it was a great pleasure to attend your course.
Thanks for your offer for help. If I get the opportunity I will contact you.
Help and friends are always welcome. It makes it a lot easier to move “stones”.
Hopefully see you again.
Edwin Wagner
Software Configuration Manager – CASSIDIAN, an EADS Company
Configuration Management – Manching – Germany
during the months of July and August there will be several green and black belt session for Lean Six Sigma; all events will be held in the Maritim Hotel in Würzburg.
Zentral und unweit des Hauptbahnhofs erwartet das stilvolle Maritim Hotel Würzburg seine Gäste. Direkt am Mainufer gelegen, bietet es einen herrlichen Ausblick auf die Festung Marienberg, die hoch über der Stadt thront. Die barocke Innenstadt mit ihren zahlreichen Sehenswürdigkeiten lässt sich bequem zu Fuß erkunden. Elegantes Ambiente, verbunden mit herzlicher Gastfreundschaft, und der direkte Anschluss an das Congress Centrum Würzburg schaffen ideale Voraussetzungen für jeden Reisezweck.
The success of any Lean Transformation depends on a few key factors.
In the “Art of War” of Sun Tzu, one can define 3 factors that will determine the outcome of a battle:
what is needed to win a battle? What is the profit to be delivered from the process? VOB
Sun Tzu’s three conditions helps determine the success of a business:
If you understand the needs of your customers, What is the customer experience to be delivered? VOC
If you know the capabilities of your own business but do not understand the needs of your customers or the strengths of your competitors, for every increase in sales revenue you will reduce profits and lose market share. VOP
If you do not know the needs of your customers, the strengths of your competitors nor the capabilities of your own business, you will succumb to market forces and eventually lose everything.
The process for creating a high performance organization must start with a business knowing the limits of its own capabilities . The company must define and understand its current state before it can develop a plan to determine where it must improve its processes to create a future state. However, defining the future state cannot happen until the business understands the needs of its customers and the strengths of its competitors. Once a business has clearly defined these 3 factors it can develop a future state that serves its customer and is in a stronger position to compete in the market place. One way to do this effectively is to follow the “10 Steps to become a Lean Enterprise” model.
Linking the internal value adding system directly to the customer may seem difficult but is necessary to allow the customer to pull value from the value adding system.
Each process link working in isolation at full speed will cause a mismatch between links. Some areas over-produce, some cannot keep up…
In the Lean Six Sigma methodology is Level Scheduling an important concept;
‘ The process of smoothing production volume and model mix over a given time period.’
This major component of the Lean philosophy is to smooth out the flow of value so that minimal waste inventory and waiting are incurred. To be able to provide a smooth flow when many product types are produced on the same lines it is necessary to even out the schedule, so Level Scheduling is often used. Benefits to be gained from employing level scheduling include; reduces inventory of raw materials, reduced quantity of finished goods and reduced lead times.
Not only the scheduling will do the job, with Lean Six Sigma, it will also require implementing other process improvements, e.i.;
• replacing the existing order entry process with an online system
The key to Lead Time & Waste (Lean) is thinking about Value Add form a customer perspective.
But there are other forms of waste which we also should be aware of particularly the waste of human potential.
Once we understand the value add we then think in terms of ‘streams’ of value (a type of process mapping) and we think in terms of ‘families’ of products/services that have the same value streams.
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.