Lean was born out of manufacturing practices, but in recent times, has transformed the world of knowledge work and management. It encourages the practice of continuous improvement and is based on the fundamental idea of respect for people. Womack and Jones defined the five principles of Lean manufacturing in their book The Machine That Changed the World. Take some time and listen to Womack discuss the five principles of lean.
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Takt time is the pace of production that aligns production with customer demand. Simply put, it is how fast you need to manufacture product in order to fill your customer orders. It is a key concept in lean manufacturing. and the heartbeat of a lean organization by matching actual production to demand. It is not a goal to be surpassed, but rather a target for which to aim. Watch this educational video on TAKT time.
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The elimination of waste in processes is one of the most effective ways to increase the profitability of any business. Processes either add value or waste to the production of a good or service. There are seven wastes or ‘muda,’ and the tool was first developed by Taiichi Ohno and make up the core of the Toyota Production System (TPS). Take some time and learn more about the seven wastes, lean and the TPS.
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As the holiday season is upon us, we find ourselves reflecting on the past year and those who have helped to shape Shmula. It’s been an exciting a year for all! We hope that 2018 has been just as memorable for you, your colleagues, and your loved ones. We look forward to working with you in the years to come!
A man is at his finest
towards the finish of the year;
He is almost what he should be
when the Christmas season is here;
Then he’s thinking more of others
than he’s thought the months before,
And the laughter of his children
is a joy worth toiling for.
He is less a selfish creature than
at any other time;
When the Christmas spirit rules him
he comes close to the sublime.
When it’s Christmas man is bigger
and is better in his part;
He is keener for the service
that is prompted by the heart.
All the petty thoughts and narrow
seem to vanish for awhile
And the true reward he’s seeking
is the glory of a smile.
Then for others he is toiling and
somehow it seems to me
That at Christmas he is almost
what God wanted him to be.
If I had to paint a picture of a man
I think I’d wait
Till he’d fought his selfish battles
and had put aside his hate.
I’d not catch him at his labors
when his thoughts are all of pelf,
On the long days and the dreary
when he’s striving for himself.
I’d not take him when he’s sneering,
when he’s scornful or depressed,
But I’d look for him at Christmas
when he’s shining at his best.
Man is ever in a struggle
and he’s oft misunderstood;
There are days the worst that’s in him
is the master of the good,
But at Christmas kindness rules him
and he puts himself aside
And his petty hates are vanquished
and his heart is opened wide.
Oh, I don’t know how to say it,
but somehow it seems to me
That at Christmas man is almost
what God sent him here to be.
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Henry Ford is a name which will forever remain etched into the halls of fame of the automobile industry. His outstanding achievements across business and production to create a product for the masses are foundations upon which all automobile companies function. His work in the theory of processes has wide-ranging applications.
Early Life, Work, and Contributions
Henry Ford was born in 1863 and was the first son born to William and Mary Ford. They owned a farm, which was quite prosperous in Dearborn, Michigan. At the age of sixteen, he left home for the nearby city of Detroit where he found apprentice work as a machinist. He soon returned to Dearborn in three years to work on the family farm, but continued to operate and service steam engines by working occasional stints in factories around Detroit.
While he was working as an engineer for the Edison Illuminating Company, Ford built his first horseless carriage powered by gasoline, which he named the Quadricycle. Soon after in 1903, he established the Ford Motor Company, and five years later they rolled out the first car, named simply as Model T. There was initially an overwhelming demand for the new vehicle, which only continued to grow. Ford came up with a unique and revolutionary new production method, which included large production plants, the use of standardized, interchangeable parts, and in 1913, the world’s first moving assembly line for cars.
Ford’ s Contributions to Process Line Optimization and Six Sigma
It was the year 1907 when Henry Ford announced his ambition to create a motor car for the masses. At that time, automobiles were expensive and custom-made machines. After the announcement, his engineers took the first step towards this goal by designing the Model T, a simple, sturdy car. The car, first produced in 1908, kept the same design until the very last one in 1927. From the start, the Model T was less expensive than most other cars being produced at the time, but it was still not attainable for the “masses.” Henry Ford soon realized that he’d need a much more efficient method to produce the car at a cheaper cost. He and his team found refuge among four pillars of industrial engineering and Six Sigma. They would be interchangeable parts, the division of labor, continuous flow, and reducing wasted effort.
