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Determine the ‘maturity’ of your processes.

By on January 23, 2012 in Lean Six Sigma, Lean Six Sigma @de, Uncategorized

What’s the point of all this?

If you determine the ‘maturity’ of your processes, you can do several things:

  • compare your processes against each other, determine the worst processes and prioritise them for improvement
  • compare your processes against other organisations, either for your own understanding of the level of your processes or for use in competitive tender situations

e.g. US Dept of Defense requires subcontracted software development organisations to have a CMMI Maturity Level of 5 in order to be even considered

  • Monitor improvement of your processes over time and obtain feedback as to the effectiveness of your improvement actions
  • Use it as a baseline to prevent process maturity from slipping backwards

 

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Process Assessment and Process Maturity.

By on January 23, 2012 in Lean Six Sigma, Lean Six Sigma @de, Uncategorized

Black Belts using the Lean Six Sigma methodology for innovation and process improvement need to carry certain elements during de phases of a project, e.g.

Process Assessment:

  • Compare characteristics of a process or set of processes against defined criteria to obtain a value or score of the maturity, robustness, compliance, etc. of the process(es).
  • Assessment is a generic term that includes process audits, quality audits, evaluations, etc.

Process Maturity:

  • A measure of (usually) the control and management of a process or processes against a scale from ‘chaos’ at one end to continuously improving’ at the other.

These two:

  • give information for decisions on improvement priorities
  • enhance the drivers to improve – ‘You get what you measure’

 

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Error-proofing, or ‘Poka Yoke’ is a technique for eliminating errors.

By on January 21, 2012 in Lean Six Sigma, Uncategorized

‘Poka Yoke’ is a technique for eliminating errors, used by Black Belts for solution generation and preparing implementation;

such that it is …Impossible to make mistakes, …Inexpensive, …Very effective, …Based on simplicity and ingenuity.

“poka” means an inadvertent mistake, “yoke” means to prevent, it originates by mr. Shigeo Shingo (1909-1990) in Japan.

Error proofing is a very simple technique.

You should keep it in mind at all times, but particularly when you are designing the solution or the improvement

Ideally you should prevent all possibility of the problem occurring, elmination;

If you can’t do this, you should then try to

  • flag (identify quickly, every time the problem occurs),
  • facilitate (make it difficult to create the problem)
  • mitigate (reduce the effects when the problem does occur)

…in that order!

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Lean Six Sigma training is focused around 3 core elements

By on January 10, 2012 in Lean Six Sigma, Lean Six Sigma @de, Uncategorized
The Black Belt – Lean Six Sigma  programme contributes toward your companies strategic vision.
  • The Lean Six Sigma deployment structure involves all layers of the organisation, Champions, Sponsors, Black Belts, Green & Yellow Belts.
  • The Black Belt training provides a significant Return On Investment by ensuring that attendees deliver real improvement in the organisation
  • The  improvement methodology, DMAIC, is a holistic approach that encompasses the best practices of  Lean (waste) & Six Sigma (variation) techniques
The training is focused around 3 core elements:
  1. Technical problem solving
  2. Project management
  3. Change management
We define Change Management as the processes to take into account all human and social aspects of the change from the launch of the project to its end…
  • It ensures the adequate involvement of the people concerned in the definition, communication and implementation of the new solution to secure “Buy-in”.
  • It covers a range of activities tightly embedded with Project Management activities.
  • Listen to the people concerned and continually communicate.
Change Management in a Lean Six Sigma improvement project is about gathering the critical mass to make the change irresistible by creating a shared need for change
  • Find and leverage the best allies
  • Removing any barriers blocking or slowing down the change
  • Coping with resistances to change

The Black Belt training will focus strongly on Change Management Skills

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Where a Lean Six Sigma project selection and definition can go wrong.

By on January 10, 2012 in Lean Six Sigma, Lean Six Sigma @de, Uncategorized

Where can a Lean Six Sigma project selection and definition go wrong…?

Starting with the solution:

You must go backwards to find the problem that your solution is trying to fix. Any improvement project including the words ‘implement’, ‘roll-out’, ‘harmonise’, ‘unify’, ‘consolidate’, ‘merge’ or similar are likely to be starting with a solution.

In these cases ask yourself: What is the problem that causes me to do this solution? What do I hope to achieve by implementing this solution?

Your replies will help you to answer the 3 key questions.

  1. What is the problem that needs to be fixed?
  2. Why is it important?
  3. How will I know when I have succeeded?

 Scope is too big and/or Timescale too long:

Lean Six Sigma projects are restricted to 6 -8 months for good reasons – they are more likely to succeed if they are a ‘manageable’ size. Try to reduce the scope of the project. Here are some possibilities: Focus on fewer products/product lines/sites/people.

