Blog - Six Sigma Development Solutions, Inc. (SSDSI)

I am flying back from teaching a Green Belt course in Las Angeles, California and as promised, I will continue my “journal” of TLS implementation efforts at an industrial organization.

In the last blog, we discussed how this organization was using the metric of “Yield” to score their production process success. We discussed that this metric only shows you what happens at the end of their process, and doesn’t give visibility to the success of the many internal steps. In order to implement TLS, we needed to have a better way to look at our process systemically. We also needed to have a way of determining where our constraints are. Following the “Lean” methodology, we decided to use O.E.E.(Overall Equipment Effectiveness) as a primary facility metric. We had an overall “Plant” OEE, and we had OEE’s per line and per product. OEE would give us visibility to how we were performing with respect to Performance (Ratio of Daily production to effective capacity), Quality (the number of Good vs. Bad product), and Availability (ratio of used production time to available production time). We also needed to take data on each of the critical steps in each line to understand where our constraints or bottlenecks were. We defined six critical points that were common to each line (because the lines were almost replicates of each other).

Our plan at the moment is to define each critical point in the lines in a metric and describe throughput (with a common denominator) of each point. We will track the throughput on a continual basis. This will tell us our constraint, and we will set our process TAKT time to the constraint. We know what our goal TAKT time is … but we cannot set our process TAKT time to produce more than our constraint. Therefore, if our process TAKT time does not meet our goal TAKT time, then we use Lean and Six Sigma tools to cross the chasm. In my next blog, I will talk more about our Implementation progression and about the synergy between the three methodologies that make up TLS (Theory of Constraints, Lean and Six Sigma). I will also give more information on TAKT time to those who have not heard of the concept.

“Until the next thought”

 

I’m going to tell you a story that illustrates how Lean Thinking and Six Sigma Thinking both play an integral roll in my everyday life … which is a blessing and a curse ;) I was teaching a Lean Six Sigma Green Belt course in Atlanta. We were having a great class and everyone was engaged. I had worked up quite an appetite because I tend to be very animated and move around during class. Lunch time came and a few of the students and I went to the local Subway to eat. We weren’t the only ones with the idea. This was an industrial area, and this Subway was a local favorite. When we arrived, there were about nine people in line. While standing in line I watched the typical dance of the two Subway sandwich artisans. One was at the register, and the other was preparing the sandwiches. I noticed that most of the patrons wanted their subs toasted, which is also my preference. While watching the young man prepping the subs, I saw that that he put the sub in the toaster, and stood and waited the 30 seconds that it took sub to toast. He then pulled it out and continued to engineer the sandwich which took another 30 to 40 seconds. This infuriated me! We could potentially wait in line for 10 minutes. Along, with the ten minutes it took to get here, I could potentially have 30 minutes to eat and call my bride. And the worst thing was, no one seemed to notice the unneeded delay.

 

In my lean and six sigma class, we discuss how to reduce cycle time in a process. In most cases a customer would be more satisfied if he were to get the product or service more quickly. In my case, the Subway scenario was no different. We teach the concept of serial vs. parallel events. Serial events happen one after another … when one process stops, the next one starts. In my teaching and consulting experience, I have found that many systems that are dominated with serial events, could look more into those events because they most could happen in parallel with another. Take for example, the young man toasting the subs. He had two serial events going on within the sandwich making process, toasting and adding the condiments. He did not add the condiments until the sandwich had been toasted. Could this have been done in parallel? Sure! He could have staggered the “sandwich engineering” of the previous patron, while the sub of the next patron was toasting thus reducing the time to create the sub. I have since learned that this is the process that Subway uses, and what I witnessed was due to inexperience.

 

This experience made for a good discussion in class, so I thought I would share it with the world.

 

“Until the next thought"

I was teaching a Lean Six Sigma Green Belt course in Atlanta, Georgia and I had a good question about “Quick Wins” and how to define the term. We teach that in each phase of the DMAIC we will find these “Quick Wins”. These wins are a great tool to sustain excitement and support for the Lean Six Sigma project! If I go four to six months until I show improvement, I’m likely to lose support. If I show sustained improvements in small (and sometimes large) wins throughout the life of the project, then the level of excitement (and consequently support) is sustained.

The term “Quick Wins” is open to interpretation. I have sat on many teams that term every opportunity (some call problems) that they see in a process as a “Quick Win”. This is because it is innate in us to want to “solve the problem now” because we are sure that we have the solution and it doesn’t need to be analyzed further. What we may not have defined yet may be the interdependencies in the inputs in the process. My experience especially with new Six Sigma team that come from a Lean background is that determining significant inputs by analyzing metrics through multi-vari analysis and/or Design of Experiments (DOE) scares the “bejeezus” out of a lot of people! It is a lot easier to make a judgment call, point at what you think is the target and hope that you hit it.