Following these principles, Ford and his team of engineers combined interchangeable parts with labor and along with the smooth movement of materials created a moving assembly line in 1913. The resulting gains in productivity and cuts in costs led to the Model T becoming the first “people car.”
Using parts which were interchangeable meant making every piece of the car the same every time. That way any valve would fit into any engine and any steering wheel would fit into any chassis. This meant that large improvements would need to come into the machinery and the tools used to create the parts. Although once the machines were improved, any laborer irrespective of his/her skills could operate them. This replaced the skilled craftsperson who formerly made the parts, which further aided in cutting the cost of production, a key tenet of Six Sigma. Also, to improve the workflow, the production process needed to be arranged in such a manner that every consequent task should begin the moment one ended. All this occurred within a minimum set up time. Every tenet visited here, starting from the tool improvements to the workflow and process, are inherent in the theories of process improvement.
To ensure things were done according to the latest research and theories of process improvement, he hired Frederick Taylor, the creator of scientific management. He had him do studies on time and motion to determine the exact speed at which the work should proceed, down to the exact movements workers should use to accomplish their tasks in the minimum time provided.
Conclusion
The ideas of Henry Ford have long been considered as the foundation stones of modern assembly line production. The fundamentals of the area would never have matured to fruition had it not been for the work of Ford. His contributions to the automobile industry can never be forgotten as the quality, cost, and speed of production remain an inherent part of any manufacturing process.
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Six Sigma and the Lean approach both have essentially the same goals. While lean experts attribute the waste to the unnecessary steps in the production phases that do not significantly add value to the products and services offered, Six Sigma practitioners attribute the same wastes to variation within the processes.
Lean, Six Sigma, or Lean Six Sigma: Is it Either/Or or And?
This is a very commonly asked question that still arises in Six Sigma circles. Experts believe that both Lean and Six Sigma have their own place in any given performance improvement program. It is not really a question of which approach to use, but which approach to use when. The nature of the processes and the target objectives will ultimately have a bearing on the right strategy to use.
Furthermore, increasingly more Green Belt, Black Belt, and Master Black Belt training programs include both of these approaches rather than focusing on just one.
Many businesses today have integrated both methodologies, using a Lean Six Sigma implementation. Used together, the techniques help overcome the individual shortcomings of each approach.
Overcoming Individual Challenges
Lean focuses on cutting the unnecessary steps that do not add any value to product creation. The process of ascertaining whether a process adds value or not is to see if a customer is willing to pay for the same. Lean leaves a streamlined process in place while minimizing all wastes. However, a major challenge is the lack of quality.
This is where Six Sigma steps in and contributes to efficient business process management. The methodology helps reduce the number of defects and is associated with organizational leadership. Ultimately, the implementation of the approach helps to attain results that are real and measurable.
While Lean practitioners simply work on a project and often leave it suboptimally improved without emphasis on reducing variability, Six Sigma methodology takes in a large amount of data and uses statistical analysis.
Most experts, therefore, recommend an integrated approach that uses both Six Sigma and Lean principles. While little effort must be made by an organization to catalyze a combined training of both these approaches for its employees, the benefits are many.
Furthermore, having an understanding of different approaches rather than expertise in just one is likely to be helpful in dealing with the day-to-day challenges in a more efficient way instead of force-fitting one approach to solve all problems.
The Integrated LSS Approach
The Lean Six Sigma (LSS) approach is a powerful methodology that combines the best of both worlds. Instead of comparing the Lean and Six Sigma techniques, businesses must realize that they can, in fact, work wonders when used together. The following are the main highlights of the integrated LSS approach:
LSS emphasizes value creation for the customer. Value is traditionally defined as the right products and services delivered at the right quality and at the right price and time, which makes them worth the money for the customer.
Conclusion
While most businesses compare Six Sigma and Lean approaches, it is important to realize that both work towards the same end goal, i.e., to remove waste and improve quality. Both approaches take different routes to the same effect. However, there’s no denying the fact that when used together, they take on a different and more powerful form.
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A lean thinking organization understands customer value and focuses all its processes to continuously increase it. The ultimate goal is to provide absolute value to the customer. It encourages the practice of continuous improvement and is based on the fundamental idea of respect for people.
