Businesses exist to make profits, and for optimal revenue generation, business processes need to run effectively. One tool that helps enterprises to realize optimum efficacy is the Lean Six Sigma. Six Sigma can be viewed as a philosophy, methodology, set of tools, or metrics that aid businesses better their processes through performance increment and process variation decrement. Six Sigma is a measure of quality that targets near flawlessness in organizations; it reduces defects and increases profits (Furterer, 2016, p.3). The chief purpose of this methodology is to implement a measurement-based approach that stresses on variation reduction and improvement through the application of sigma improvement schemes.
Lean thinking
In many business settings, manufacturers will keep on manufacturing the product(s) they are used to, and their customers will ask for the product(s) they are getting. Lean mindset challenges managers to continuously search for methods to eliminate waste and improve productivity. According to Tezel et al., 2018 lean thinking is a business plan with a focus on offering new innovative and effective means of contemplating the most effective business resource planning (p.1). Lean thinking is the conviction that a simpler, more comfortable, and a better way of completing a task exists. Lean mindset entails determining the desired cost of services and products based on the required inputs when waste elimination from the process is performed.
James Womack and Daniel Jones, the founders of the Lean Enterprise Institute, states that lean thinking is governed by five principles that build on each other to produce improvements. The first principle is value. An organization should always evaluate their products and services from their customers’ shoe. They should consider how their products and services will help their client perform their task more effectively to realize their mission and better their position. By being customer-centric, a business identifies the exception value of the service they provide. The second principle is the value-stream. Once the unique value has been defined, the lean team can focus on the processes that achieve the end goal. Value stream mapping facilitated the comprehension of how the value flows or get stuck in the organization. The end product of this principle is a physical ‘map.’ The third principle is flow creation, where analysis of each process step in performed to determine means of reducing waste and maximizing efficacies. The fourth principle is to establish a pull. The team looks at the operations of an enterprise in revers on the value-stream maps from a customer’s perspective. The last principle is seeking perfection, in which improvement approaches are identified and adopted (Do, 2017, p. 2018).
Lean thing aims to remove waste; any steps or actions that do not add the customers’ value. These wastes are known by their acronym ‘TIMWOODS.’ The first one is transport waste, which entails moving equipment, tools, and people further than necessary. The second is keeping too many inventories, and the third is any unnecessary motion. The fourth waste is waiting, either by idling machines or customers waiting for equipment. The fifth is the overproduction of products, and the sixth is over-processing, where more steps or components are added, and they have no use to consumers. The seventh is defects in manufacturing, and the last one is skills; waste in human potential. Customer-centric offers numerous advantages, such as reducing churn, promoting the new value, and amassing current customer value (Kadarova and Demecko, 2016, p.11).
Kaizen intervention
Kaizen’s philosophy was introduced by Masaaki Imai, who is considered the founder of continuous improvement and “Lean Guru.” Kaizen is a Japanese word that means “Continues improvement” or “Change for the better.” It is a business philosophy concerning procedures that progressively enhances operations and includes all workers (Marin-Garcia et al., 2018, p.13). According to this philosophy, improvement in production is a systematic and gradual process. Its concept involves making the work environment more effective and efficient through improving procedures, guaranteeing employees satisfaction, creating a team atmosphere, and making jobs safer and less tiring. Kaizen’s objectives include standardized work, elimination of waste, just-in-time delivery, efficient equipment, and quality control.
Kaizen methodology advocates for never-ending improvements within an enterprise based on constant minor changes in the right direction to realize significant growth in the long run. This approach is more of a culture than a methodology and is grounded on cooperation and communication among employees in an organization as part of the lean improvement process. It involves finding and analyzing pain areas. It considers 3M’s MUDA (“unevenness”), MUDA (“not-value adding work”), and MURI (“overburden”) in its analysis. Also, it looks at the 4M’s (Method, Man, Material, and Machine).
Kaizen has many benefits for an organization. Waste is reduced as employee skills and inventories are utilized more efficiently. It also increases commitment since team members have stakes in their duties and are more persuaded to put in their level best. Kaizen improves the degree of satisfaction because it has a direct repercussion on the manner task are performed. Finally, this philosophy improves retention, competitiveness, consumer satisfaction, problem-solving, and team cooperation (Marin-Garcia et al., 2018, p.139).
Both DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control) and Kaizen are utilized for continual improvement of the business process by eliminating defects, reducing waste, and enhancing business processes. Their underlying objective might be similar, but their methods differ. DMAIC makes use of statistics to evaluate the business process while Kaizen does not. DMAIC focuses on perfection while Kaizen on improving overall work settings. Kaizen philosophy aims at long-term results while DMAIC looks at short –term results. Lastly, Kaizen is for providing quality and requires the participation of every single employee, while DMAIC ensures profitability and creation of project teams to handle changes. DMAIC should be used over Kaizen if the problem being improved is sophisticated or has a high risk. Kaizen should be used when the processes to be enhanced are non-essential, and the level of complexity is low.
