Lean Six Sigma

[andrew_huxtable]

I work for an American company and the UK section could be best described as a small business. The management team, myself and 4 others were handed a introduction package to Sigma and told to get up to speed as we will have a exercise on it on Friday. Anyone else use this, and does it have any benefit?

[arun1uk]

Got my green belt, working on my black belt.

Depends what industry you are in really. It was designed for the manufacturing industry, but can help with any business with "transactional" business processes. I.e. you have to be able to measure task duration, volume, frequency etc.

I've used process stapling and it helps management visualise where the inefficiencies lie.

Overall, it's ok. As long as you use it properly!

[FastLaneGirl]

andrew_huxtable said:

Anyone else use this, and does it have any benefit?

I have worked alongside a Lean practitioner on a large exercise within my day job (Business Analyst). Benefit? Depends.

I'll state upfront that I am not really a fan, and I am sure there will be others who have used it or who practice who may feel the opposite.

In a nutshell, Lean is a method which purports to improve and streamline processes. I'm guessing your company is looking to make cost savings?

My experience of Lean, without writing an essay, is it is a complex way to skin the cat, and that business process improvement really does not have to be complex, or full of bullst bingo terms and acronyms, or full of masses of different tools which take forever and a day to understand.

It is perfectly possible to achieve the same results without all the smoke and mirrors

The Lean exercise I 'helped' with (worked alongside a consultant, saw it through from start to finish for 4 months across 4 departments) has yet to yield any cashable savings. It has improved some things, I will grant that, but the time and resources it took will far outstrip the results. Or another way, improving process time = improving efficiency = saving money. By my very rough calculations it will take at least 2-3 years to break even on the consultancy costs and staff time invested in the Lean exercise I witnessed.

But any business process improvement method is also only really as good as the commitment of the end users/those involved in the process and the management behind them. It almost won't matter what method you use or how you dress it up if it isn't followed through.

So yes, it can have benefits but it is not the only way (despite what the consultants will tell you!) and is ironically a massively over-engineered way to achieve results that much more direct and simple methods could also have yielded.

[Sway]

I am a Lean facilitator (green belt within six sigma), and it is very effective, done properly, and can (should) lead to a completely different way of measuring and understanding your business and it's activities.

Unfortunately, it is something that costs, mainly in time, but also hard cash, before improvements are seen.

Fundamental concept is to accurately define the processes that your company operate to, analyse and plan methods to improve, and implement. By careful definition of metrics to continually monitor performance, it takes away knee jerk problem solving, and provides a structured framework to deal with issues in the best way.

At my previous company (sounds similar to your situation), we were able to reduce our order fulfillment lead time from 18 weeks to 4, reduced our inventory by 60% on average, and increase profitability by 20% per order. Our order capacity was also increased, and stress was noticably reduced across all areas. This took just over a year of hard work and open attitudes. It didn't stop there, and the company was still hitting issues when I left, after a couple of years.

I'm now at another firm that is really just starting, to be honest, the ingrained culture is not conducive to this sort of rationale, and I've spent over a year just massaging the culture in order to allow the real improvement work to start.

The success very much depends on the method of implementation, the openness of the staff, and the commitment from the top.

If you want any more info or assistance, feel free to shoot me a PM.

[Sway]

FastLaneGirl said:

My experience of Lean, without writing an essay, is it is a complex way to skin the cat, and that business process improvement really does not have to be complex, or full of bullst bingo terms and acronyms, or full of masses of different tools which take forever and a day to understand.

But any business process improvement method is also only really as good as the commitment of the end users/those involved in the process and the management behind them. It almost won't matter what method you use or how you dress it up if it isn't followed through.

So yes, it can have benefits but it is not the only way (despite what the consultants will tell you!) and is ironically a massively over-engineered way to achieve results that much more direct and simple methods could also have yielded.

With respect, a lot of that depends on the practitioner, first things I told clients when I worked as a consultant was that Lean was essentially common sense defined as a system. I even used to give them bullst bingo cards to make sure I didn't fall into the trap of using acronyms and terms that confused rather than informed.