This is accomplished through the perfection of a creation process that has zero waste and absolute value to the customer. To accomplish this, lean thinking changes the focus of management from optimizing separate assets and departments to optimizing the flow of products and services through every process. Eliminating waste along entire value streams creates processes that need less human effort, less space, less capital, and less time to make products and services at far less costs and with much fewer defects. Organizations are able to respond to changing customer needs with high variety, quality, low cost, and with fast throughput times.
There are five principles that are considered the key elements for improving efficiencies in process:
Value Defined – Comes from a deep understanding of customer needs. This determines what price a customer will pay for the goods or services.
Value Stream Mapped – By using customer value as a reference point, you can then identify all the activities that contribute. Any action that doesn’t contribute is considered waste.
Flow Created – Taking all actions to ensure that the flow of the processes run smoothly without interruptions or delays.
Pull Established – A pull-based system allows for Just-in-time (JIT) delivery where products or services are created at the time that they are needed and in just the quantities needed.
Perfection Pursued – This step is the most crucial of the entire process. Lean thinking and continuous process improvement must be ingrained in the organizational culture. Every person should be focused on perfection while delivering products or services which are solely based on the customer needs.
The five lean principles are the cornerstone of an efficient and effective organization. Lean thinking pushes organizations to discover inefficiencies and deliver absolute value to the customer.
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The cornerstone of any organization is based on efficiency and value to the customer. A lean thinking organization uses five simple principles to ensure it understands the true value of the customer and the processes are finely tuned to reduce any process that creates waste. By ingraining lean thinking into the culture of the organization, the customer enjoys the highest quality of product or service.
Take a few minutes to better understand the five principles of lean.
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Six Sigma has come a long way since it was first conceptualized. It has been constantly evolving and is likely to grow more in the coming years. The methodology provides a vast playground for those keen to transform their business workflows and make the best of use of the opportunities available to their business.
Those interested in the field should keep watching the space for exciting new developments, as Six Sigma holds the promise of limitless opportunities to those who are keen enough to identify and utilize them.
Six Sigma and the Future
Six Sigma is based on the concept of continuous improvement. This technique promises increased sales, lower costs, and greater customer satisfaction levels. The methodology is centered around measurable improvement in quality and there is no better solution to achieve these standards.
The future of Six Sigma is likely to involve the following key trends:
Future Trends for Performance Excellence
The future will see performance excellence initiatives take the front seat in businesses. Experts envision that the detection of defects will be easier in the future. Since this is one of the main focus areas of the Six Sigma approach, there will likely be a lot of developments in this area.
Sustainable development will be the central topic for most companies, and is expected to bring a paradigm shift.
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Six Sigma is a very widely used methodology that can help reduce defects in business processes and catalyze higher operational efficiency. Six Sigma methods find numerous applications in project management to help organizations gain a strategic advantage.
Six Sigma and Project Management
Project management involves a number of steps including initiation, planning, execution, monitoring, controlling, and finally, closing. Many organizations today have been integrating Six Sigma tools in project management processes. The DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control) approach helps develop a structured approach to solve business issues.
How Much Project Management Should be Covered in BB Training?
A certified Six Sigma Black Belt (BB) has an in-depth understanding of Six Sigma principles and philosophies. He should also understand the requisite tools and supporting systems. The BB should lead teams and understand team dynamics very well. It is also important for him to wisely distribute duties and responsibilities to each and every member of the team.
Six Sigma Black belts also possess professional knowledge of the DMAIC workflow and understand lean enterprise concepts as well.
Black Belts should be ready to function as project managers, for depending on another individual without the necessary skill set to manage a project might not be the right decision. It can, in fact, prove detrimental to the improvement initiatives critical to the Six Sigma process in view of the constraints on time, risk, and budget.
Black Belts should be adept in the use of project tracking software that can keep a check on the daily deliverables and activities. While these tools can help track team efforts and performance, they do not provide any overall guidance, insight, and expertise for managing a project. It is therefore essential for BBs to possess project management skills as well.
Inculcating Project Management in the BB’s Toolkit
The following are some qualities and tips that a BB can include in his toolkit alongside his usual Six Sigma expertise to be able to better handle day-to-day project management tasks.
Conclusion
Six Sigma methods have proven their mettle in various fields and project management is no different. It is essential for Black Belts to possess an in-depth knowledge of project management and related fields to be able to better execute tasks for continuous improvement in a timely fashion.
