1. S I X S I G M A F O R U M M A G A Z I N E I N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 5 I 23
THINKING
LEAN
By William H. LaFollette,
CVS Health
Combining lean and Six Sigma methods with the
capabilities of business process management
(BPM) can be an effective way to enhance your pro-
cess excellence program. Granted, the three methods
each have a different focus:
• Lean focuses on increasing flow through the
process, reducing cycle time and eliminating
wastes in the process.
• Six Sigma focuses on identifying and removing
the causes of defects and minimizing variation
in the process.
• BPM focuses on process and the workflow in an
organization’s units that together make up pro-
cesses.
But each method’s overall purpose is the same: to
improve work processes using data and customer insight,
and by understanding workflow and removing waste.
At a high level, let’s first consider some basic prin-
ciples and key benefits of lean and Six Sigma and how
BPM could be used to complement those approaches
to provide key business value.
What is lean?
Lean has progressed throughout the years (see Figure
1). The first person to truly integrate an entire pro-
duction process was Henry Ford.1
The core idea of
lean is to maximize customer value while minimizing
waste. Simply put, lean means creating more value for
customers by using fewer resources.
Eliminating waste in processes, or value streams, can
create workflows that have higher performance levels
due to decreased human effort, reduced investments,
higher return on investment (ROI) and faster response
to customer demands.
Key principles of lean (see Figure 2) are to:
• Define value. Identify your customers and speci-
fy value. Clearly define value for product, service
and people.
• Map value stream. Identify all steps in a pro-
cess—both value added and nonvalue added.2
• Create flow. Steps should tie together in a logi-
cal sequence that accurately describes the pro-
cess.
BPM, Lean and Six Sigma—All Together Now
Figure 2. Key lean principles
Lean
principles
1. Define
value
5. Pursue
perfection
3. Create
flow
4.
Establish
pull
2. Map value
stream
Early 1900s
• 5S everywhere
• Popcorn kaizens
• War on waste
• Lean cheerleaders
• Only lean tools
Early 2000s
• Value stream mapping
• Systems approach
• Mix of tools and teams
Early 2010s
• Problem-solving approach
• People development
• Mentoring and coaching
• Culture and techniques
Figure 1. Lean history
Maturity

2. 24 I N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 5 I W W W . A S Q . O R G
THINKING
LEAN
• Establish pull. Work (flow) should be driven by
pulling work as it is needed downstream.
• Pursue perfection. Create a culture of excel-
lence through reviewing and continually ana-
lyzing value and flow.
Table 1 summarizes the eight wastes that lean aims
to identify and eliminate.
What is Six Sigma?
Six Sigma is a method used to improve business pro-
cesses by using statistical analysis rather than guess-
work. This proven approach has been implemented
in myriad industries to achieve hard and soft money
savings, while also increasing customer satisfaction.
Six Sigma is often identified through the define,
measure, analyze, improve and control (DMAIC)
method (see Figure 3).
At its core, Six Sigma revolves around several con-
cepts, including:
• Critical-to-quality characteristics, or the most
essential attributes in a product or service that
are identified as most important to customers.
• Defects, which can lead to a failure to deliver
what the customer wants.
• Process capability—that is, what your process
can deliver.
• Variation and controlling what the customer
sees and feels.
• Stable operations, which ensure consistent,
predictable processes to improve what the cus-
tomer sees and feels.
• Design for Six Sigma, which is an algorithmic
process that integrates quality as part of the
new product design process and is used to meet
customer needs and process capability.
To achieve Six Sigma quality, a process must pro-
duce no more than 3.4 defects per million oppor-
tunities (see Figure 4). An opportunity is defined
as a chance for nonconformance or failing to meet
required specifications, service level agreements
(SLA) or compliance needs.
Before adopting Six Sigma and DMAIC, an organi-
zation’s leadership must be on board and support the
Table 1. 8 lean wastes
Type of waste
Physical product
example
Office example
Transporting Moving the product from
one location to another.
Unnecessary
information
exchange
among depart-
ments.
Inventory –
unnecessary
Stock in stores in case
of breakdown.
Keeping several
jobs open with-
out completing
any.
Motion –
unnecessary
Walking to and from
places to fetch things.
