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