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Acheson Johnston Duncan (September 24, 1904 – January 7, 1995) a native of Leonia, New Jersey, was a statistician and critically acclaimed personality in the field of quality control. He received his Bachelor’s degree from Princeton University in 1925, followed by Master’s degree in 1927 and a doctorate in Economics in the year 1936. He also went to the University of Chicago and the Columbia University. In 1960, he married Helen Foster and had two stepchildren, Catharine Foster Black, and Joseph Foster, seven grandchildren and five great-grandchildren. He died at the age of 90. Duncan had served at the Princeton University as a faculty and for three years in U.S. Army before he joined the Johns Hopkins University as an Associate Professor of Statistics in the School of Business. He retired in 1971 as the faculty of the Department of Mechanical Engineering in Industrial Engineering.
Duncan, during his tenure of 25 years at John Hopkins University, wrote extensively about quality control and its applications in Industrial Engineering. His very famous work ‘Quality Control and Industrial Statistics’ is now running in its fifth edition with many international translations. Duncan’s work in the area of Quality Control was much referred to in Japan especially during the post-world war period. He also frequently visited the place and had given several lectures in organizations on how to resurrect their businesses after the Second World War.
He was awarded the famous Shewhart Medal in the year 1964 by The American Society of Quality. An anonymous donor in 1986 established the Acheson J. Duncan Distinguished Visitor Fund at John Hopkins University, which was aimed to support and promote the annual visit and lecture by a deserving scholar in mathematical sciences. Duncan rendered his consultancy services to various governmental agencies and organizations including the U.S. Army, Esso Standard Oil Company, besides his credible work with the Japanese government.
Economic Design of X Charts to Maintain Current Control of Process: This research paper shows the determination of the sample size, the sample interval, and the control limits yielding maximum average net income. The rule of quality control rule assumes that an assignable cause is looked out whenever a point falls outside the limits of quality control.
The Theory of Statistical Quality Control: In the year 1986, Duncan applied the fundamentals of acceptance sampling majorly performed in line production both for sentencing the incoming batches of the production and post process for the evaluation of the final product.
Research Fund: A separate fund, The Acheson J. Duncan Fund for the promotion and advancement of Research in Statistics in John Hopkins University, invites proposals for providing small grants to encourage research projects in the area of statistics, probability, and stochastic processes.
Quality Control and Industrial Statistics: The book written by Duncan is running into its Fifth Edition in several international translations. The text basically details the techniques of quality control and its applications in solving the major problems of the industries, particularly in the production domain. The book predominantly uses examples of various assembly lines.
Acheson J. Duncan is a renowned name in the area of statistical quality control and industrial statistics. His major writings and consultancy assignments in the area earned him a strong position in this academic field. A special research fund was created in the John Hopkins University to support the scholars who want to present their researches in the area of Mathematical Sciences. He was awarded the prestigious Stewart award for his contribution in the area of Statistical Quality Control. His two prominent titles and research work were later converted into textbooks are doing phenomenally well, being the most revered works in the area of Quality Control.
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One of the most common questions in quality circles is what is the difference between Lean and Six Sigma. The term Lean Six Sigma is often more confusing than clarifying. Both Six Sigma and Lean are process improvement methodologies. One focuses on the analyzing of processes and removing defects while the other focuses more on waste reduction.
Six Sigma
Six Sigma is a method that provides organizations with tools to improve the capability of their business processes. This increase in performance and decrease in process variation helps lead to defect reduction and improvement in profits, employee morale, and quality of products or services. The concept behind Six Sigma is that if you can measure how many defects you have in a process, you can systematically figure out how to eliminate them and get as close to zero defects as possible. To achieve Six Sigma quality, a process must produce no more than 3.4 defects per million opportunities.
Lean
The ultimate goal of a lean organization is to provide perfect value to the customer through a perfect value creation process that has zero waste. Eliminating waste along entire value streams, instead of at isolated points, creates processes that need less human effort, less space, less capital, and less time to make products and services at far fewer costs and with much fewer defects, compared with traditional business systems.
Both philosophies seek to eliminate waste and create the most efficient system possible, but they take different approaches toward achieving this goal. In simplest terms, the main difference between Lean and Six Sigma is that they identify the root cause of waste differently. The differences ensure that there are analytical tools and solution options available that will improve the process, product or service. A Lean Six Sigma project should let the nature of the defect, as defined by the customer value, and the current state of the process, product, or service dictate which sets of tools are most appropriate.
