Has anyone run a lean event in their organization and integrated it with a Six sigma project? What are the steps to run a Lean event?  What are the learnings from each step? How can you integrate Lean with a Six sigma project?

Dear Fowzieh,

What do you mean by a Lean event? If you are referring to some Lean deployment, you can start off with deploying basic Lean tools that deal with Stability and Standardization first - things like 5S, Standard Operating Procedures, Waste Elimination etc. The benefit of using Lean is that you can start getting quick benefits right away - then you can use Six Sigma for more tougher problems. You will have a good foundation with some preliminary data collection in place that can be used to identify Six Sigma projects.

Secondly, you could use Lean tools within Six Sigma in DMAIC as a Lean Six Sigma project. For example, use of 5 Why's in the Analyze Phase to identify root causes.

Best Regards,

SJ.

Dear SJ,

Thank you for your response. I have currently initiated doing a Current Value Stream Mapping for one of the processes. There is an opportunity for doing a Six Sigma project there, however, before I do that, I wanted to see if there are any areas that I could identify with my team to reduce the cycle time or eliminate waste.

When I said a Lean event, I meant Kaizen - a process improvement activity.

The example that you gave on 5 Why's has helped me understand how we can use the Lean tools in Six Sigma. I shall dicuss this further when we meet on Friday.

Thanks Again,

Fowzieh

Hi Fowzieh,

Just to add up on the discussion. We do LEAN , Process improvement projects in our Organisation ona large scale.

Adding a example: After you complete 5 y...and drill down to 3-4 root causes , your next step would be to create a pareto analysis and find out what are the major pain areas which are statistically significant.

SJ- Kindly correct me if I am wrong, Since you are the my GURU.

Regards,

Abhijit

Dear Fowzieh, Abhijit,

Right. When you do a current state Value Stream Map (VSM), you can identify the potential improvement areas (called Bombs) on the VSM using a Kaizen burst image. 

Some of these improvement opportunities can be done right away (JDI - Just Do It), some of them require some cross-functional team input and some basic analysis (these would be ideal for a Kaizen team), and still others may be chronic issues which may not go away without some serious analysis. The last category would be ideal for Six Sigma projects.

When you perform a VSM analysis, you would need to figure out these improvement areas and then focus your efforts on the appropriate opportunities.

Hope this helps,

SJ.