Category: Deployment Structure

Some of the complaints commonly levied against continuous improvement deployments is that they focus on the wrong issues, and that projects take too long or require too much investment (time, training and financial) in order to achieve meaningful results. Unfortunately, these complaints are often justified – not because of some fault in the Lean Six […]

What is a Project Sponsor? A Six Sigma project sponsor plays a key role in Six Sigma methodology who provides overall support, guidance, and resources to ensure the success of a Six Sigma project. The project sponsor is typically a high-level executive or manager within the organization who has the authority to allocate resources and […]

When an organization attempts to implement a Six Sigma deployment, somebody needs to be selected to lead and manage it. Champions are upper-level managers who lead the execution of the Six Sigma deployment plans for the organization. That makes it one of the most critical roles in the eventual success of your Lean Six Sigma […]

TestOil’s tagline is “Remarkable in Every Way” and Lean is central to making that statement a reality. Top-down leadership ensures all employees are part of the continuous improvement culture.

How a company organizes and runs project teams can have as much effect on speed of delivery as the teams themselves. These four ingredients will keep your program focused and efficient.

Who Is Sime Darby Plantation? Sime Darby Plantation is the world’s largest sustainable palm oil producer and has four areas of focus: Upstream: 248 estates and 72 mills where fresh fruit is processed into crude palm oil Downstream: Production of oils and fats, oleochemicals, biodiesel, other palm oil derivatives and renewables in 16 countries Research […]

Just like in operations, manufacturing offices such as engineering, purchasing and others face flow challenges – including employees constantly making subjective decisions and judgment calls about which tasks are most important. With team members filtering priorities through their own, often unique, prioritization mechanism, it is nearly impossible to connect processes to create flow that moves […]

The following are selected highlights of a corporate leadership profile of Jabil. The complete article – with more details about its training program (including a snapshot of practitioners and projects, and how Lean Six Sigma is deployed) and an award-winning project example – is available for purchase on the iSixSigma Marketplace. Electronic products maker Jabil grounds its […]

The following are selected highlights of a corporate leadership profile of FLEXcon. The complete article – with more details about Lean application and how the company avoided layoffs during the recession – is available for purchase on the iSixSigma Marketplace. FLEXcon positions itself for growth by embracing Lean at every level More than 50 years […]

Most people know what it means to improve a process, but which improvement methodology is best for your organization: Lean, Six Sigma, theory of constraints (TOC), PDCA (plan, do, check, act) or another framework? Joe De Feo, CEO of the Juran Institute, has worked with thousands of organizations to implement every process improvement methodology from […]

One of my favorite elements of Six Sigma is researching a problem and finding the data to justify making an improvement. However, this element can also be one of the biggest barriers to securing support for a Six Sigma program. While practitioners might enjoy the hunt, executives often are looking for quick solutions that can […]

In the evolution of continuous improvement, the Six Sigma methodology began in the manufacturing sector and later spread to other transactional businesses. While many transactional companies, such as advertising agencies and other service-oriented organizations, still look to manufacturers to learn about the application of Lean Six Sigma, there are lessons that manufacturers can learn, as […]

A company’s profitability is mostly affected by three factors: the ability to produce quality products consistently, the efficiency with which products are produced and the ability to sell the products. Total quality control has a vigorous impact on each of these factors, and, therefore, profitability. Through careful analysis of customer wants and needs, a company […]

A dilemma many organizations face while implementing Six Sigma is the selection of a deployment model. Many practitioners feel that they must choose between a central team running projects to attack pain areas or a dedicated team of Black Belts who are attached to each function and support the leadership in improving performance. While there […]

Mike Carnell of CS International discusses how organizations can internalize and incorporate Six Sigma.

David Silverstein of BMGI discusses the details of a Six Sigma deployment.

The next generation of Lean has arrived and it is an expansion of the traditional notion of improving velocity, flexibility, responsiveness, quality, and cost across a total value stream. The speed and effectiveness of each partner in the total value chain determines the success of the overall stream as it competes against other value chains. […]

Joe De Feo, President and Executive Coach at Juran Institute, offers his views on deploying Six Sigma in large and small companies alike.

All Six Sigma proponents agree to the fact that the key to Six Sigma improvement success is the building up of an effective infrastucture. An effective infrastructure lays the foundation for the success of the organization in its implementation of Six Sigma. It is a known fact today that the success of Six Sigma lays […]

A Lean Six Sigma program – like all change in an organization – is a dynamic process and needs to be systematically and objectively reviewed for opportunities to improve. Continuous process improvement is applicable to the Lean Six Sigma deployment in the same way it is to other processes in the organization. Even companies with several years […]

The ultimate goal of any Lean Six Sigma program is to achieve operation and execution excellence, which can only come about through a well-thought-out and executed deployment governance framework. A governance framework enables an organization to more rapidly implement positive change by establishing team structure, focusing on knowledge transfer and enabling people. With this framework, […]

  In a recent engagement with Three Bears, Inc., a Six Sigma consulting company had the opportunity to work with Six Sigma deployment leaders in several business units of this large multi-national organization. A quick review of several of these experiences illustrates some of the issues commonly encountered in trying to get the porridge “just […]

Business leaders who are considering implementing a Lean Six Sigma program need answers to a wide variety of questions. Here are the answers to the questions that business leaders most frequently ask about European Lean Six Sigma deployments. How can I be sure that Lean Six Sigma won’t be perceived as “yet another program”? People […]

Lean Six Sigma is a process improvement program, a management engineer would say, that is built upon basic industrial engineering techniques. The program combines two ideas – Lean and Six Sigma. Lean is a collection of techniques for decreasing the time to provide products or services by eliminating process and time waste. Six Sigma is a […]