What is Lean Six Sigma?

What Is Lean Six Sigma?

Lean Six Sigma is an approach that merges Lean and Six Sigma to improve processes in a manufacturing facility. The Lean approach became popular in manufacturing after Toyota embraced it to improve its manufacturing processes.

It focuses on enhancing manufacturing and transaction processes by getting rid of waste to offer your customers better value. The Six Sigma methodology, on the other hand, is a quantifiable technique used by manufacturers to improve their processes by following quality controls.

This approach focuses on reducing faults and discrepancies in manufacturing processes to improve execution time. It was invented in the 1980s by manufacturers to enhance the quality and speed of execution by minimizing faults and flaws in their manufacturing processes.

Lean Six Sigma’s hybrid approach borrows key elements from the two approaches to standardize processes, minimize errors and discrepancies, and remove waste in your manufacturing processes to improve the quality and speed of execution of processes.

Steps in Implementing Lean Six Sigma

Implementation of Lean Six Sigma is a continuous process that follows five important steps. It works the same way as the 5S approach, which follows key principles aimed at improving the safety and quality of manufacturing processes.

Here are the five steps you need to follow when implementing the Lean Six Sigma methodology in your organization:

Definition

The Lean Six Sigma approach begins with the identification and definition of the problems with your manufacturing processes. In this stage, you must conduct a thorough business process analysis (BPA).

This analysis helps you to isolate individual problems with your manufacturing processes for improved efficiency and value for your customers. Through BPA, you can easily identify common problems in manufacturing, including alterations, faults, redundancies, and slow execution speeds.

These problems can prevent you from achieving your daily targets and business objectives, especially when you leave them unaddressed for a long time. So, the first step in finding the right solutions is defining the problems.

Measurement

The measurement phase involves quantifying the problems. This process involves a robust analysis of all your manufacturing processes and gathering valuable insights to help you quantify the value you’re offering or losing.

This helps you to contextualize the amount of money you’re losing due to prolonged execution speed, alterations, errors, and other problems in your manufacturing. It’s very easy to find the right solution to problems in your manufacturing problems once you’ve fully quantified them.

Analysis

This phase involves identifying and analyzing the causes of the problems in your manufacturing business. Identifying and quantifying problems won’t help you improve your manufacturing processes until you positively identify the causes of the problems.

This step involves using an effective business process modeler to analyze the problems and their causes. This way, you can quickly find a powerful solution to each problem that’ll give you prognostic and replication capabilities to manipulate each process with several variables to identify the most effective solution.

Improvement

Once you’ve defined and quantified the problems in your manufacturing processes and identified their causes, you need to come up with a workable plan that’ll help you improve the processes.

This requires you to come up with a good process enhancement strategy that will guide you in implementing your improved business processes. This strategy can take many forms, including automation, correction, optimization, and reconstruction of processes.

Control

Once you’ve identified and begun implementing a workable process improvement plan, you have to monitor it closely and assess it continuously to ensure that it gives you the desired value and quality.

The Lean Six Sigma approach is a continuous process that will help you to continuously improve your processes–but it must be closely monitored and revisited to assess the effectiveness of the plan.

Why You Need to Learn Lean Six Sigma

As the world continues to experience hard-hitting economic clamor, manufacturers have been forced to reorganize their processes to ensure they achieve the highest level of efficiency and value. This restructuring involves identifying the common problems mentioned above and removing them from your manufacturing processes, which is why the Lean Six Sigma approach has become so popular among manufacturers.

As a leader in the manufacturing sector, it’s a good idea to learn Lean Six Sigma so that you can harness collaboration, enhance consistency, and eliminate waste in your organization. When you’re learning the Lean Six Sigma approach, aim at becoming a Black Belt. 

What is a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt? This is an expert in transforming ordinary manufacturing companies into efficient and successful enterprises that deliver value to customers. Implementing positive changes into your manufacturing business may include making your workplace safer for your staff.

This includes labeling your manufacturing equipment and premises with safety warning labels. If you need in-house safety label printers, talk to Creative Safety Supply today for expert advice!