Lean Six Sigma That Works

I selected the book “Lean Six Sigma That Works” based on the management topics of leadership and organization. I felt that these two topics would be challenged on all levels of implementing a hybrid program like Lean Manufacturing and Six Sigma. I was interested in how the author would address these topics and how effectively he would differentiate these from other management topics. As I expected, both topics were reiterated many times throughout the book as the basic building blocks of the Lean Six-Sigma philosophy.

The leadership function was illustrated on various levels. This cornerstone to the program is essential in ensuring that the company will meet the objectives set forth in determining to adopt the methodology. Several other examples of leadership were highlighted at different levels throughout the book illustrating how leadership makes the process flow in differing environments.

The organization was also a very strong theme throughout the book. This topic stressed the importance of the organization as a whole and how it requires a company-wide effort in order for this system to succeed. The author gave different perspectives from various management levels within the organization allowing for multiple variations within the scope of implementation.

Of all of the books that I had to choose from, I chose this topic more for my personal curiosity than to find a book with close ties to the classroom topics. This book deals with combining two highly sought after company processes that I have been involved with at several companies. Throughout my career, I have always worked within the manufacturing realm and have seen many of these programs come and go. Many of these programs start off very strong, but as soon as it comes down to meeting the monthly numbers or maintaining compliance to the program, the program becomes much less of a necessity and the commitment starts to fade. I have seen one exception to this phenomena, the Six Sigma program continues to lead others in staying power.

Lean Six Sigma changes how the organization deals with vendors and suppliers. This is one of the draws to the book for me. Over the past two decades, I have been an integral part of the vendor selection process and have been responsible for ensuring that the vendors were capable of meeting our quality and delivery standards. Being involved in numerous vendor audits, I have learned to identify many of the obstacles that can hinder a company’s ability to consistently meet the criteria set by the receiving company. One of my hopes in selecting this book was to replace the working antidotal knowledge I have acquired over the years with factual and quantifiable information. For me, it is just as important in knowing the “why” as it is to knowing the “how”.

In the most basic of terms, the key ideas of this book is the blending of two like philosophies used to reduce waste, improve efficiency and reduce costs in business. Both of these philosophies have successful histories independently of each other and now, in this application, each will complement the other. The Six Sigma concept starts with the DMAIC as its core philosophy. This overly simplistic acronym stands for Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control. This systematic, five-phase problem solving process has become the disciplined approach to improving business performance worldwide.

The Lean Manufacturing aspect of this technology adds the concepts of value-add and non value-add tasks that change the product. Here we look at the basic goals of Lean as being high quality, low cost short cycle times and flexibility. Together, these efforts are intended to drive out waste which is clearly defined as anything the customer is not willing to pay for.

The intent of this book was to combine two strong but separate but logically compatible techniques into a new, single system that can significantly improve the efficiency of an organization. As stated by the author, the “manufacturing technique and the production technique are often overlooked value streams”. The combining of these concepts has raised the bar of cost-effective operations and production.

In my view, the overall theme of the book revolved around leading and controlling. Given all of the different dimensions in this program, most of the emphasis was towards leading and controlling the process. The planning, organizing and coordinating are also worth mentioning because of the high level role that they play in this program. It is important to note that the Lean Six-Sigma philosophy requires the extensive use of all of the management functions from all levels of management in order to meet the objectives and realize the benefits of less waste and higher level of efficiency.

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