Maximise the quality and efficiency of your organisation with Lean Six Sigma

Are you looking to make your organisation more effective and productive? If you answered "yes," you need to change the way it thinks. Combining the leading improvement methods of Six Sigma and Lean, this winning technique drives performance to the next level--and this friendly and accessible guide shows you how. The third edition of Lean Six Sigma For Dummies outlines the key concepts of this strategy and explains how you can use it to get the very best out of your team and your business.

The jargon-crowded language and theory of Lean Six Sigma can be intimidating for both beginners and experienced users. Written in plain English and packed with lots of helpful examples, this easy-to-follow guide arms you with tools and techniques for implementing Lean Six Sigma and offers guidance on everything from policy deployment to managing change in your organisation--and everything in between.

* Gives you plain-English explanations of complicated jargon

* Serves as a useful tool for businesspeople looking to make their organisation more effective

* Helps you achieve goals with ease and confidence

* Provides useful hands-on checklists

Whether you want to manage a project more tightly or fine-tune existing systems and processes, the third edition of Lean Six Sigma For Dummies makes it easier to achieve your business goals.

John Morgan and Martin Brenig-Jones are Directors of Catalyst Consulting, Europe's leading provider of Lean Six Sigma solutions. John works primarily in product design and development. Martin is an expert in quality and change management. Both are accomplished coaches and trainers.

Introduction 1

About This Book 2

Foolish Assumptions 2

Icons Used In This Book 3

Beyond This Book 3

Where to Go From Here 4

Part I: Getting Started with Lean Six Sigma 5

Chapter 1: Defining Lean Six Sigma 7

Introducing Lean Thinking 7

Bringing on the basics of Lean 8

Perusing the principles of Lean thinking 14

Sussing Six Sigma 14

Considering the core of Six Sigma 14

Calculating process sigma values 17

Clarifying the major points of Six Sigma 20

Chapter 2: Understanding the Principles of Lean Six Sigma 23

Considering the Key Principles of Lean Six Sigma 23

Improving Existing Processes: Introducing DMAIC 25

Defining your project 26

Measuring how the work is done 32

Analysing your process 32

Improving your process 33

Coming up with a control plan 33

Reviewing Your DMAIC Phases 34

Taking a Pragmatic Approach 37

Part II: Working with Lean Six Sigma 41

Chapter 3: Identifying Your Customers 43

Understanding the Process Basics 43

Pinpointing the elements of a process 44

Identifying internal and external customers 45

Getting a High-Level Picture 47

Drawing a high-level process map 48

Segmenting customers 52

Chapter 4: Understanding Your Customers' Needs 53

Considering If You Can Kano 53

Obtaining the Voice of the Customer 55

Taking an outside-in view 55

Segmenting your customers 56

Prioritising your customers 57

Researching the Requirements 58

Interviewing your customers 60

Focusing on focus groups 61

Considering customer surveys 62

Using observations 63

Avoiding Bias 64

Considering Critical To Quality Customer Requirements 65

Establishing the Real CTQs 69

Prioritising the requirements 70

Measuring performance using customer-focused measures 71

Chapter 5: Determining the Chain of Events 73

Finding Out How the Work Gets Done 73

Practising process stapling 74

Drawing spaghetti diagrams 76

Painting a Picture of the Process 78

Keeping things simple 79

Developing a deployment flowchart 80

Constructing a value stream map 84

Identifying moments of truth 93

Part III: Assessing Performance 95

Chapter 6: Gathering Information 97

Managing by Fact 97

Realising the importance of good data 98

Reviewing what you currently measure 98

Deciding what to measure 99

Developing a Data Collection Plan 100

Beginning with output measures 100

Creating clear definitions 102

Agreeing rules to ensure valid and consistent data 102

Collecting the data 105

Identifying ways to improve your approach 107

Introducing Sampling 108

Process sampling 109

Population sampling 110

Chapter 7: Presenting Your Data 117

Delving into Different Types of Variation 117

Understanding natural variation 118

Spotlighting special cause variation 119

Distinguishing between variation types 119

Avoiding tampering 119

Displaying data differently 120

Recognising the Importance of Control Charts 121

Creating a control chart 122

Unearthing unusual features 123

Choosing the right control chart 126

Examining the state of your processes 127

Considering the capability of your processes 129

Additional ways to present and analyse your data 133

Testing Your Theories 136

Chapter 8: Analysing What's Affecting Performance 139

Unearthing the Usual Suspects 139

Generating your list of suspects 140

Investigating the suspects and getting the facts 142

Getting a Balance of Measures 143

Connecting things up 144

Proving your point 145

Seeing the point 147

Assessing your effectiveness 150

Part IV: Improving the Processes 155

Chapter 9: Identifying Value-Adding Steps and Waste 157

Interpreting Value-Added 157

Providing a common definition 158

Carrying out a value-added analysis 159

Assessing opportunity 161

Looking at the Seven Wastes 161

Owning up to overproduction 162

Playing the waiting game 163

Troubling over transportation 163

Picking on processing 164

Investigating inventory 164

Moving on motion 165

Coping with correction 166

Looking Beyond the Seven Wastes 166

Wasting people's potential 167

Going green 167

Considering customer perspectives 168

Focusing on the Vital Few 169

Chapter 10: Discovering the Opportunity for Prevention 171

Keeping Things Neat and Tidy 172

Introducing the Five Ss 172

Carrying out a red-tag exercise 173

Using visual management 174

Looking at Prevention Tools and Techniques 178

Introducing Jidoka 178

Reducing risk with Failure Mode Effects Analysis 179

Error proofing your processes 181

Profiting from Preventive Maintenance 183

Avoiding Peaks and Troughs 184

Introducing Heijunka 184

Spreading the load 185

Carrying out work in a standard way 186

Chapter 11: Detecting and Tackling Bottlenecks 189

Applying the Theory of Constraints 189

Identifying the weakest link 189

Improving the process flow 190

Building a buffer 192

Managing the Production Cycle 193

Using pull rather than push production 193

Moving to single piece flow 194

Recognising the problem with batches 195

Looking at Your Layout 195

Identifying wasted movement 195

Using cell manufacturing techniques 196

Identifying product families 197

Chapter 12: Introducing Design for Six Sigma 199

Introducing DfSS 199

Introducing DMADV 200

Def…