Aim to achieve an earlier milestone in a longer project/program Reduce the number of objectives you are aiming to achieve. A note on the 6 month rule: implementation of the solution should be finished within 6 months, but it may take longer to be able to prove that your project delivered the results. This is OK.

 

Other dangers that will be covered during the sessions of the training, include:

  • Low sponsor commitment
  • Lack of time
  • No team, or too few on the team
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Black Belt training? Why is it different to previous improvement initiatives?

By on January 9, 2012 in Lean Six Sigma, Lean Six Sigma @de, Uncategorized

Black Belt training? Why is it different to previous improvement initiatives?

With in-company training one actually aligns process improvement to customer requirements and business objectives. It can be applied to service and business processes, not only for production processes.

With a Black Belt program in-house one establishes a standard language and problem solving methodology across different business functions.

The improvement goals are all bottom line focused and will provide the company  a significant return on investment, i.e.  improvement  of  On Time Delivery,  structural financial benefits through efficiency and cost savings, increased customer confidence.

Black Belt project manager must ensure team work, this includes the coaching and training of Green and Yellow Belts. A proper change management project should not take longer than 6 – 8 months. Black Belts are trained to make use of DMAIC.

An organisation can relatively easy grow improvement competences and culture on a massive scale through in-house training, the purpose of the qualification and coaching of Black Belts is to engage all of the people in this drive for continual process improvement.

Deploying one unified methodology, language and tool kit will support companies to promote integration and common ways of working with respect to performance improvement and to progressively reduce its  dependence on external consultants.

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Six Sigma – Analysis: Landing planes

By on January 9, 2012 in Lean Six Sigma, Lean Six Sigma @de, Uncategorized

Example: Landing planes

One of the best ways I have seen the six sigma concepts introduced uses the example of landing planes.

Observing a pattern

Consider a run-way where planes are landing. If you would observe enough planes, you would see the following happening:

  1. The bulk of all planes land in the safe ‘green zone‘ away from the borders of the runway.
  2. Most planes actually do land closely to the middle of the runway (the mean), some of them a bit further away to the left or right from the middle, and only a few quite far away from the middle.

Plotting Results

If you would measure long enough the distance in centimeters from the exact middle where each plane touches the ground on the tarmac, you can see that the pattern observed in time forms a normal distribution. A pattern with a mean (the middle line) and a standard deviation (the extent to which planes land further away from the middle line.) This is called the Gaussian Bell Curve with on the vertical axis the number of planes landed and on the horizontal axis the number of centimeters from the middle.

Normal Distribution

All data is now subdivided in segments called standard deviations (sigma) both to the left and to the right of the mean. The bulk of the landings are within 1-sigma from the mean, in a normal distribution this is about 34% of landings to the right and 34% of landings to the left. Outside the 3-sigma borders we can find only a small remainder of landings representing 0.27% of all landings.

Failure Criteria

The actual width of the runway combined with the skills of the pilots determine a successful or failed landing. It is obvious that we will have more crashes on narrow runways and when dealing with inexperienced pilots. Now we have a choice. We can decide that we for example align the left 3-sigma border with the Lower Specification Limit (LSL), and the right 3-sigma border with the Upper Specification Limit (USL).

This is equivalent to accept only those pilots who have consistently proven to be able to land within the borders 99.73% of the time. Alternatively, we could make sure that the runway is wide enough to land planes safely 99.73% of the time. The question now is: is this really good enough?

In reality, the above measure corresponding to 3-sigma, simply means that we are prepared to let 2.7 planes, out of 1,000 planes crash. This is of course not acceptable and therefore, the so-called Six Sigma criterion has been established.

Six Sigma

By definition, Six Sigma means that only in 3.4 cases per million a crash may occur. Although statistically not completely correct (as 3.4 cases per million correspond to 4.5-sigma rather than to 6-sigma), this metric has been established as an acceptable measure for designing boundaries and optimizing processes.

Six Sigma is all about influencing the process or designing the boundaries in such a way that the variation can be controlled within given specifications.

If we have a runway that is 80 meters wide, we will have to train our pilots and trim our planes in such a way that only 3.4 out of 1.000.000 landings would slip or crash. We can turn this around of course, in our runway example, if we know that from 1 million landings, 3.4 of them will land outside 80 meter, we will design the runway 80 meters wide.

During our training events, we will focus on practical examples and implementations taking the business objectives as the starting point. These are the given boundaries, we need to measure and find ways to ensure the Six Sigma criterion can be met by the process that is target of the optimization project.

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Change Management in multinational organisations is a critical success factor for the lean implementation

By on January 7, 2012 in Lean Six Sigma, Lean Six Sigma @de, Uncategorized

Intercultural Management.

