design 221
Developing the detailed design 222
Verifying that the design works 222
Choosing between DMAIC and DMADV 223
Considering Quality Function Deployment (QFD) 224
Clarifying the floorplan 225
Undertaking a QFD drill-down 231
Making Decisions 232
Chapter 15: Discovering Design Thinking 235
The Principles of Design Thinking 236
Comparing DMADV and Design Thinking 236
Walking through the Design Thinking Steps 237
Understanding the task 237
Empathizing and observing 239
Redefining the problem 240
Finding ideas (ideation) 241
Designing prototypes 243
Testing ideas and assumptions 244
Deciding on Design Thinking 245
Chapter 16: Applying Agile to Lean Six Sigma Projects 247
Understanding Agile Principles 248
Embracing an Agile Mindset 249
Succeeding in the Scrum 250
Understanding Agile roles 252
Concentrating on customer requirements 253
Capitalizing on Kanbans 254
Combining Agile and Lean Six Sigma 256
Part 5: Deploying Lean Six Sigma and Making Change Happen 257
Chapter 17: Running Rapid Improvement Events and Solving Problems with DMAIC 259
Raving about Rapid Improvement 260
Understanding the Facilitator’s Role 262
Planning and preparation 262
Running the event 265
Following up and action planning 266
Creating a Checklist for Running Successful Events 266
Practicing Problem Solving 267
Chapter 18: Ensuring Everyday Operational Excellence 269
Standardizing the Process 270
Perfecting the process handover 270
Populating the Process Management Chart 271
Making Everyday Operational Excellence a Reality 272
Embracing Leader Standard Work 272
Engaging the team 274
Using the right methodology 276
Creating a culture of Continuous Improvement 276
Understanding Organizational Culture 277
Chapter 19: Leading the Deployment and Selecting the Right Projects 279
Considering Key Factors for Successful Deployment 280
Understanding Executive Sponsorship 280
Considering Size and Sector 282
Recognizing the Important Role of Managers 283
Introducing the Deployment Program Manager 284
Starting Your Lean Six Sigma Program 286
Understanding What Project Sponsors Do 287
Driving Strategy Deployment with Lean Six Sigma 288
Generating a List of Candidate Improvement Projects 288
Deciding Whether Lean Six Sigma Is the Right Approach 291
Prioritizing projects 292
Deciding on which approach fits which project 294
Setting Up a DMAIC Project 295
Chapter 20: Putting It All Together: Checklists to Support Your DMAIC Project 297
Defining the Project 298
Delivering the Define phase 298
Getting through the Define phase tollgate 299
Moving into the Measure Phase 300
Making good on Measure phase deliverables 300
Getting through the Measure phase tollgate 301
Analyzing to Identify Root Causes 302
Acing the Analyze phase 302
Getting through the Analyze phase tollgate 303
Quantifying the Opportunity 303
Identifying and Planning the Improvements 304
Executing the Improve phase 304
Getting through the Improve phase tollgate 305
Confirming the Customer and Business Benefits 306
Implementing the Solutions and Controlling the Process 307
Completing the Control phase .308
Getting through the Control phase tollgate 308
Conducting the Final Benefit Review 309
Part 6: The Part of Tens 311
Chapter 21: Ten Tips for Best-Practice Project Storyboards 313
Keep It Brief 314
Make It Visual 314
Make It Flow 314
Weave the Story Together with a Golden Thread 315
Keep It Up to Date as You Go Along 315
Don’t Forget the “Happily Ever After” Part 316
Keep It Simple 316
Develop a One-Page Summary 316
Reflect on the Lessons Learned 317
Share, Share, Share! 317
Chapter 22: Ten Pitfalls to Avoid 319
Jumping to Solutions 319
Coming Down with Analysis Paralysis 320
Falling into Common Project Traps 321
Stifling the Program Before You’ve Started 322
Ignoring Change Management 323
Getting Complacent 323
Thinking That You’re Already Doing It 323
Believing the Myths 324
Doing the Wrong Things Right 324
Overtraining 325
Chapter 23: Ten (Plus One) Places to Go for Help 327
Your Colleagues 327
Your Sponsor 328
Other Organizations 328
The Internet 328
Social Media 330
Networks and Associations 330
Conferences 330
Books 331
Periodicals 332
Software 332
Statistical analysis 333
Simulation 333
Deployment management 334
Online collaboration tools 334
Training and Consulting Companies 334
Index 335
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