Continual Improvement

Methods with Six Sigma, Lean,

and Lean Six Sigma

Lakshmi Chava
Swetha Munagala
Stephen Rich
Major Topics
 Rationale for Continual Improvement
 Management’s Role in Continual Improvement
 Essential Improvement Activities
 Structure for Quality Improvement
 The Scientific Approach
 Identification of Improvement Needs
 Development of Improvement Plans
 Common Improvement Strategies
 Additional Improvement Strategies
 The Kaizen Approach
 Goldratt’s Theory of Constraints
 The CEDAC Approach
 Six Sigma Concept
 Lean Operations
 Lean Six Sigma
Continual Improvement
One of the most fundamental elements of
total quality.
This concept applies to processes and the
people who are operating them as well as
to the products resulting from the
processes.
Rationale for Continual
Improvement
Continual Improvement is fundamental to
success in the global market place.
Customer needs are not static; they change
continually.
Management’s Role in Continual
Improvement
In his book Juran on Leadership for Quality,
Joseph Juran writes:
“ The picture of a company reaping big rewards through quality
improvement is incomplete unless it includes some realities that have been
unwelcome to most upper managers. Chief among these realities is the
fact that the upper managers must participate personally and extensively in
the effort. It is not enough to establish policies, create awareness, and then
leave all else to subordinates. That has been tried, over and over again, with
disappointing results”.
 Cont’d…
Management should play necessary role in
continual improvement by doing the
following:
• Establishing an organization-wide quality
council.
• Working with the quality council.
• Providing the necessary moral and physical
support.
• Scheduling periodic progress reviews.
• Building continual quality improvement in
to the regular reward system.
Essential Improvement Activities
 Maintain Communication.
 Correct obvious problems.
 Look upstream.
 Document problems and progress.
 Monitor changes.
Customers Needs Change
Continually

“ Quality improvement is needed for both

kinds of quality: product features and
freedom from deficiencies”.
Improvement Must Be Continual
“Improve constantly and forever the
system of production and service.
Improvement is not a one-time effort.
Management is obligated to continually
look for ways to reduce waste and
improve quality”.
Improvement Is Not Putting Out
Fires
“Putting out fires is not improvement.
Finding a point out of control, finding the
special cause and removing it is only
putting the process back to where it was
in the first place. It is not improvement of
process”.
Structure for Quality Improvement
 Establishing a quality council.
 Develop a statement of responsibilities.
 Formulating policy as it relates to quality.
 Setting the benchmarks and dimensions.
 Establishing the team and project selection processes.
 Providing the necessary resources.
 Implementing the project.
 Establishing quality measures for monitoring progress
and undertaking monitoring efforts.
 Implementing appropriate reward and recognition
program.
Cont’d…
 Establish the necessary infrastructure.
The Scientific Approach
 Collect Meaningful Data.
 Identify Root Causes of problems.
 Develop Appropriate Solutions.
 Plan and Make Changes.
Collecting Meaningful Data

Before collecting meaningful data, decide

exactly
 What data are needed
 How they can be best collected
 Where the data exists
 How they will be measured
 How you will know the data are accurate
Identify Root Causes of Problems
Too many resources are wasted by
organizations attempting to solve
symptoms rather than problems. Total
quality tools will help in separating
problems from causes.
Develop Appropriate Solutions
 Collect the relevant data
 Make sure they are accurate
 Identify root causes
 Develop a solution that is appropriate
Plan and Make Changes
 Look a head
 Anticipate needs
 What resources will be used to satisfy
them and
 Anticipate problems and consider how
they should be handled
Importance of Statistical Thinking
“Statistical thinking is critical to
improvement of a system. Only by use of
properly interpreted data can intelligent
decisions be made”.
Improvement Can Be Measured
Improvement can be measured and monitored by using
performance indicators. Some of the examples are
listed below:
 Number of errors or defects
 Number of or level of need for repetitions of work tasks
 Efficiency indicators
 Number of delays
 Duration of a given procedure or activity
 Response time or cycle
 Useability/cost ratio
 Amount of overtime required
 Changes in work load
 Vulnerability of the system
 Level of criticalness
 Level of standardization
 Number of unfinished documents
Identification of Improvement
Needs
 Apply multi voting
 Identify customer needs
 Study the use of time
 Localize problems
Development of improvement plans