We are all product of our environment in which we grew up and in which we make a daily living. In some cases, the way we see the world, or the way in which we make decisions is not the same as perceived in other cultures or countries.

For example, did you know that during a meeting with French managers hardly any decisions are made? For an English businessman, this may sound strange as the entire purpose of a meeting is getting actions ‘ticked off’…

If you were counting on a private meeting, a ‘one-on-one’, with a manager in Poland, don’t be surprised if at least 5 others will show up!

Although these are generalizations, I have been in situations where exactly these kind of misunderstandings led to frustration and threatened to become an inhibitor to communication.

Fortunately, this is not necessary by anticipating what can be expected when dealing with other countries and cultures.

Basic Concepts

A well-known study performed at IBM during the 70’s by Geert Hofstede over 70 countries yielded the so-called Cultural Dimensions that characterize each country and culture.

It is still used as a foundation to work with when studying the ways of management, communication, decision making and styles.

Cultural Dimensions

(Geert Hofstede)

Below the cultural dimensions with some examples. (Full overviews can be found by searching on-line for Geert Hofstede.)

Power Distance Index – PDI

To what extent do the members of the organization who have less power accept that power is unequally distributed?

Austria, Denmark —
India ++

Individualism – IDV

This is the level of integration of the individual into groups. Does the society (or organization) consist of individuals or is it a coherent group? High score indicates high level of individualism.

Netherlands, UK ++
China —

Masculinity – MAS

Masculinity versus Feminity indicates how different roles are distributed amongst men and women.

Masculinity can be associated with the level of assertiveness and competitiveness while Feminity represents values like caring for others.

Arab countries ++
Netherlands, Norway —

Uncertainty Avoidance Index – UAI

A measure to which extent uncertainty and ambiguity are tolerated in society. Can also be interpreted as to which extent the Truth is felt to be important in society. When the Truth is felt to be really important, we can expect strong laws, avoidance of insecurity or unusual situations, security measures and a relatively low tolerance for different opinions.

Belgium, Portugal ++

Long-Term Orientation – LTO

Principal values associated with Long-term are perseverance, thrift, while Short-term orientation can be recognized by respect for tradition, not losing face.

China ++
USA —

Having lived and worked for longer periods of time in other countries, I know that these type of categorizations can be ‘a bit dangerous’ when radically applied in daily situations. However, a large number of additional studies have been performed to refine and make practical use of the work of Mr. Hofstede that have helped cross borders for many business people operating globally.

 

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Lean Six Sigma – waste and optimization

By on January 2, 2012 in Lean Six Sigma, Lean Six Sigma @de, Uncategorized

Waste and Six Sigma

Lean Six Sigma combines the knowledge of Six Sigma principles with reduction of so called waste. In many companies, people will explain you that there is a lot of ‘overhead’ in the process. People observe simply things being done that are duplication of work, that are superfluous or that are unnecessary. This is called waste.

By mapping out an existing IT or industrial process, it often becomes apparent that there are too many instances of this type of overhead.

Examples of waste

To mention a few examples, waste can be unnecessary transportation of goods or documents. If a document must be ‘checked’ or stamped by a manager before it can be released, the question can be asked if the process of creating and releasing a document should be revised. In many cases, the added value of the ‘Manager’ is negligible to the actual content of the document or process.

Storage of goods. If the process is not running smoothly, there is a constant need to keep things as reserve stock. Just-in-case instead of Just-in-Time one could say about this type of waste.

Keeping other people waiting is a huge waste of time for many. By aligning processes and information, this can be avoided.

Six Sigma approach

An important phase in the optimization according to Six Sigma principles occurs when investigating how processes can be optimized during the measurement and analysis phases. The so-called Process Mapping gives an initial overview of the ‘workflows’ and a first insight into the level of efficiency that has been applied. Where a lot of ‘parallel’ activities or ‘back-loops’ are visible that later all come together again in a single ‘node’, there is reason for concern. As it is unlikely that all tasks happening at the same time will end at the same time: result is in most cases a waiting time until all activities are finailzed.

Process mapping furthermore provides the foundation for:

  • Analysis of the performance w.r.t. requirements from Customer and Organization
  • Identification of bottlenecks
  • Simulation of improvements
  • Procedure standardization
  • Communication of roles and responsibilities
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Why does productivity matter?

By on November 15, 2011 in General, Lean Six Sigma, Uncategorized

Productivity growth plays an active role in offsetting inflationary pressure and as well as long tern economic growth. This is achieved through greater resource allocation and human resource efficiency, effectiveness and engagement; increased innovation and technology diffusion and capital investment.

Productivity is an essential component to the success and health of every company in Europe and the overall standard of living.

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