23 Apr What Are the Lean Six Sigma Principles?

Lean Six Sigma is a methodology that organizations use to improve their processes. It is a powerful method which is proven to work. There are key tools and principles within the Lean Six Sigma methodology that have been proven to lead to organizational success.

At eMRI, we are dedicated to empowering our clients through continuous improvement strategies like Lean Six Sigma. We help clients improve operations, increase performance and elevate productivity. Our goal is to assist clients in promoting the business excellence they wish to achieve, which is why we wanted to share with you some of the principles that make Lean Six Sigma so successful.

Five Lean Six Sigma Principles

The overarching goal of Lean Six Sigma is to reduce both process waste and variation, which leads to optimized processes and maximum business value.  The five core principles that underly Lean Six Sigma include engaged and supportive leadership, the need to reduce both waste and variation, to focus on the process, etc.

Here is a more in-depth look at the Lean Six Sigma Principles:

• Leadership must be engaged and supportive: No initiative, Lean Six Sigma or otherwise, will be successful and sustainable without supportive leadership.  Leadership is responsible for integrating lean six sigma with the organizational strategy and culture, as well as resourcing and tracking lean six sigma results.  Leadership has a responsibility for organizational lean six sigma success.
• Focus on what is most important to the business: All too often people get distracted and lose focus on what actually creates value for the business and drives business success. As a result, they end up working on the wrong things; things that are not truly important.  Lean Six Sigma has tools that leaders and managers can use to ensure that lean six sigma efforts are focused on what is most important to the business so that resources produce the maximum benefit to the business.
• Reduce both waste and variation: The Lean side of Lean Six Sigma focuses on waste reduction.  That is, eliminate as much non-value-added activity and time as possible.  Only do what the customer values and is willing to pay for. Once the waste is eliminated, then focus on getting the value-added activities on target with minimum variation.  That is, hit the customers target every time, by eliminating the variation in the process. This two-pronged approach will result in higher efficiency and productivity as well as better quality and customer satisfaction, all of which drives business success.
• Focus on the process, not the product or service: Most organizations are focused on the process output – the product or service they produce for customers.  They try to ensure that the customer receives an output that meets their requirements by checking/inspecting the output before it is given to the customer.  Organizations that focus on the product/service are doomed to mediocrity. Great organizations understand that product follows the process. In other words, the key to producing high-quality product and service is having a high-quality process.  If a process is on target, with minimum variation than the product or service it produces will also be on target, with minimum variation.
• Follow the DMAIC process (no shortcuts): Lean six sigma projects all follow the five-phase process of define, measure, analyze, improve and control (DMAIC).  Each of the five phases is essential. Define, which focuses primarily on project selection and scoping is the foundation of every project.  Measure ensures that the right, high-quality data is collected so that decisions can be based on data, not opinion. Analyze employs graphics and statistics that allow for determination of true root cause(s). Improve ensures that the root causes are eliminated, and control ensures that the process never returns to its prior state.  Failure to follow the steps in each of the five phases severely jeopardizes project success.

Looking for Lean Six Sigma Training in Jacksonville, Fl?

If you are looking to maximize results in your organization, you can get successful results with Lean Six Sigma. At eMRI, we understand Lean Six Sigma and train on it – we guide our clients through the process.

We have 30 years of experience training more than 50,000 people from more than 400 companies in over 30 countries.  We strive to help our clients become more competitive through continuous improvement.

We offer many different training topics and specialized consulting packages to meet our clients’ needs.

If you’re ready to improve your business processes, we are here to help you do so and take your business to the next level. Contact us at eMRI to assist your organization in selecting the best combination of services for your continuous improvement initiative. Call us at 734-429-0747 or click our Lean Six Sigma Training contact page today.