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Is it Six Sigma or Lean Six Sigma? What is Lean then? These can be some of the most confusing questions that can be asked when trying to understand quality processes. Understanding the differences and similarities are crucial to clarity. Check out this informative video that defines what is really Lean Six Sigma.
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Eli Whitney was born in 1765, the year of the Stamp Act, in Westborough, Massachusetts. He witnessed and grew up during the uproarious years of the revolution in America. Despite being the eldest son of a farmer, he didn’t have an interest in farming and was fascinated with machines and technology. Whitney was expected to study and pursue law but due to the shortage of funds, he accepted an offer to become a private tutor in South Carolina.
Eli Whitney, the American inventor, invented the cotton gin and paved the way for pushing the “interchangeable parts” mode of production.
Cotton Gin & Idea of Mass Production: During his stay in Georgia, he discovered the need for a machine that is able to remove seeds from raw cotton fibers. The overgrowing textile industry in England had a huge demand for cotton, but the complexity in removing seeds from the fibers made cotton production unprofitable in South America. The cotton gin created by Whitney changed it overnight.
In 10 days, he devised a model for a cotton gin that was capable of cleaning 10 times more cotton than a single man doing the same work by hand. He got his machine patented in 1794 but was never able to produce enough machines to cater to the needs of the farmers.
The cotton growers in the South understood the simple principles behind the machine and started its manufacturing on their own, or at other times started buying the machines from the local manufacturers. He was actually a true mechanical engineer of the 18th century, a time at which the profession did not exist.
Interchangeable Parts: Whitney’s next venture was into the production of arms, realizing the opportunity when the nation was on the verge of a potential war with France. The government was keen to work with private contractors for the supply of firearms. This was real support for Whitney at the time when he was not gaining any compensation for his cotton gins. Whitney promised the manufacturing of 10,000 rifles within a time period of two years, and his bid was accepted by the government in 1798.
At that time individual craftsmen used to assemble their own design. Whitney set up a base in Connecticut and devised milling machines that helped laborers slice metal in a pattern, thereby producing one particular part of the weapon. When put together, each part, though made separately, formed a working model.
Whitney faced many challenges and he was able to produce only a part of the order he promised. He took 10 years to complete the manufacturing of 10,000 arms. Even after the delay, Whitney received an order for 15,000 muskets, which he was able to complete in two years.
Other inventors are also believed of having come up with the idea of interchangeable parts, and there is some skepticism on how different they were from the interchangeable part that came from the original Whitney millers. Whitney is also credited with pushing the Congress to support the production of weapons and helping to propagate the manufacturing system that influenced modern assembly lines. Such pursuits of Whitney have led him to be known as “the father of American technology.” He also constructed worker residences that came to be known as Whitneyville, Connecticut. A series of ethical guidelines was instituted by him for promoting harmonious relations between the employee and the employer; however, the guidelines were later dropped in the wake of rapid industrialization.
Eli Whitney fathered the idea of the cotton gin and built a factory for mass producing muskets by fitting the interchangeable parts in an assembly line. Whitney was supported by the U.S. Army with large procurement contracts. Such governmental support for industrial development was seen rarely but played a crucial role in the industrialization of America, and Eli Whitney has an unforgettable impression in this chapter of American development.
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Career Snapshot and Milestones
Edward Deming, born in Iowa in 1900, was a trained physicist with a doctorate from Yale University in 1928. His previous degrees were from the University of Wyoming and the University of Colorado. Dr. Deming has an extensive list of nearly 200 research papers, articles, and books covering a wide range of interrelated subjects—from systems and systems thinking to statistical variance, human psychology, and a variety of topics in the field of physics.
Deming was associated as a mathematical physicist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 1938 and was responsible for guiding courses like math and statistics at the Graduate School of the USDA. Later in 1938, Deming switched to the Bureau of the Census as an adviser in sampling. His applications of statistical process control to their techniques led to a multi-fold improvement in productivity.
In 1942, during his tenure at the Bureau of the Census, Deming was retained to extend his services as a consultant to the Secretary of War and was asked to suggest and present ideas on ways to assist in the war effort. Because of his contribution at the USDA and his statistical expertise, Deming was deputed in Japan in 1946 by the Economic and Scientific Section of the War Department to study agricultural production and related issues in the war-affected country.
