The document discusses Lean Six Sigma and provides definitions, principles, and guidance on its application. Some key points: 1. Lean Six Sigma is a framework that provides a structured approach to eliminate waste and improve customer satisfaction. It aims to fix processes to improve outcomes. 2. Measurement is key to Lean Six Sigma as it allows for identification of problems and tracking of improvements. Processes must have measurable outcomes. 3. Lean Six Sigma can be applied to both manufacturing and service industries by focusing on eliminating waste and defects across the entire lifecycle of a product or service.

3. WHAT is lean
six-sigma?
(And what is
it not?)

5. • Six-Sigma is process-
focused
Fix the process, and the
outcome shall take care of
itself.
• A process has
measurable outcomes
Measurement is a
prerequisite to
improvement
• The outcomes follow
the laws of statistics
Normal Distribution

7. Tightening the bell-curve
means reducing the spread
to make a process reliable
When acceptable variation is within 6 of the mean,
the no. of defects is only 3.4 per million opportunities.

8. ALWAYS
ALWAYS
ALWAYS
ALWAYS
ALWAYS
Tackle variation before
adjusting the mean

9. LEAN SIX-SIGMA

10. Lean Six-Sigma is a
framework that provides
a structured approach to
eliminate waste and improve
customer satisfaction

11. Generic architecture that can be customized
IS to the needs of a specific problem
framework IS An opportunity for to knock oneself out with
statistics
NOT
A series of logical steps with a quantifiable
IS business outcome
structure
IS A substitute for work!
NOT
A defect, a.k.a. customer pain
IS
waste
IS Second-guessing the customer
NOT
The consumer of a process output
customer IS
IS Only the consumer of the company’s product
or service
NOT

12. WHERE is
lean six-
sigma
applicable?

13. SIX-SIGMA HAS A BAD REP!

14. NO PAIN NO GAIN
Culture of Empowerment Six-Sigma likely to succeed
Employees set their own goals based
on team goals
Employees are the source of ideas
Employees are responsible for their and managers facilitate successful
career path and managers provide outcomes
development feedback to set them up
for success
NO PAIN NO PAIN
Culture of Dependency Six-Sigma likely to fail
Managers set goals for employees
An employee must take manager’s
permission when stepping outside
the scope of assigned tasks
Managers hand out report-cards to
employees judging past performance

15. HOW DOES LEAN SIX-SIGMA APPLY TO SERVICES AS FOR MANUFACTURING?

16. MANUFACTURING OR SERVICES
OUTCOMES ARE PRODUCED BY A
LEAN PRINCIPLES CAN BE APPLIED TO:
•Suitcases lost at an airport
•Rooms not available in time
for check-in at a hotel
When acceptable variation is within 6 of the mean,
the no. of defects is only 3.4 per million opportunities.

18. Constructs products Unpacks and installs Help-desk
Development Testing Deployment Launch App Support Engineering
Assures fitness for use Imparts training Maintenance

20. BEFORE
Lean Six-Sigma
view of
Each department has its success
own
Firmly rooted in its specialization
that
The success of one has very little to do with
of

21. AFTER
Lean Six-Sigma
[mythological interlude]

22. BRAHMA [God of Creation] SHIVA [God of Destruction]
VISHNU [God of Sustenance]

23. BUILD PRODUCT SUSTAIN PRODUCT RETIRE PRODUCT
Creates new Channels Ramps-down
D products S change-requests S usage
Assures fitness Refines and Retires old
T for use D improves product D product
Ramps-up users Assures system
S quickly T integrity T
D Development T Testing S Support Helpdesk

24. AFTER
Lean Six-Sigma
Mindset spills-over departmental lines
as Functions participate in acts of creation, sustenance and destruction
to serve a customer through the IT product lifecycle

25. HOW shall I
apply lean
six-sigma?

30. BUSINESS CONNECT

31. DEFINE
1. Customer Requirements
Voice of Customer (Voc) Effort must
State the customer’s
pain area
connect
• Starting point for
launching an effort with the
• Speak the customer’s business of
language the organization.
Return on Investment
(RoI)
Build the Business Case
E.g. An initiative to reduce the
volume of customer support
requests may use a template for
RoI as
Cost to support tickets
on recurring basis
v.
Cost to implement
application-fix

32. DEFINE
2. Process Flow
Value-stream mapping with SIPOC Effort must
connect
with the
business of
the organization.

33. SUBWAY MAP
The focus is on getting a passenger from Point A to Point B

34. S
1. A process is a series
of steps
I 2. Each step is a verb
representing an
action taken, such as
• Define
•
P •
Plan
Analyze
• Submit
• Summarize
3. The action adds value
O – or it should be
eliminated
C

35. S
1. Each step in a process
produces an outcome
I 2. The outcome is a
noun, representing
output delivered,
such as:
P • Product Definition
• Forecast of Sales
3. The outcome is
associated with
O Critical to Quality
metrics (CTQs)
C

36. S
1. Each output has an
intended recipient
I called customer
2. The customer signs-
off on the output
based on its CTQs.
P S/he may:
• Accept
unconditionally
• Accept conditionally,
O with left-on-table
items clearly listed
• Reject
C

37. S
1. A process consumes
inputs
2. Each input is a noun,
I representing an input
consumed, which
could be the output
of a previous step
P 3. Each input may be
qualified by CTQs and
require the sign-off of
O process owner
C

38. S
1. The provider of an
input is called
supplier
I 2. The supplier of an
input is accountable
for satisfying CTQs
and negotiating sign-
P off by customer
O
C

39. DEFINE
3. Potential PROJECT CHARTER
1. Project Title & 2. Project Manager & Effort
3. Business Need must
connect
Description Authority Level Why is the project
What is the project? Who is given authority to being done
lead the project and can
he/she determine, manage
and approve changes to
budget, staffing, schedule,
with the
etc. business of
the organization.
4. Business Case 5. Resource Pre- 6. Stakeholder Analysis
Financial or other Assignment Who will affect or be
basis that justifies the Men & Materials affected by the
project project – as known to
date.

