Lean Six Sigma is a process improvement approach in which process improvement engineers are trained and certified to improve efficiency, reduce overhead, and improve production quality by minimizing waste and reducing process variation. Waste is any byproduct of a process that adds no value and costs resources. It is important to remember that resources encompass money, time, electricity, fuel, or wear and tear on machinery.
The 8 causes of waste are easy to remember if you can remember the acronym "DOWNTIME"
Defects in produced items. Your item that you have expended resources on is out of spec and not sellable.
Over production. A customer has ordered 100 units and you've produced 1,000 to have them on hand in the future.
Waiting. Your process has employees waiting to complete tasks and they're drawing a paycheck.
Not utilizing talent. You ignore the recommendations of employees with high levels of hands-on experience.
Transportation. You're sending a product back and forth to different facilities to be completed.
Inventory. You got a great deal on raw material and are now paying to store it.
Movement. Your organization is wrong, and your employees are walking to get material or tools.
Excess processing. Having unnecessary steps in a process such as correcting defects.
Although these wastes affect profit negatively this is not their only negative impact as we can see on my other problem-solving sections such as 5-S and ergonomics.
Now that waste exists and that it is a problem how do we solve it? The short answer here is you hire a process improvement engineer like me to come to your facility and teach your staff how to fix your processes, facility layout, ergonomics, and data collection and analysis system. The longer answer is we apply the problem-solving processes and tools of lean management, lean manufacturing, agile, six sigma, and 5-S in a process improvement project known as a Kaizen.
To start to identify areas for waste in processes and ultimately improve them we are going to use another acronym DMAIC.
Define- We are going to define the problem we've noticed in our process.
Measure- We are going to develop a baseline by collecting current performance data.
Analyze- We are going to analyze our collected data and determine the root cause of our problem.
Improve- We are going to test possible improvements that minimize or eliminate the root cause.
Control- A report of lessons learned, and actions taken is prepared and you and your staff maintain the new process to ensure you don't backslide into the old inefficient way.