It's not the only system, true, and there are a lot of tools, however, it is again down to the practitioner how many to use per project/company, however, done properly, it is very effective.

One key thing - a lot of consultants/managers do it for it's own ends (hence loooong payback periods and minimal returns). The thing that should be at the forefront at all times is the business benefit, and the ratio of effort to reward (bullst bingo -cost/benefit analysis, real world - business case!)

[andrew_huxtable]

Thanks Sway, best description of the company is a online retailer, dealing with used and new books. We have 12 employees and i am in charge of shipping. I have read through the handout my manager gave me and i am trying to identify areas of 'waste'.

I have a visual list of the steps that need to be done to ensure the orders are fufilled every day and i am struggling to remove any. I am sure one of these kaizen events will help out as i will be getting the opinions of people who are not dealing with the shipping day in and day out.

I am very open to the theory behind it, we only have 300-400 orders Tuesday through Friday(Mondays are hectic as we are shut at the weekend) and i only need 2 people to help fufill these orders. But making it easier and more efficient would make my day to day work less stressfull.

Edited by andrew_huxtable on Wednesday 21st April 18:55

[rich1231]

What do you use to manage order processing and picking etc?

[E21_Ross]

my father owns a small aerospace engineering firm (about 30 employees) who make parts for boeing, airbus, eaton aerospace, 1-2 F1 teams, lockheed-martin etc and they say for them at least 6 sigma is impossible.

it depends on the business type. a lot of the stuff they make is very very intricate and precise, and often in relatively low batch numbers, so conforming to 6 sigma figures is nigh on impossible. they do work to AS9100 which is a high standard.

6 sigma is great for companies doing things in mass, which aren't intricate etc. but for others, it's just impossible.

[andrew_huxtable]

We have our own in house software that was developed in the states and tweaked to be used on the marketplaces that we sell on. The software covers all aspects of the business. Shipping, Inventory control, customer service. Picking is done manually, and so is the packaging. The picking and packaging are by far the most time consuming activities in my area. But we have taken the model the states work with and developed that to minimise footfall.

[Cara van Man]

Lean? Avoid it like the black death.

My work has been leaned and it has fked everyone over big style. No spares, no IT back up, no manpower and no fking budgets cos apparently lean said we didn't need any of it!!!

Invented by Toyota to work in a factory productionline environment. Not a 24 hours/day military environment.

Oh well, at least it got somebody promoted.

Edited by Cara van Man on Wednesday 21st April 19:25

[TheCarpetCleaner]

Cara van Man said:

Lean? Avoid it like the black death.

My work has been leaned at it has fked everyone over big style. No spares, no IT back up, no manpower and no fking budgets cos apparently lean said we didn't need any of it!!!

Invented by Toyota to work in a factory productionline environment. Not a 24 hours/day military environment.

Oh well, at least it got somebody promoted.

Its a load of dressed up bullst, and I would do some very, very bad things to see it gone forever.

Cutting through the bullst, it is a system to state the obvious to stupid people. This is why I don't like it. The people practicing it are playing on mentally slow people.

It is like abusing the mentally disabled imo.

Sick.

[Cara van Man]

Because we got leaned before our unit was up and running properly, they cut all our manpower....now we are deployed on permanent OPs in Afghan we have nowhere near enough personnel.....2 guys of a certain trade now spend 2 months in the UK, two months away, two months in the UK, two months away......on a permanent rota!!!

The cost? Divorce is heading their way as they are both family men.

Lean also fails to take into account: Leave, other duties (guard etc), illness, increased workload, things going wrong, etc etc etc.

Edited by Cara van Man on Wednesday 21st April 19:34

[nascarrules]

TheCarpetCleaner said:

Cara van Man said:

Lean? Avoid it like the black death.

My work has been leaned at it has fked everyone over big style. No spares, no IT back up, no manpower and no fking budgets cos apparently lean said we didn't need any of it!!!

Invented by Toyota to work in a factory productionline environment. Not a 24 hours/day military environment.

