John Morgan
Lean Six Sigma For Dummies
Lean Six Sigma For Dummies®, 3rd Edition
Published by: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, www.wiley.com
This edition first published 2016
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Introduction
Lean Six Sigma provides a rigorous and structured approach to help manage and improve quality and performance, and to solve potentially complex problems. It helps you use the right tools, in the right place and in the right way, not just in improvement but also in your day-to-day management of activities. Lean Six Sigma really is about getting key principles and concepts into the DNA and lifeblood of your organisation so that it becomes a natural part of how you do things.
This book seeks to help managers and team leaders better understand their role and improve organisational efficiency and effectiveness.
If you want to change outcomes, you need to realise that outcomes are the result of systems. Not the computer systems, but the way people work together and interact. And these systems are the product of how people think and behave. So, if you want to change outcomes, you have to change your systems, and to do that, you have to change your thinking. Albert Einstein summed up the need for different thinking very well:
The significant problems we face cannot be solved by the same level of thinking which caused them.
Lean Six Sigma thinking is not about asset stripping and ‘making do’. Instead, this approach focuses on doing the right things right, so that you really do add value for the customer and make your organisation effective and efficient.
The main focus of the book relates to DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyse, Improve and Control). This is the Lean Six Sigma method for improving existing processes that form a part of the organisation’s systems, and it provides an ideal way to help you in your quest for continuous improvement.
When you need to develop a new process, the Design for Six Sigma method comes into play. Known as DMADV (Define, Measure, Analyse, Design and Verify), we provide an introduction to this method in Chapter 12.
About This Book
This book makes Lean Six Sigma easy to understand and apply. We wrote it because we feel that Lean Six Sigma can help organisations of all shapes and sizes, both private and public, improve their performance in meeting their customers’ requirements.
In particular, we wanted to draw out the role of the manager and provide a collection of concepts, tools and techniques to help him or her carry out the job more effectively. We also wanted to demonstrate the genuine synergy achieved through the combination of Lean and Six Sigma. For some reason unknown to the authors, a few people feel they can use only Lean or Six Sigma, but not both. How wrong they are!
In this book you can discover how to create genuine synergy by applying the principles of Lean and Six Sigma together in your day-to-day operations and activities.
Foolish Assumptions
In Lean Six Sigma, avoiding the tendency to jump to conclusions and make assumptions about things is crucial. Lean Six Sigma really is about managing by fact. Despite that, we’ve made some assumptions about why you may have bought this book:
✔ You’re contemplating applying Lean Six Sigma in your business or organisation, and you need to understand what you’re getting yourself into.
✔ Your business is implementing Lean Six Sigma and you need to get up to speed. Perhaps you’ve been lined up to participate in the programme in some way.
✔ Your business has already implemented either Lean or Six Sigma and you’re intrigued by what you might be missing.
✔ You’re considering a career or job change and feel that your CV or resume will look much better if you can somehow incorporate Lean or Six Sigma into it.
✔ You’re a student in business, operations or industrial engineering, for example, and you realise that Lean Six Sigma could help shape your future.
We also assume that you realise that Lean Six Sigma demands a rigorous and structured approach to understanding how your work gets done and how well it gets done, and how to go about the improvement of your processes.
Icons Used In This Book
Throughout the book, you’ll see small symbols called icons in the margins; these highlight special types of information. We use these to help you better understand and apply the material. Look out for the following icons:
