What is Lean?
Lean is a process designed to bring about rapid, dramatic improvements to the performance of an organization through a simplification of the value stream. It consists of a comprehensive set of elements, rules and tools that focus on value, the elimination of waste (any activity that consumes resources but creates no value for the customer) and continuous incremental improvement. As market forces dictate pricing and create pressure for lead-time reductions, organizations need to focus on streamlining processes in order to grow margins and remain competitive.
Lean primarily focuses on the relentless elimination of waste from all business activities. This is achieved through the use of specific concepts that are intended to provide excellent quality products or services, delivered on time, at the lowest total cost, and only on the specific demand of the customer. Organizations that have transitioned to a Lean culture have seen a radical improvement in profitability, service levels, productivity, asset utilization, cash flow, inventory levels, changeover times, product designs, quality, cycle times and product costs. As a manufacturing philosophy, Lean reduces the time occurring between order placement and shipment. Applied to business processes or service environments, Lean thinking reduces cycle times and streamlines processes by removing non-value-added steps.
What is Six Sigma?
Six Sigma is a business-driven, multi-faceted approach to process improvement, reduced costs, and increased profits. With a fundamental principle to improve customer satisfaction by reducing defects, its ultimate goal is virtually defect-free processes and products (3.4 or fewer defects per million opportunities (DPMO). The Six Sigma methodology, consisting of the steps "Define - Measure - Analyze - Improve - Control," (DMAIC) is the roadmap to achieving this goal. Within this improvement framework, it is the responsibility of the improvement team to identify the process, the definition of defect, and the corresponding measurements. This degree of flexibility enables the Six Sigma methodology, along with its toolkit, to easily integrate with existing models of process implementation.
Six Sigma originated at Motorola in the early 1980s in response to a CEO-driven challenge to achieve tenfold reduction in product-failure levels in five years. Meeting this challenge required swift and accurate root-cause analysis and correction. In the mid-1990s, Motorola divulged the details of their quality improvement framework, which has since been adopted by several large manufacturing companies and service organizations. Six Sigma focuses on process improvement, reducing costs, and increasing profits. It is a methodology driven by understanding customer needs, and the disciplined use of data, facts, and statistical analysis to improve and reinvent organizational processes.
Why Lean Six Sigma?
Customers are becoming increasingly demanding. As a result, companies must consistently deliver products and services that are of greater value. Many companies pursue either Lean or Six Sigma as means to meet these challenges. Individually, they fill important needs. Both are based on improvement. However, using one or the other alone has limitations. Six Sigma reduces scrap rates and quality defects by focusing on measurement systems as well as capability or process quality variation; however, it doesn’t optimize process flow. Lean doesn’t dramatically improve process capabilities but it does target cycle times, wastes and other process costs. However, when used together, these methods complement and reinforce each other.
If your company or organization has excess inventory, lack of space or lead time issues, Lean tools are applied to attack these problems. If you have reject, scrap, overall yield issues or service errors, Six Sigma tools are used to define, measure, analyze, improve and control (DMAIC) these issues. Then both methodologies are continually applied in tandem to sustain realized improvements and allow for a continuous improvement program to take hold. Companies can expect to see greater speed, less process variation, and more bottom line impact by focusing the use of statistical tools and establishing baseline performance levels.
Our approach combines the speed and power of both Lean and Six Sigma to achieve process optimization. Speed, quality and cost are the components that drive the success of any organization. Lean Six Sigma works on all three simultaneously because it blends Lean, with its primary focus on process speed, and Six Sigma, with its primary focus on process quality, within a proven organizational framework for superior execution. This program specifically addresses how integrating Lean (making work faster) and Six Sigma (making work better) helps an organization move quickly with higher quality and lower cost.
Monroe Community College currently offers classes in White Belt, Green Belt, and Black Belt.
You may download the document below for more information regarding costs, class dates/times, and the application procedure.
Lean Six Sigma WINTER-SPRING 2012
For questions please call Charles Caples at 585.262.1429 or email him at ccaples@monroecc.edu
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