Lean Six Sigma is widely recognized as the world best approach for delivering transformation business results swiftly. It aims to create excellence for every product, process and transaction within an organisation. This evidence-based approach aims to transform business performance by improving quality, reducing costs and enhancing employee productivity. Lean Six Sigma is a powerful union of Lean Manufacturing with emphasis of speed, elimination of inefficiencies/wastes, agile problem solving and Sigma standard that reduces variability in processes and improves accuracy of transactions. Companies equipped with Lean Six Sigma methodologies pursue excellence, consistency, customer responsiveness, speed and lower costs. To do this, [...]

In business operations, product or service variation exists on a bell/ normal curve. The concept of ‘bell curve was developed by Karl F. Gauss, a german mathematician in the 18th century. Although the term ‘six sigma’ was first used by Motorola engineer’s Bill Smith in the 1980s, as a measure of standard of product and process variation, six sigma dates back to 1920s when Walter Shewhart established what is now known as schematic control charts. Walter A  Shewhart In the 1980s, Motorola engineers Bill Smith and Mikel Harry recognized the importance of measuring variations in various processes and [...]

In the last article, we learnt that majority of companies are between 2 and 3 Sigma. Due to the low performance, the management is often under pressure to do everything they can to improve the bottom line in the shortest time possible.  Profits as quick as possible sounds great. Keep stakeholders happy and bonus for staff and managers! Right? Companies focused on making profits in the short term often adopt cost cutting measures including downsizing of employees. When you lay off employees with modest exit package you are likely to see an improvement in the bottom line within 4 – [...]

We have all seen companies declaring x millions of customer served/ products developed.  McDonald’s stopped updating their Golden Arches at the 99 billion mark.  The concept of per million served is useful in understanding the basic concept of Lean Six Sigma. Six Sigma is the technical measure of how many unhappy customers experiences are observed/reported for every one million customers served. If the coffee shop served a million customers in a month, how many of the customers experienced poor service? If only 3 (yes, only 3) customers were unhappy, then the coffee shop achieved Six [...]

Here are five key principles that will make you succeed in growing your organization, increase productivity and develop staff in 2018 and beyond: Understand the current state of your organization: If you want to specify the future direction of your organization, you first need to know where exactly you stand. Do this by collecting data from internal sources (staff, management) and outside organizations (suppliers, customers). Ask them and yourself: What specifically is working well and what is not? This simple but meaningful question helps identifying gaps as well as strengths in performance. By understanding the current organizational state, your strategic [...]