 Understand the process

 Eliminate errors
 Remove slack
 Reduce variation
 Plan for continual improvement
Common improvement strategies
 Establish boundaries for the process
 Flowchart the process
 Make a diagram of how the work flows
 Verify your work
 Correct immediately any obvious
problems identified
Standardize the process
• Identify the currently known best practices
and write them down
• Test the best practices to determine
whether they are in fact the best, and
improve them if there is room for
improvement
• Make sure that everyone is using the newly
standardized process
• Keep records of process performance,
update them continually, and use to identify
ways to improve the process even further
on a continual basis
 Eliminate errors in the process:
 Streamline the process
 Reduce sources of variation
 Bring the process under statistical control
Improve the design of the process
• Define the objectives of the experiment
• Decide which factors are going to be
measured
• Design an experiment that will measure the
critical factors and the answers the relevant
questions
• Set up the experiment
• Conduct the experiment
• Analyze the results
• Act on the results
Total manufacturing management
• Reduced lead time
• Flow production
• Group technology
• Level production
• Synchronized production
• Overlapped/parallel production
• Flexible schedules
• Pull control
• Visual control
• Stockless production
• Jidoka
• Reduced setup time
• In-process control
• Quality improvement
• Total cost cycles
• Cost curves
 Mushroom concept
 Suppliers as comakers
 Total industrial engineering
 Total productive maintenance
Kaizen approach

 Kaizen value system

 Role of executive management
 Role of middle managers
 Role of supervisors
 Role of employees
 Kaizen and quality
Elements of kaizen
 Customer focus
 Teamwork
 Just-in-time
 Quality circles
 Automation
 Labor/ management cooperation
 Total productive maintenance
 Kaizen Five-step plan
 Straighten up: involves separating necessary
from unnecessary
 Put things in order: tools and materials in
proper place and in order
 Clean up: keeping clean to proceed in efficient
manner
 Personal cleanliness: employees being neat to
appear better
 Discipline: careful adherence to standardized
work procedures.
The five W’s and One H

 WHO
 WHAT
 WHERE
HOW
 WHEN
 WHY
Five M checklist

 Measurement
 Methods
 Material
 Machine
 Man
Activity
Goldratt’s Theory of Constraints
 An approach to managing that helps
organizations continually improve.
 It is an intuitive (instinctive) framework
for managing organizations.
 Starts with:
◦ 1. clearly defined goals for the organization.
◦ 2. establishing measurements to determine
the impact of any action on those goals.
What Is So Different?

 Does not apply the traditional system for

measuring results (profits)

 Uses throughput, inventory, and operating

expense.
What’s Different?
 It is based on the assumption that every
organization faces constraints.

 Greatest negative impact on performance

is policies as opposed to materials and
resources.
Goldratt Defines Restraint

 “anything that limits an organization from

achieving higher performance vis-à-vis (in
comparison with) its goal.
How Is It Applied?
 Identify: any factor that tends to
constrain.

 Exploit: how can the factor be turned

into positive factors, eliminated, or
circumvented.
CEDAC Approach
 CEDAC = cause-and-effect with additional
cards.
 3 conditions must exist for continual
improvement to occur.
◦ A reliable system (standardized and reliable)
◦ A favorable environment (favorable to
improvement)
◦ Practicing as teams (Total Quality is
performed by teams. Teams must practice)
 CEDAC Diagram