Dr. Deming’s is considered the architect of Japan’s post-World War II industrial transformation. It is one of the most significant achievements of the 20th century. His reintroduction to America happened in June 1980 after the release of the acclaimed documentary “If Japan Can, Why Can’t We.” He quickly sparked the quality revolution and became the face of quality. He played a major role in the resurgence of the American automobile industry in the late 1980s. Dr. Deming rendered consultancy to corporations such as Ford, Toyota, Xerox, Ricoh, Sony, and Proctor & Gamble, and revitalized their businesses with the adoption of his management techniques.
Contributions to Process Improvement
Understanding the importance of deviations: Deming’s ideas on quality are based on his recognition of the significance of variation. He stated that ‘the central problem in management and in leadership…is the failure to understand the information in variation.’
Deming was perplexed with unpredictability. He opined that all systems have variation, but it is critical for managers to distinguish between common and uncommon causes of variation. He established a theory of variation that attributes special causes of variation to quickly recognizable factors such as procedural changes, shift change etc, and after the elimination of special causes, common causes of variation will still exist and can be recognized easily by the workers. Managers have the authority to alter them in order to prevent their frequent reoccurrence. According to Deming’s estimates, management is responsible for more than 85% of the reasons for variation. This was his focal message to the Japanese which lead to the ultimate transformation of the country post World War.
14 points for management: Deming created 14 points capable of providing a framework for knowledge development in the workplace and which could guide long-term business goals and plans. The points are a philosophical code for management. Dr. Deming’s 14 Points, originally presented in ‘Out of the Crisis,’ cultivate a fertile soil where a more efficient workplace, higher profits, and enhanced productivity can grow.
Seven deadly diseases of management: As given by Deming, the main barriers faced by management in order to improve effectiveness and to ensure continuous improvement are the lack of consistency of purpose to plan products and services, an over-emphasis on short-term profits and thinking, performance evaluation and annual reviews, mobility of managers and job hopping, as well as management with the use only of available data and high medical costs. Effective management and a commitment to quality are needed to combat these seven deadly diseases.
PDCA Cycle: Walter Shewhart discovered the concept of the PDCA cycle and introduced it to Deming. Deming promoted it in the 1950s and it came to be known as the Deming Wheel or the Deming Cycle. The PDCA (Plan-Do-Check-Act) cycle has four steps which must be followed in order to get the problem solved. Repetition of these steps will lead to a cycle of continual improvement.
Conclusions
Deming has been universally acknowledged as one of the founding fathers of Total Quality Management. He is attributed with the economic miracle of the 1970s and 1980s led by the revolution in Japanese manufacturing management. His philosophy is derived not from the world of management, but from mathematics, and the way he combined it with a human relations approach gives his work a breath of originality and freshness.
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Six Sigma is an incredibly powerful tool and a set of techniques that can help businesses improve their processes by identifying and eliminating the causes of defects. Ultimately, the tools aim to reduce variability in processes. It is of critical importance to integrate Six Sigma tools in your quality management programs for long-term success.
In fact, experts believe that Six Sigma, when used along with lean techniques, is actually a business improvement process that is a part of the continually evolving quality management system of an organization.
The Importance of a Quality Management Program
It is important for all corporations to have a quality management program in place. Businesses use quality management programs to integrate all quality processes that can meet the ISO and FDA quality requirements.
It is evident that quality takes a central role in any business and neglecting quality is bound to result in business process failure. The quality of a process is defined as its ability to meet the expectations set while delivering the products and services desired.
Businesses today operate in highly dynamic environments. As soon as high demands are placed on quality requirements, Six Sigma and related approaches come into play. It is imperative for quality to be measurable. The factors that affect quality can be identified and traced so they could later be controlled.
Streamlining Quality Control
Six Sigma is basically an effort to streamline quality control by improving the current processes, products, and services that the business comprises. In fact, it does so by recognizing and removing the defects prevailing in the current processes. The variance is thereby reduced. Defects basically refer to any challenges encountered in achieving seamless business operation or higher levels of customer satisfaction.
When Motorola trademarked Six Sigma in the year 1993, it referred to the tool using the Greek letter sigma that represents the metric of standard deviation in statistics. The technique is expected to result in processes that are free from defects 99.99966 percent of the time, which allows for 3.4 defect-laden features for every million opportunities.
