Reducing Wastes And Streamlining Processes: The Yellow Belt Lean Six Sigma Way

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INTRODUCTION

A lot of organizations today are plagued with redundant processes, team members and tools that contribute to the wastage of resources. Take a simple illustration from the field of Software Engineering:

Eddy builds a simple strapi application and decides to deploy it to the cloud. From the docs, a minimum of 2 GB RAM(amongst other requirements) size is required for a successful deployment to a server instance. At the minimum, this can be used to run test workloads and demonstrations. The docs also moderately recommend a 4 GB RAM size. Eddy is feeling lucky today, so he decided to go for a 128 GB RAM server, which obviously is an overkill, and represents a huge cost for a single server instance.

How can we ensure that people like Eddy understand their workflow, choices and impact on any business?

LEAN SIX SIGMA TO THE RESCUE

The Lean toolkit provides ways to streamline processes by reducing wastage while in addition, Six Sigma provides tools to be able to reduce defects by conducting a root cause analysis. A Lean Process is achieved by removing any activity that is not required to complete a process, effectively cutting wastage and improving completion time.

A Six Sigma process is one that produces just 3.4 defects per million opportunities(DPMO). This means the process produces results with near-zero defects every time it is run.

Lean originated from Henry Ford during his invention of the assembly line. He combined interchangeable parts with subdivided labour and fluid movement of materials to create his moving assembly line in 1913. In Japan, Lean was perfected by Toyota when he created the Toyota Production System. Six Sigma originated from Motorola when they raised the production of pagers to Six Sigma levels with near-zero defects.

WHY ORGANIZATIONS USE LEAN SIX SIGMA

Organizations introduce Lean Six Sigma to their processes because they intend to:

• Increase revenue
• Decrease costs
• Increase efficiency
• Make people effective

ROLLING OUT LEAN SIX SIGMA TO AN ORGANIZATION

To be able to roll out the Lean Six Sigma concepts in an organization, certain steps need to be taken. They are listed below:

• Assign roles
• Identify and plug wastage
• Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control(DMAIC).

ASSIGN ROLES

In Lean Six Sigma, belts are used to identify and assign roles to persons. This ideology comes from karate where different belt colours identify various skill levels.

Here are some of the roles/belts:

White Belt

This is the first skill level of Lean Six Sigma. It identifies a person who has an overall understanding of the Lean Six Sigma concepts. He/She is aware of the changes and benefits to processes they are involved in.

Yellow Belt

At this skill level, a person should be able to display a basic level of understanding of the key Lean Six Sigma concepts. They help to identify improvement opportunities and help apply process improvement plans. They work alongside Green and Black Belt holders on projects.

Green Belt

A person who is a Green belt holder receives a greater level of training than the previous two belt holders. They lead or participate in process improvement activities, dedicate somewhere around 20% of their time to improving processes while doing their normal duties. These people are strong, tactically sound and able to utilize Lean Six Sigma tools to deploy efficient solutions while saving costs for organizations.

Black Belt

They hold full-time positions in Lean Six Sigma organizations with respect to business needs. They are leaders/mentors who are trained to lead White, Yellow, Green belts and process improvement activities. What this also means is, they are experts in this domain and can solve complex problems when they arise.

Master Black Belt

In addition to holding full-time organizational positions, They are more trained, mentor Black belt holders and work with leadership to identify and launch complex cross-department project improvements on processes.

Champion

They have a general understanding of Lean Six Sigma. A champion is an executive leader that drives initiative within the organization. They provide resources for project teams, work with Master black belt holders to select projects within the organizational strategy. As with Champions generally, they help imbibe the Lean Six Sigma culture within the organization.

IDENTIFY AND PLUG WASTAGE

There are eight types of wastes, and the first step to eliminating them would be to be able to identify them. Here, we would describe what waste is and list the types of waste so you can be able to identify them when you come across them. Let’s begin.

According to GoLeanSixSigma Waste is any step or action in a process that is not required to complete a process(called “Non-Value-Adding”) successfully. We need to learn to see with new eyes to be able to identify wastes. This involves taking a look at the existing processes in a new way, bearing in mind the eight types of waste listed below:

Defects: Something that wasn’t created/completed correctly. e.g. inaccurate name on travel ticket.