http://syque.com/improvement/Cause-
10-Step Process of Implimentation
 Draw Basic Diagram
 Select the focus of improvement efforts
 Name project leader
 Establish measurement method
 Establish improvement goal and date
 Format effect side of the diagram
 Collect fact cards for the cause side (each team
member fills out cards with their ideas)
 Collect improvement cards
 Implement and test ideas
 Select cards for standardization
Six Sigma Concept
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNtE
W4DVRkE&feature=related
 Introduced by Motorola in the mid-1980’s
 Purpose: to improve the performance
process to where defects rate was 3.4
per million or less.
 Designed for high volume production
settings.
Six Step Protocol
1. Identify the product characteristics
wanted by customers.
2. Classify the characteristics in terms of
their criticality.
3. Determine is the classified
characteristics are controlled by part
and/or process.
Protocol
 4. Determine the maximum allowable
tolerance for each classified
characteristic.
 5. Determine the process variation for
each classified characteristic.
 6. Change the design of the product,
process, or both to achieve Six Sigma
performance.
Six Sigma: The Name
 From the concept of standard deviation
signified by lowercase Greek letter sigma:
σ
 Processes and outputs typically measure
in their standard deviations from the
mean (ideal point).
What Does That Mean?
 Most good companies operate between 3
and 4 sigma.
 Or: 99.73% of process output will fall
between
± 3 standard deviation at 3 sigma or
99.9937% at 4 sigma.
 3 sigma operation will yield 2700
defective parts for every 1 million
produced.
Six Sigma and Total Quality
 Six Sigma is an extension of Total Quality.
 Six Sigma is a total quality strategy, like all
others, to achieve: superior performance,
that is continually improved, forever.
 Six Sigma is achieved by improving
process performance.
Lean Operations
 Lean=Lean Manufacturing=Lean
Operations
 Lean: originally a manufacturing concept
thus lean manufacturing.
 Lean Operations: because it is found to
produce good results in both
manufacturing AND service sectors.
Purpose of Adopting
 To produce better products or deliver
better services using less resources.

 Doing more with less and doing it better.

Defining Lean

 Based on the Toyota Production System

(TPS).

 Lean Operation: a better product is

developed or a better service is delivered
by using less of everything required.
Definition
 Lean is: being flexible enough to get the
right things, to the right place, at the right
time, in the right amounts.

 The Heart: reduction of waste and the

improvement of workflow.
Lean Focuses on Waste
 Overproduction Waste
 Inventory Waste
 Motion Waste
 Transportation Waste
 Over-processing Waste
 Defects Waste
 Waiting Waste
 Underutilization Waste
Tools and Techniques of Lean
 Five-S workplace organization
 Visual workplace systems
 Layout
 Standardized work (SW)
 Point of usage storage (POUS)
 Batch size reduction
 Quick changeover(QCO)
 Poka-yoke
More Tools:
 Self-inspection
 Autonomation
 Pull systems/kanban
 Cellular and flow
 Just-in-time (JIT)
 Total productive maintenance (TPM)
 Value stream mapping (VSM)
 Change management
 Teamwork
Lean Six Sigma
 Combining Lean and Six Sigma

 Key Concepts:
◦ Green Belts
◦ Black Belts
◦ Master Black Belts
◦ Champions
◦ DMAIC Roadmap (or lean Six Sigma)
Where to Use?
In Manufacturing:
 Especially effective for the following types
of continual improvement projects:
◦ Accuracy in invoicing
◦ Capacity of line and product
◦ Lead time on delivery
◦ Production
◦ Replenish downtime on equipment and lines
Where to Use?
In Service Sector:
 Accuracy in invoicing, delivery, and
product
 Capacity of service area, call center, and
product
 Lead time on delivery and call hold time
 Downtime on equipment, servers, and
lines
DMAIC Roadmap
 The Nucleus of Six Sigma: Define,
Measure, Analyze, Improve, and Control.
 Five Phases are constant
 Steps, tools and outputs of each phase
may vary somewhat.
Define
 1. initiate the project
 2. Define the process
 3. Determine Customer requirements
 4. define key process output variables

 Possible tools: value stream maps, affinity

diagrams, brainstorming, surveys
Measure
 1. Understand the process
 2. Evaluate risks on process inputs
 3. Develop and evaluate measurements
systems
 4. measure current performance
 Results: Knowing your starting point,
verification of measurement systems,
current capabilities
Analyze
 1. Analyze data to prioritize key input
variables
 2. Identify waste
 Results: root causes reduced. Prioritize
potential key inputs, and list specific
wastes.
 Tools: Five-S (sort, store, shine,
standardize, & sustain)
Improve
 1. verify critical outputs
 2. Design Improvements
 3. Pilot the new process
 Results: an action plan for improvement,
future state process maps, control maps,
new process design/documentation
Control
 1. Finalize the control system
 2. Verify long-term capability
 Results: a control system, improvement
validated for long term, identified
continual improvement opportunities,
team recognition
Bibliography
 All information obtained from:

 Goetsch, D.L., Davis, S.B. Quality

Management for organizational excellence:
introduction to total quality. 2006. 5th edition
Why Do We Ned Six Sigma?

 Interview:

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rUQb
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