This is the level of quality control Motorola sought to achieve in its manufacturing processes and has now become the global standard for industries around the world aiming to streamline quality control.
How do Lean and Six Sigma fit into a Quality Management Program?
Lean is actually a systematic approach that aims to reduce or eliminate those activities and processes that do not really add any value to the process. The technique will help remove the wasteful steps in processes, ensuring high-quality operations and greater customer satisfaction.
Six Sigma and Lean are processes that can help achieve a superior quality of products and services which also forms the aim of the quality management program. Companies can produce at a much faster pace in greater quantities and at a lower cost by integrating Lean Six Sigma strategies in their quality management programs.
What LSS does is that it provides a statistical approach to solve quality-related problems that the quality management programs battle with. The approach can reduce the process cycle time and improve the product/service delivery time which increases customer satisfaction level. The inventory levels can be reduced and the resources optimized for key improvements.
Employees benefit in that they are provided with greater job satisfaction. The process establishes a quality framework for the realization of both short-term and long-term objectives. Since this is a never-ending process where waste is continuously removed, improvements to take place on a continuous basis.
Conclusion
It is important for businesses to have quality management programs in place. Six Sigma is a data-driven approach that helps improve product and process quality. Combining it with Lean results in waste minimization as well.
Corporations need to focus on integrating Six Sigma and Lean approaches into quality management programs since these are geared towards quality measurement and help streamline quality control.
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Breaking down silos and digging out the old entrenched habits in an organization can be a painful challenge. It really does take grit and determination to start making real change. It takes free-thinking, flexible leaders who are will to challenge everything and change the norms. What are you willing to give up to create fast, flexible and forward thinking teams to take your business to the next level?
Watch this thought-provoking video on change management!
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Are we really preparing leaders for the future? For decades, leadership styles have been cut from the same mold. The way you act, interact and even dress have been outlined and detail in many ‘how-to’ books, platforms and educational curriculum. There have been generations of leaders shaping the future of our workforce from practices that are outdated and frankly, unacceptable. Change is upon us and all around us. Business, business practices, and societal norms are changing. How and what we are teaching future leaders must change. For those new leaders out there in middle management, it is time to challenge the old and break rules!
Check out this amazing TED Talk on how to make a change.
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Dr. Shigeo Shingo is a name highly respected amongst engineers and the scores of people currently associated with quality control across industries. He is said to have attained Kaizen, the Japanese word associated with improvement. To be more precise, the concept in business it refers to the perfect synergy between all the activities of an organization. This may be from the level of the CEO himself down to the assembly line workers on the floors of thousands of factories across the world.
Early Life, Work, and Contributions
Dr. Shingo earned a degree in mechanical engineering at the Yamanashi Technical College in 1930 and soon after, gained employment at the Taipei Railway Factory. Whilst there, he became interested in quality improvement initiatives and scientific management across the company.
By 1946, he was working at the Japan Management Association Technical Conference where he began looking into productivity problems associated with the plant. He began his research in early 1951 on Statistical Quality Control, after which Toyota leveraged his project and work. After achieving excellent results with his theories, they hired him as a consultant.
By 1955 Dr. Shingo was already leading the industrial engineering and factory improvement training team at the Toyota Motor Corporation. In 1956, he led a three-year study on shipbuilding at Mitsubishi Shipbuilding and came up with a system that halved the production time. He is also credited with the completion of the SMED, or single-minute-exchange of die method which is a type of Lean manufacturing method. He achieved zero quality defects by leveraging the improved version of SMED.
His principles still form the backbone of what quality control is all about to this day.
Shingo’s contributions to Quality Control
During his lifetime Shingo contributed quite a bit to further quality control processes in the industry. His teachings can be bucketed into three main topics –
Just In Time (JIT): This concept in quality control was developed mainly by Dr. Shingo in collaboration with Mr. Taichii Ohno from the Toyota days. To summarize the concept, this is a planned way to eliminate all waste along with continuous improvement in productivity. It encompasses a perfect synergy of all activities related to manufacturing a particular product. A few primary elements of JIT would be:
The key thing to remember is to accomplish the above at minimum costs. If a company were to apply the above tenets, they would be able to cut costs in an optimized and effective manner. Also, the use of statistical methods helps ensure that the product is met with desired results consistently.