Overproduction: To produce something faster, earlier or more than is usually required. E.g producing 40 jerseys for a team of 22.

Waiting: It is a delay that results in customers spending more time than expected. It could also happen within a team when waiting for a team member, equipment/facility, information, e.t.c

Non-utilized talent: Occurs when organizations don’t leverage employee skills/expertise. Imagine being skilled in a subject area but being deployed to a different one in a work environment.

Transportation/Touches: It is the unnecessary movement of information or resources around an organization. For example, while sending emails within an organization, someone sends multiple emails before being directed to the correct department to handle the request. This waste could have been averted if they know the correct department to treat the request.

Inventory: This includes materials, supplies and/or resources in excess of the appropriate quantity. An example could be hiring more staff than you need to fill positions in an organization or the case of our dear friend Eddy who was feeling lucky earlier today.

Motion: This refers to too much movement of people than required to complete a task/service. The excess motion indicates that people are moving more than required to provide value for customers. For example, company cleaners may visit the restroom more than required to check if the room requires cleaning.

Extra-processing: This refers to processes that seem overly complicated to complete. For example, sending multiple emails to get certain approvals(multiple signatures) required to request a resource. With this, an organization ends up making a process that ordinarily would have been simple, complicated.

A simple acronym to recall these wastes is DOWNTIME. Now that we have identified the wastes, we can plug/improve them through the following steps: Eliminate, Simplify, Streamline and Minimize(ESSM).

• Eliminate the cause of these wastes where applicable,
• Simplify the process that creates this waste,
• Streamline complex processes(reduce errors and delays),
• Minimize the amount of waste in a process.

DEFINE, MEASURE, ANALYZE, IMPROVE AND CONTROL(DMAIC)

DMAIC is a Lean Six Sigma method for carrying out root cause analysis. It should not be used when the root cause and solution are already known. It is a great choice when the cause of a problem is unknown.

DMAIC is a variation of the PDCA - Plan, Do, Check and Act methodology made by Walter Shewhart and Edward Deming.

DEFINE In this phase, the problem and its relationship with resources(customers, material e.t.c.) are defined. The goal is to gain clarity around the problem and process that has been earmarked for improvement.

Some of the tools used in this phase include:

• Project charter,
• Voice of the customer,
• SIPOC(Suppliers, Inputs, Process, Outputs, and Customers)

MEASURE

In this phase, we check the process through careful data planning and collection to ascertain how well it meets the customer’s expectations as outlined in the define phase. One popular question posed in this phase is “how bad is it?”

Some of the activities in this phase include:

• Selecting measures (Measures are quantified values)
• Data collection planning
• Operational definitions
• Baseline data

ANALYSE

In this phase, the data collected from the measure phase is analysed using various analytical methods to determine the relationships that can uncover the root cause. Here tools like graphs, maps, charts e.t.c are used.

Some of the activities and tools used in this phase include:

• Process Analysis
• Brainstorm root causes
• Pareto charts
• Develop Hypothesis

IMPROVE

Here, ESSM Eliminate, Simplify, Streamline and Minimize is applied in developing solutions that target the wastage discovered in the analyse phase. The end product is an improved process. Some of the activities and tools used in this phase include:

• Creating a flow
• Mistake proofing: poka-yoke
• Visual management and 5S(Sort (Seiri), Set in Order (Seiton), Shine (Seiso), Standardize (Seiketsu), and Sustain (Shitsuke)

CONTROL

This phase exists to help maintain the gains of the improve phase. This involves continuous monitoring and documentation of the process to ensure that it continues to be a success. Some of the activities and tools used in this phase include:

• Process plan control
• Monitoring and response plan
• Documentation and storyboard

The benefits of having a thorough understanding of key Lean Six Sigma concepts can not be overemphasized. Companies that invest more in training team members this way would end up with reduced costs compared to baseline expenses before lean six sigma introduction, improved communication amongst team members which can foster unity and progress company-wide and increased efficiency by doing more with minimal effort.

NEXT STEPS

I found the lean six sigma training interesting and eye-opening. With it, I was able to identify the key areas for improvement in my day to day workflow and help companies save more and become efficient.

You can explore the Lean Six Sigma Training and Certification resources in the reference section.

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