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What can I expect to see as a result of implementing Lean Six Sigma? You know, what kind of metrics
will I see improve, and what may I see to the bottom line?
Okay. And I’m going to talk high altitude at first, you know. And then we can drill
down as we go along. But basically, what you can see is that you are, if you employ Lean
Six Sigma, you implement it properly, it’s embedded in your processes that satisfy the
customer, or deal with the customers, as well as the processes that are working at efficiencies
and effectiveness within the business, you will see that, first of all, it adds greater
value to the customer. Whether external or internal. The other thing that with Lean Six
Sigma, you enhance the intellectual power of your working force – your process owners;
your process workers. And when I say intellectual capital, it’s very nice if the people know
their processes. How they work; how they can be modified to make them run more efficiently
to make them run better. It’s nice. So they first have to have knowledge of their process.
The other thing that Lean Six Sigma will provide them is the ability to take a look at their
process and see where waste exists, to see where variation exists, and how they can handle
that and improve that. I’m amazed, especially in transactional and service processes, where
we really don’t know how much it costs us because of our inefficiencies. Those costs
are hidden because many times we do rework; we don’t record that. All we know is that
it takes time away from doing other customers, or working on other steps within the process.
So, Lean Six Sigma can give you an intellectual power that will stimulate the process workers
to understand they have an impact on their process. The other thing that Lean Six Sigma
will do is it grows the top line. In other words, if I have implemented it properly,
if leaders and managers are involved, and so, and I’m looking at it strategically,
it can grow the top line. I can gain increased revenues. It can enhance the bottom line.
In other words, my net income will increase. I’ll see things like market share be enhanced
over time. And the last thing I’ll hit before we now drill down maybe a little bit further
is, it enhances your culture. Many businesses that I come across have phenomenal cultures.
They have cultures that have existed for many years and so on. And so, I’m not one that
proposes that Lean Six Sigma should totally modify a culture. It shouldn’t. It should
work within a culture to enhance that culture, and magnify the good things of that cultures.
So, when you have people that are working on processes; and I have been in both, manufacturing
and transactional processes, where I would go to a process, and I will actually ask people,
‘How does that impact other processes?’ Or, ‘How is that impacted by, or how does
it impact processes? Upstream? Downstream?’ That kind of thing. And I’m amazed at sometimes
that I will find a process in which somebody is producing something. And it could be a
manufactured item. In other words, something on an aircraft. And they do not know where
that part goes in to the aircraft. And that sounds silly, but I’ve had that happen.
And they don’t know what part they play in terms of the safety features and so on.
And so, what Lean Six Sigma does is it tries to enhance their knowledge, enhance the culture
of exchange of ideas, so that processes upstream and downstream are talking to one another.