That's because Six Sigma aims at improving the company's processes by eliminating potential product defects. On the other hand, the Lean strategy aims at getting the job done as quickly as possible. This means that the Lean Six Sigma methodology aims at improving the company's overall performance by eliminating most of its defects - often with immediate effect.
Since time is a huge constraint in any business, many firms are waking up to the benefits of the Lean Six Sigma methodology. Many companies have even gone forward and adopted it in their business processes. The best thing about Lean Six Sigma is that it can help businesses save a lot on unnecessary expenditures, especially when it comes to managing operational costs.
Therefore, business organizations can improve their competency as well as quality, thanks to Lean Six Sigma.
The Concept of Lean Six Sigma
The term "Lean Six Sigma" is referred to in many ways, namely, lean manufacturing, lean service, etc. Another advantage of Lean Six Sigma is that the codes of the Lean strategy can easily work with standard Six Sigma principles. Lean Six Sigma ensures that the company's resources don't go to waste, since it utilizes all of them to bring about improvements in quality as well as in the speed of the completion processes.
It doesn't matter what your company is dealing with, be it service oriented or manufacturing processes. Lean Six Sigma often works perfectly with any business. That's because when Lean Six Sigma is executed, companies are able to speed up most of their business processes, and at the same time, not compromise the quality aspect of the products or services that the company is dealing with.
Since Lean Six Sigma brings about a change in the inner workings of an organization, it becomes very easy to reduce any overhead costs such as maintaining the inventory of both raw materials as well as the finished products. Once the methodology has been applied perfectly to suit the company's processes, it becomes very easy to cater to customers' demands within the stipulated time.
Lean Six Sigma also emphasizes providing the necessary employee training so that they can efficiently learn and use the tools and the principles of Lean Six Sigma.
Advantages
Lean Six Sigma also encourages the participation of senior management in the training process, so that the employees take to the change easily. The methodology also makes use of techniques to reduce processing times and increase the productivity of goods, which leads to increased customer loyalty. The most important thing to keep in mind is that Lean Six Sigma should be exercised only by the experts (i.e., Six Sigma Black Belts and Champions).
Due to the aggressive competition in the market today, it is absolutely essential for companies to adopt Lean Six Sigma. Only then can they guarantee top quality products and services in the shortest period of time possible.
Lean Six Sigma Definition
The problem is that today's CIOs (Chief Information Officer) and CTOs (Chief Technical Officer), who are mostly delegated the task of managing the implementations, fail to understand the importance and benefits of Lean Six Sigma. Thinking that the implementations will be an unnecessary drag on the organization, they often try their best to convince the top management to postpone or forego the implementations altogether. They do not even realize that such a conservative approach can easily jeopardize the company's growth plans and allow competitors to gain an upper hand in the market.
All businesses will certainly try to avoid such major problems and this is why it has become quite necessary for today's CIOs and CTOs to know and understand a bit more about Lean 6 Sigma. Explained below are some of the common misconceptions that today's CIOs and CTOs have regarding implementations.
Lean Six Sigma Implementations Will Require Lots of Money
One of the most common misconceptions about is that its implementation requires the organization to invest huge amounts of money in making available the resources such as manpower and materials. No doubt, the organization will have to expand its budgetary allocations, but it is also certain that the additional funds required would never exceed a level that the organization cannot manage on its own, something that most CIOs and CTOs fail to understand. They claim that such implementations will lead to a resource crunch situation, which in turn can have a negative impact on the company's production targets and also on the overall quality.
They, however, fail to understand that Lean implementations are carried out according to a detailed plan that is devised in close consultations with the production department. As such, it is highly unlikely that the implementations will have a negative impact on the company's production, something that today's CIOs and CTOs should be made aware of.
Lean Six Sigma Will Require Professional Expertise
Another common misconception is that implementations will require the company to hire professionals such as Green Belts, Black Belts from outside. Today's CIOs and CTOs often claim that the organization is already running short of funds, and as such does not have enough for paying the high fees demanded by these professionals.
While this may be true to some extent, what CIOs and CTOs often fail to understand is that there are better alternatives available. For example, they overlook the possibility that existing employees can be trained as Green Belts and Black Belts, who can then carry out the implementations. Additionally, since professional Six Sigma training is available at reasonable rates, it hardly makes any sense not to use an in-house training method for achieving the main objective (i.e., successful implementations).
Lean Six Sigma has helped many companies, even those with limited resources to achieve the desired results. As such, it is quite unnecessary to contest the effectiveness or benefits of Lean Six Sigma. Today's CIOs and CTOs need to concentrate more on achieving the long-term goals and objectives of the organization rather than waste their precious time and energy in contesting Lean Six Sigma implementations.
Tony Jacowski has sinced written about articles on various topics from University, Six Sigma and Information Technology. Tony Jacowski is a quality analyst for The MBA Journal. Aveta Solution's Six Sigma Online offers online and certification classes for six sigma pro. Tony Jacowski's top article generates over 90500 views. to your Favourites.
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