Looking in
several differ-
ent places to
secure informa-
tion for one
task.
Waiting Product in a work
queue.
Job waiting for
approval.
Overproduction Making what you can. Producing
reports that no
one uses.
Overprocessing Running a small part on
a large machine.
Entering the
same data into
more than one
system.
Defects Faulty or damaged
product that must be
repaired or scrapped.
Incorrectly com-
pleted applica-
tion that has to
be redone.
Skills/unrealized
people potential
Not listening to team
members’ improvement
suggestions.
Not doing an
activity that
should be done.
Figure 3. DMAIC
Six Sigma
Measure
Define
Improve
Control
Analyze

3. initiative, many experts empha-
size. Jack Welch, the former CEO
of General Electric who popular-
ized Six Sigma in the late 1990s,
said the method could be a great
encompassing force for any orga-
nization. “Six Sigma is a quality
program that, when all is said and
done, improves your customer’s
experience, lowers your costs and
builds better leaders,” Welch said.
What is BPM?
BPM is defined as “a management
practice that provides for governance of a business’s
process environment toward the goal of improving
agility and operational performance.”3
BPM is often considered a business practice that
involves techniques and structured methods. It is not
a one-time exercise, but requires a continuous evalu-
ation of processes.
“BPM scope covers the whole process life cycle:
process discovery, design, documentation, rollout,
execution, measurement, monitoring, analysis and
improvement.”4
In support of enterprise goals, this practice or dis-
cipline provides an operational framework involving
modeling, automation, execution, control and mea-
surement of a business activity.
In addition, BPM involves operational and tech-
nology improvements that often require additional
tools (such as process modeling software, change
management techniques and methods to integrate
data across platforms) not associated with the stan-
dard lean tool set.
An enterprise BPM suite provides a foundation for
a change environment, allowing business managers to
work with data analysts to generate applications that
can manage workflows and overall processes, track
Table 2. Similarities in the disciplines
Discipline Goal Phases
Business
process
management
Manage processes to improve
agility and performance.
• Discovery
• Modeling
• Analysis
• Design
• Monitor
Lean Create highest value while
consuming the fewest
resources.
• Plan
• Do
• Check
• Act
Six Sigma Reduce variation and defects. • Define
• Measure
• Analyze
• Improve
• Control
Figure 5. BPM life cycle
Business
process
management
life cycle
Execution
Modeling
Optimization
Design
Monitoring
Figure 4. Six Sigma quality
99.7%
95%
68%
Mean 6σ5σ4σ3σ2σ1σ1σ2σ3σ4σ5σ6σ
Lower limit Upper limitProcess average
S I X S I G M A F O R U M M A G A Z I N E I N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 5 I 25

4. work and monitor performance. This foundation, in
turn, can provide the context for using lean. Through
simulation, benefits of any proposed change can be
evaluated immediately.
Figure 5 (p. 25) shows the BPM phases:
Design/analyze—Look at possible process solu-
tions. Valid, accurate data and process definitions
are required to successfully analyze potential process
improvements.
Model/redesign—Review business processes at a
high level. Gather enough data and details to under-
stand conceptually how the process flows. Concentrate
on ensuring the high-level details are correct. Don’t
get distracted by how possible change and improve-
ment might be implemented. This phase is not about
formulating solutions.
Execution—Launch processes and begin user inter-
actions.
Monitoring—Track key performance indicators and
measure SLA compliance.
Optimization and automation—Improve processes
further through “What if?” simulations. Consider
automation and more benefit analysis to fine-tune
processes, too.
Successfully deploying BPM usually involves:
• Organizing around outcomes—not tasks—to
ensure proper focus is maintained.
• Correcting and improving processes before
(potentially) automating them. Otherwise, all
you’ve done is make the mess run faster.
• Establishing processes and assigning ownership
before the work and improvements simply drift
away. They can because human nature can take
over and momentum can slow.
• Standardizing processes across the enterprise so
they can be more readily understood and man-
aged, reducing errors and mitigating risks.
• Enabling continuous change so improvements
can be extended and propagated over time.