But I digress. Defining “Quick Wins” was the question that was posed. How do I define what is considered a quick win? My definition is based in one sense on already accepted best practices that have been analyzed and risk managed. I find that in most of my Lean and Six Sigma projects that accepted standards are not controlled therefore they are not followed. They are effective improvements that do not need to be reinvented in our Lean and/or Six Sigma project. They just need to be controlled.

Another definition is a more loose definition. A quick win can be defined as any “common sense” fix. In this case we intimately understand how the “X” will affect the “Y”. This can be the “Slippery Slope” because the level of “common sense” is left up to interpretation. My control for this is to run a quick D-FMEA in order to risk manage even the “quick wins”.

I will continue to bring you more gems of knowledge from myself and my students as the months progress.

Don’t forget to look at our online and classroom training destination events at www.sixsigmadsi.com.

Regards,
“Until the next thought …”
Kevin Clay
479-739-4940
kclay@sixsigmadsi.com
http://www.sixsigmadsi.com/

I’ve been remiss in my promise to start a blog about the emerging quality methodology, TLS (the Synergy between Theory of Constraints (T), Lean (L), and Six Sigma (S). A very busy pre-holiday, and a fun filled family holiday commanded most of my time. I am happy to say it is a new year and my promise is to share my limited (but growing) knowledge of this new grass-roots methodology.

A couple of weeks ago, I got a call from a company that I consulted with and trained their employees in an effort towards implementing the Lean and Six Sigma methodology around three years ago. At that time, they had a very engrained culture which ended up being stronger than the will to change of a few key people. I was recently called by a good friend in the company who had been moved into the operational side of the organization as a plant manager. We had a long lunch together where I learned that his job was to make his plant the benchmark for all other production facilities to emulate. During lunch, he asked if I would help him and his team in the efforts. He talked in length about what was going on in his facility, and listened intently. At the end of his rant, I asked him if he had heard of TLS. Our lunch started around 11:30 am and ended around three … by the end of lunch, my friend was excited to get started.

This company, like many other companies uses a KPI (Key Performance Indicator) that only shows them what their cumulative efforts of the day produced. In this case it was “Yield” … what they initially put into the system, and what was produced out of the end. This metric does not give you a systemic view of why you do not perform as expected. All the steps in between the beginning and the end are hidden. So, like many companies, this one tweaks the system when things do not go as expected, but their tweaks are based on a SWAG (Scientific Wild A!! Guess), not quantifiable data. This had a negative effect on their yield daily.

During the next week, my friend (the plant manager), we’ll call him Steve, met daily to develop a TLS strategy. During, my next blog (I will write that blog on the way back from LA on Friday (1/22/2010), we’ll discuss in detail the strategy that will be used in the hopeful transformation. In the next sequence of blogs on this subject, I suspect I will talk in length about the missing link to the Lean and Six Sigma puzzle, The Theory of Constraints (TOC) and how TOC help to define project focus.

“Until the next thought …”

Kevin Clay
479-739-4940
kclay@sixsigmadsi.com
http://www.sixsigmadsi.com/

I teach Lean and Six Sigma classes all over the U.S. (as well as abroad) and a good number of the students that I teach aren’t from an organization. These students are unemployed and looking for a “resume booster”. Most of them are somewhat fearful of making the investment in a Lean and/or Six Sigma certification because they cannot “wrap their heads around” how they are going to take on a cost savings project when they do not presently work for an organization. Well, let’s explore this quandary …


There are many organizations struggling in the U.S., especially now in the economic “downturn” that need help. There are many Small to mid size for profit organizations that presently do not have the means to hire a consultant. I ask my students if they know of any of these companies, and I always get a resounding “yes”. I ask them “what is the worst they can tell you when you offer a “pro bono” Lean and/or Six Sigma project to help them improve?”.

There are many non-profit organizations that are struggling to serve their communities because they do not have the talent to “streamline” processes. I ask my students, “is there a food bank in the area?” This is a perfect place for a project.

The one place I always bring up as a source for potential projects are students local churches, or other places of worship. What better organization to improve! I have had some great projects that helped to improve the operations and financial means of student’s local churches.

Remember, Lean and Six Sigma are not just for employees, but they are for anyone who can look at any process systemically and see that it can be improved.

“Until the next thought …”

Kevin Clay
479-739-4940
kclay@sixsigmadsi.com
http://www.sixsigmadsi.com/