Oh well, at least it got somebody promoted.

Its a load of dressed up bullst, and I would do some very, very bad things to see it gone forever.

Cutting through the bullst, it is a system to state the obvious to stupid people. This is why I don't like it. The people practicing it are playing on mentally slow people.

It is like abusing the mentally disabled imo.

Sick.

The amount of money the company I work for wastes on green belts, black belts and lean advisors irritates me. It would be far better spent on extra maintenance staff.

[Astacus]

i more or less lost the will to live after the first two posts.

if you opperate a 'small business' of half dozen people and you need to resort to this type of management level navel gazing, you are about to strangle your company with .process''.

[Collaudatore]

FastLaneGirl said:

So yes, it can have benefits but it is not the only way (despite what the consultants will tell you!) and is ironically a massively over-engineered way to achieve results that much more direct and simple methods could also have yielded.

Absolutely 100% agree.

I've been hearing all about my "lean project" that I should undertake before the end of 2010 just today as it happens. Sounded like it's going to be a lot of work to prove how much time I can save. My response about keeping the lean project lean was met with some smiles.

Personally I agree with the concept in theory, but in practise (IMO) it's nothing more than another box to tick and show just how great we are. Some of us are ALREADY lazy b*stards and wont do anything "the hard way" as it is.

I wonder if anyone has done a lean project about keeping lean projects lean?

[308mate]

We had it on a minesite once. One of my long-disgruntled supervisors manged to prove, using the charts that he wasnt required in the business and pointed it out to management. They kept him on out of suspicion.

[Pothole]

andrew_huxtable said:

Thanks Sway, best description of the company is a online retailer, dealing with used and new books. We have 12 employees and i am in charge of shipping. I have read through the handout my manager gave me and i am trying to identify areas of 'waste'.

I have a visual list of the steps that need to be done to ensure the orders are fufilled every day and i am struggling to remove any. I am sure one of these kaizen events will help out as i will be getting the opinions of people who are not dealing with the shipping day in and day out.

I am very open to the theory behind it, we only have 300-400 orders Tuesday through Friday(Mondays are hectic as we are shut at the weekend) and i only need 2 people to help fufill these orders. But making it easier and more efficient would make my day to day work less stressfull.

Edited by andrew_huxtable on Wednesday 21st April 18:55

why are you closed at the weekend?

[bobfather]

I qualified Black Belt in 2002 whilst working for DuPont, American companies love it. I trained and mentored Green Belts for a couple of years while managing my own Black Belt improvement projects, my problem was that I never bought into the blind belief mentality and blinkered approach to everything that appears to be required to fully live the 6S way. I found it very prescriptive, only one way to do everything and I was not able to impose my own experience into anything. After three years I managed to find a better job.

[andrew_huxtable]

Pothole said:

andrew_huxtable said:

Thanks Sway, best description of the company is a online retailer, dealing with used and new books. We have 12 employees and i am in charge of shipping. I have read through the handout my manager gave me and i am trying to identify areas of 'waste'.

I have a visual list of the steps that need to be done to ensure the orders are fufilled every day and i am struggling to remove any. I am sure one of these kaizen events will help out as i will be getting the opinions of people who are not dealing with the shipping day in and day out.

I am very open to the theory behind it, we only have 300-400 orders Tuesday through Friday(Mondays are hectic as we are shut at the weekend) and i only need 2 people to help fufill these orders. But making it easier and more efficient would make my day to day work less stressfull.

Edited by andrew_huxtable on Wednesday 21st April 18:55

why are you closed at the weekend?

I have offered to come in Saturday mornings and do the orders we have to make Mondays easier but i have been told its not necessary.

[Soovy]

Ridiculous American macho bull5h1t.

C ntery of the highest order.


Start looking for another job. This rubbish is peddled my the lame, who can't actually DO anything other than give f cking presentations.

You know what consultants do? They take off your watch, tell you the time, and then give it back to you. Then they send you a massive bill.

Edited by Soovy on Wednesday 21st April 20:34