Value Stream Mapping
Value Stream Mapping (VSM) is a methodology for lean managers that aids them in visualizing the necessary steps required from product and service creation to presenting it to its consumers (Keyte and Locher, 2017, p.7). VSM makes use of a flowchart that details every production process steps. Value Stream mapping helps with introspection, process improvement, and analysis. VSM is created by first defining the desired focus, then selecting the VSM team, going to Gemba, basic value stream definition, team mapping activity, later the development of current, target, and future state value stream maps.
VSM is guided by four principles/protocols. The first one is the diagnostic tools. These are the tools used to carry out tests on processes and identify the hidden ‘symptoms’ of a bigger problem. These tools include TAKT Time, FMEA (Failure Modes and Effects Analysis, Defects per Million Opportunities (DPMO), Pareto chart, and the Ishikawa Fishbone Diagram. These tools analyses data from PCI (process capability index), Tact Time, Activity ratio, and yields to make diagnoses. The second principle is strategic planning activities. This plan aids in opportunity improvement prioritization, and its result is an implementation plan. The third protocol is macro levels- visuals that represent people, material, and information flow, and the last one is relevant metrics. The two critical parameters are cycle time and lead time (King and King, 2017, p.8).
Current and future states are closely interlinked but also have numerous differences. If the current VS map is designed, essential transformational processes will not be addressed. The first key difference resides in their names; current VSM focuses on the present while future VSM looks at a later scenario. Current VSM defines value and boundaries. It also identifies tasks and how information and materials flow through them and the resources for each flow and assignment. Finally, it creates the current state map. The future state VSM visualize the “Ideal State” and design the next state map. It also identifies wastes and added values from the current state and performs reconfigurations to add value and remove debris.
Value stream mapping methodologies presents numerous benefits to its users. This methodology is intended to pinpoint and remove wastes in the value stream and, as a consequence, increase its efficiency. First, it helps the lean team to visualize more than the single process level. Secondly, it helps link information and material flows and thirdly, it provides a universal language that can be easily understood by all lean team members. Fourth, it provides a blueprint or a map of how implementation will be done. This approach is more useful than quantitative methodologies. Finally, VSM ties together lean techniques and concepts (Shou et al., 2017, p.11).
Lean Tools
Lean manufacturing tools for improvement and analysis are critical to an organization because they help reduce waste, increase customer value, and improve efficiency (Marhani et al., 2018, p.97). In the following discussion, these tools will be highlighted, and their importance to the Lean team stated.
Lean Improvement tools
Lean has a vast array of tools that can be used in its exploration. One such tool is Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE), which is a framework that measures the loss in production for any given process in manufacturing. It keeps track of quality, availability, and performance losses. OEE avails a baseline to keeping track of waste eliminated from a manufacturing process. Another tool is Total Productive Maintenance (TPM). This tool provided a holistic method of maintenance with a focus on preventive and proactive support to optimize equipment’s operational time. TPM creates a pooled obligation that encourages the involvement of plant floor employees. 5S stands for sort, set in order, shine, standardize, and sustain. This tool aids in waste elimination from a poorly structured work area. Kanban is also known as the pull system and is a method of controlling the distribution of goods both inside and outside a factory. Kanban is a valuable tool that eliminates wastes from overproduction and inventories. The last tool is the Single-Minute Exchange of Dies (SMED). SMED reduces changeover duration to be within 10. It includes the elimination of non-essential operations, simplifying internal setup, and creating standardized work manuals. SMED improves customer responsiveness, facilitates manufacturing to be carried out in smaller lots, and reduces inventories.
Lean Measurement / Analysis Tools.
Just like improvement tools, there are many analytic/measuring tools associated with lean. The first one is TAKT Time, which is the speed of production that aligns customer demand with production. TAKT time provides an intuitive, simple, and consistent means of pacing production. FMEA (Failure Modes and Effects Analysis) is a tool for risk assessment that investigates the occurrence, severity, and recognition of risks to prioritize the most urgent ones (Roriz et al., 2017, p.1073). Pareto chart is a particular type of histogram or bar chart. This tool demonstrates the 80-20 rule, also known as the Pareto principle. It is used to show the causes of complications in order of their urgency. Defects per Million Opportunities (DPMO) is a tool to examine the number of irregularities during the production run. The last tool is the Ishikawa Fishbone Diagram, which is a tool for identifying the possible root of a problem or an effect.