• Improving existing processes rather than build-
ing radically new ones. Building completely new
processes and systems can take significant time
Table 3. A comparison of approaches
Approach/roles rel-
evant to process
improvement
Leadership
Project teams for pro-
cess improvement
Employees Coaching roles
Business process
management
• Executive sponsors
• Process owners
• Steering team
These roles are
assigned to executive
and senior leaders.
• Project lead
• Team facilitator
• Team members
- Subject matter experts
- IT
- Data person
- Documenter
- Customer (optional)
- Supplier (optional)
Act as team members
on project teams.
No specific coaching
roles. Process owners
or team facilitators
play this role with their
teams. Business archi-
tects could be thinking
strategically with execu-
tives. Business analysts
could be team facilita-
tors and coaches.
Lean Executives, managers
and supervisors have
lean leadership and
coaching as one of their
expected roles. Regular
leadership walk-arounds
are used.
Project teams formed on
basis of need. They would
include employees, super-
visors and others on the
line. They would go and
see to understand the
waste or bottleneck.
Act as team members
and individual perform-
ers in identifying wastes
and seeking improve-
ments. Follow visual
standardized work pro-
cedures at their site.
Sensei is specific lean
coach. Executives and
managers are coaches
to teams and their
employees.
Six Sigma Executives are champi-
ons of the effort.
A Black Belt (BB) would
lead the project team. The
team would be selected
as part of the charter pro-
cess and include SMEs
and stakeholders relevant
to the process.
Become team members
of the project team.
Master BBs would be
coaches to executives
and BBs to their teams.
Green Belts could be
on teams.
THINKING
LEAN
26 I N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 5 I W W W . A S Q . O R G

5. that can negate any gains achieved.
The benefits of BPM are often defined through
improved efficiency, effectiveness and agility—for
instance, by supporting implementation of new busi-
ness models and faster regulatory compliance.
Complementary approaches
Organizations improve their processes by deploying
various approaches. Successfully deploying BPM lies in
the cooperation between business and IT approaches.
BPM can act as the glue between the two. We often
see drivers for process improvement coming from two
directions:
1. Bottom-up, which is an IT-driven initiative to
automate processes, replace older BPM technolo-
gies or both.
2. Top-down, which is the preferred approach to
achieve process improvement through initiatives
such as lean or Six Sigma.
It must be understood, however, that the ongoing
management of lean and Six Sigma activities is driven
by those closest to the work. Therefore, their input, con-
tribution and value must be recognized and leveraged
to drive ongoing operational successes. Table 2 (p. 25)
summarizes some of the similarities in the disciplines.
There are similar and complementary aspects between
the three approaches in the leadership, project teams
and employee elements as well, represented in Table 3.
Lean, Six Sigma and BPM can complement one
another by providing high value with low effort. BPM
solves key challenges for lean or Six Sigma initiatives
and can make these initiatives even more effective
without affecting timelines or creating high costs.
BPM doesn’t just address technology issues, but also
can provide a framework that can bring process
improvements to the next level.
We see the most value in a lean, Six Sigma and
BPM relationship if we let BPM become the founda-
tion for the quality improvement applications to be
implemented. Perhaps we should look to embrace
an alternative to the independent lean, Six Sigma,
BPM approaches. Maybe something called “lean
BPM” could be considered an alternative that reduc-
es complexity and costs associated with traditional
approaches.
REFERENCES
1. Lean Enterprise Institute, “A Brief History of Lean,” www.lean.org/
whatslean/history.cfm.
2. Al Norval, “Lean Value Streams,” guest blog for Mark Graban’s “Lean
Blog,” Dec. 9, 2010, www.leanblog.org/2010/12/lean-value-streams.
3. I4 Process, i4process.com.
4. BPM Leader, www.bpmleader.com.
WILLIAM H. LAFOLLETTE is a senior advisor/operational excellence
architect at CVS Health in Scottsdale, AZ. He holds a master’s de-
gree in engineering from Columbus State University in Georgia.
LaFollette is an ASQ senior member and an ASQ-certified quality
engineer.
S I X S I G M A F O R U M M A G A Z I N E I N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 5 I 27
Dilbert
DILBERT©2015ScottAdams.UsedBypermissionofUNIVERSALUCLICK.Allrightsreserved.