Single Minute Exchange of Dies (SMED): Dr. Shigeo Shingo, as part of JIT, also helped advance and develop the existing SMED process. The basic tenets which drove the study were:
The above becomes very beneficial to companies looking to cut costs as it allows the manufacturing system to adjust quickly to changes in design with a very little cost to the company. In addition to the cost benefits, this new and improved SMED process also allowed for zero defects, higher machine efficiency, and in turn results in a high production rate.
His brilliance lay in the way he approached the SMED process. His idea was to isolate and identify the time required for setup into two main entities: internal time and external time. Many companies that have stamping operations have found great success using his methods.
Zero Quality Control (ZQC): Dr. Shingo’s ZQC method are based on a few principles as stated below –
His basic idea was to target the defect at its root cause to eliminate it from the process effectively. He firmly believed that in addition to statistical methods, sound manufacturing processes would go a long way in eliminating defects altogether.
Conclusion
Dr. Shigeo Shingo was perhaps one of the greatest contributors to the study of total quality management and modern manufacturing methods. Although his name isn’t as well known as some others in this space, his principles have slowly but gradually formed the backbone to manufacturing processes in Asia and South East Asia.
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Taiichi Ohno, popularly known as the pioneer of the Toyota Production System was born in Dalian, China in 1912. He graduated from the Nagoya Technical High School in Japan and joined Toyoda Spinning in 1932. He joined the Toyota Motor Company as a shop-floor supervisor in the year 1943 and rose to the position of an executive.
In the early 1950s, Ohno, then working as an assembly manager in Toyota, developed significant improvements that eventually took the shape of the Toyota Production System (TPS). Toyota was on the verge of becoming bankrupt and was not in a position to afford large investments in major inventories or equipment. In the 1950s, a major collaboration with Shigeo Shingo started and further refinement in the direction of framing an integrated manufacturing strategy took shape.
The Rise of Toyota Production System
The oil crisis of 1973 hit Japan just as it affected America and Europe. By 1974, Japan’s economy collapsed and crashed to a state of zero. At the Toyota Motor Company, profits witnessed a downfall; however, greater earnings were reported and sustained in 1975, 1976, and 1977 as compared to other Japanese companies.
The huge gap between Toyota and other Japanese companies resulted in the other firms in Japan adopting the Toyota Production System, and began spreading its roots rapidly in the country.
Ohno’s success resulted in his career acceleration from an Assembly Shop Manager to the Executive Vice President in 1975. He retired from Toyota in the early 1980s and joined the Toyota subsidiary and supplier, Toyota Gosei, as the President.
Ohno strongly believed that “Having no problems is the biggest problem of all.” He stated that problems are not the cause of worry; rather it is a Kaizen opportunity to improvise and grow. He also stressed that each problem has to be seen without any set of preconceived notions.
Taiichi Ohno: Contribution to Six Sigma & Lean Manufacturing
Ohno was strongly of the opinion that waste & inefficiency are the two major reasons why Toyota’s production was suffering. He personally took charge of the elimination of wastes and reducing the inefficiency in the production area.
His efforts finally took the shape of the Toyota Production System. Ohno’s principles influenced people in the areas outside of manufacturing, including the service arena.
Ohno also played an instrumental role in identifying ways by which organizations identify waste with his model known as the “Seven Wastes” which forms the core of many academic studies to date.
A ‘Muda’ is a Japanese term that stands for any entity that doesn’t have any further value and should be eliminated from the organization without any further delay. It is critical to examine the values that each activity contributes to the organization and identifying those that do not contribute any value. After reaching this point it is easier to see what it is that the customer pays for. Organizations can then start working on the elimination of waste. These seven wastes are as follows:
A few parts of the Toyota Production System are frequently used in the United States such as kanban (the tagging/signal in JIT stock control system), jidoka (the injection of quality), and muda (the elimination of waste).
Conclusions
Taiichi stated that progress cannot be possible if one stays happy with the present conditions. He took the elimination of the inefficiency in Toyota as his personal goal and kept working until he devised the well-known Toyota Production system.
He was very proactive in removing defects and unusable stock from any organization. He devised seven categories of wastes through which organizations can easily proceed with systemic waste removal from their businesses. His contributions have made Toyota a world-renowned organization with respect to quality excellence.
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