40. DEFINE
3. Potential PROJECT CHARTER
6. Stakeholder Analysis 7. Deliverables SMART Goals Effort must
connect
• Stakeholder End-result of the • Specific
Requirements as project in terms of • Measurable
with the
known specific outcomes and
• Triple Constraints the tangible form in
• Attainable
Model (Pentagon) which they will be • Realistic
delivered. business of
• Time-bound
the organization.
8. Constraints & • Sponsor
Assumptions Authorizes the
A constraint is any project.
limiting factor and an
assumption is something
taken to be true but
which may not be true.
Risk

44. DEFINE establishes there is a problem.
MEASURE sizes the problem, and
VALIDATES some of the assumptions.
Is it as big as we thought? BIGGER?

45. MEASURE
4. Refined Project Definition
5. Capable Measurement System
6. Data Collection
Cast the
objective
Measurement Plan
in measurable
To collect data to
corroborate the
business case made in
Run Chart
terms.
Data
DEFINE phase.
• What data is relevant to Speaks!
collect ..
• .. to establish the magnitude
of the problem?
• How it shall be collected?
• How it shall be presented?

46. FIND THE “Y” AS IN
Y characterizes the process in a way that the customer cares about

47. MEASURE
S I P O C
Cast the
objective
C O P I S in measurable
y  f (x) terms.
Lean Six-Sigma, “y” is simply something
about the process that the customer would
care about
Data
Traditional six-sigma treats “y” as a
measurable characteristic of the process
Speaks!
output
Lean Six-Sigma, “y” can simply be the
number of tickets logged by an IT Helpdesk
in a particular category.

48. MEASURE
CASE-STUDY
Cast the
Background
One wireless company had a objective
17% (170,000 parts per
million) level of rejected
in measurable
terms.
service orders.
There were over 30,000
errors per month, which, at
Data
RUN CHART – Defects per week over a 6
an average cost of USD month window
12.50 to fix (wage cost only),
cost USD 375,000 per
month. Over 50 temporary
workers had been hired to
deal with the 2-month Speaks!
backlog of unfixed errors.
The objective was to cut this
level of rejects in half (9%)
by the end of the year. PARETO – 80% defects from 6
transaction codes

49. As
information
systems get
more
complicated ..

50. .. there are
more moving
parts and
interdependencies

51. The requirements for adding, changing, and deleting data are often
too loose, too tight, or nonexistent, which leads to errors and rejected
transactions that must be corrected manually by people hunched over
computer terminals for 8 hours a day.

52. MEASURE
CASE-STUDY
Cast the
Outcome objective
Programmers took 4 months to in measurable
terms.
implement the solution. The changes
completely eliminated the two top
service-affecting errors, and three of the
four record-affecting changes. It cut total
errors by 77%. This reduction translated
to USD 299,426 per month in savings—
Data
over USD 3 Million per year. Speaks!
Root-cause analysis showed that the top categories could be eliminated by
baking appropriate business rules into IT

53. A significant
BUILD PRODUCT SUSTAIN PRODUCT HowPRODUCT the
RETIRE does
chunk of lean support
projects can helpdesk see
originate in the itself?
maintenance (a.) I am here to
resolve as many
phase of the tickets as fast as
lifecycle possible
Although projects can (b.) Why do these
start in any phase. tickets arise in the 1st
place? I am here to
eliminate tickets for
Creates new Channels Ramps-down
good.
D products S change-requests S usage
Assures fitness Refines and Retires old
T for use D improves product D product
Ramps-up users Assures system
S quickly T integrity T
D Development T Testing S Support Helpdesk

58. ANALYZE
7. Enumeration of Potential ‘X’ 8. Ranking & Prioritization
Statistical Tools Find the
• Pareto Analysis root causes
• Ishikawa
• ANOVA
Group Activities
• Brainstorm
and identify
• Design of Experiments • Sticky-Notes the vital few.
Software
• Excel
• QI Macros for SPC
• Minitab

59. ANALYZE
Find the
root causes
and identify
the vital few.
And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.

64. IMPROVE
9. Define focus ‘X’ 10. Fix ‘X’
Focus on
the vital few
to drive
business
outcomes.
Decide which root causes to focus
on, and how

68. CONTROL is the counterpart of
MEASURE. Measure sizes the problem.
CONTROL shows it has gone away or
diminished as a result of IMPROVE.

69. BEFORE AFTER

71. Senior Manager
Monsanto
Sanjay Bhatikar, PhD Bangalore, INDIA
sanjay.bhatikar@gmail.com