Lean and Six Sigma
This supplement is an independent publication from Raconteur Media
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June 8, 2010
LEAN & SIX SIGMA
W
ith public and personal
debt seemingly spiraling
out of control,
governments are strug-
gling with unpopular austerity measures
in a bid to rein in the economic
monster unleashed around the world.
In the UK, initial government cut-
backs of £6 billion are dwarfed by the
country’s record structural budget
deficit which, even with stringent cuts,
may still refuse to go away.
Politicians, polled as top of the flops
in terms of their public standing, have
pledged to balance the books but are
still figuring out how to do it. Similarly,
captains of industry are battling
the global economic storm and looking
for a way to stay afloat.
Rescue plans have proposed effi-
ciency savings but it is unclear how
the streamlining will be fashioned
and at what cost.
However, some sections of govern-
ment and private enterprise have already
seized on management and manufacturing
strategies which have stood the test of
time and, if applied correctly, continue to
deliver savings as well as improvements
in value for money and quality.
Exponents of Six Sigma, which can
be combined with Lean production
principles, claim it can result in significant
savings, amounting to billions
for big international companies.
Supporters say Lean and Six Sigma
methodologies can work both separately
and together to deliver real, measurable,
operational and financial improvements,
all of which are pulled into sharper focus
by the current economic uncertainty.
But Lean and Six Sigma come with a
health warning: they should not simply
be about slashing costs; quality of
service and value for money from a
customer’s point of view are central
and, if pursued, will lead to the desired
efficiency and economy.
Six Sigma may be thought of as a
child of the 1980s, whose parents were
Motorola and Toyota. But, although
the technique was conceived and
named relatively recently, its origins
are much earlier. It was an American,
Walter A Shewhart, who in 1924 first
devised a statistics-based process for
ensuring quality control in produc-
Savings with the minimum
pain and maximum gain?
ECONOMY Downturn in the private sector and public spending cuts are pulling
purse strings ever tighter. But cutbacks are an opportunity for greater efficiency
savings through improved workplace methodologies, as Julian Bishop discovers
BQF LEAN SIX SIGMA ACADEMY
We help organisations to understand the benefits of both Lean and Six Sigma by showing how the two
methodologies work both separately and together to deliver real, measurable, operational and financial
improvements. David Howells and John Morgan lead the Academy and they are able to help organisations,
from both the public and private sectors, achieve real success through advice, mentoring and coaching. A Lean
Six Sigma Certification Service that recognises expertise in Lean and Six Sigma complements this approach.
Contact Richard Parker for more information T 020 7654 5011 E richard.parker@bqf.org.uk
www.bqf.org.uk
constantly improving quality did not
go unnoticed in the United States
where Ford engineers discovered that
transmissions made in Japan were of
a higher standard, smoother running
and preferred by customers.
Then, in 1980, NBC TV screened
If Japan Can… Why Can’t We? and
re-introduced the American public to
the Deming way. Hired by Ford in the
early-1980s, an elderly Deming formulated
a 14-point checklist for managers
to implement; at its heart was the need
to “create constancy of purpose toward
improvement of product and service”.
But it was not just Ford that was under
intense pressure from Japanese rivals. US
giant Motorola sold a factory producing
television sets to a Japanese competitor
and watched as the new management
made major changes in the way the factory
worked. The result was TV sets produced
with one twentieth of the number
of faults. Quality was clearly an area that
had to be addressed. Motorola devised
its own version of Deming’s ideas and
gave it a registered trademark label: in
1986 Six Sigma was born.
Essentially it was a methodology
aimed at reducing variation in manufacturing
processes to achieve a hundredfold
improvement in quality, to
a level of only 3.4 defects per million.
Over the next 20 years, Motorola
claimed to have made $17 billion of
savings thanks to Six Sigma and in
1991 it certified its first expert Six
Sigma practitioners, known as Black
Belts. It even has its own Motorola
University offering training courses
up to Master Black Belt level.
Ed Bales, the programme manager at
Motorola University, says the company is
still using the Six Sigma methodology to
great effect. “One of the major advantages
of implementing the Six Sigma methodology
throughout Motorola worldwide
is the use of a ‘common language’
continued on page three
tion. His ideas were taken up by fellow
countryman W Edwards Deming
who applied them in Japan where, after
the end of the Second World War,
the country’s industrial strategy was
founded on quality improvement.
This razor-like, Japanese focus on
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