Review of Lean and Six Sigma for Service and Transaction Excellence Conference

This two-day conference organised by Marcus Evans was based on Stockholm and focussed on Expert Change Management and Project Selection; combining Lean Speed and Six Sigma Quality to improve companies' economic results. Of the 36 attendees, 13 were individual presenters and there was an approximate 50:50 mix of delegates working within manufacturing and services functions. Mike Carnell from CS International (CSI) ably chaired, with the help and facilitation of Ulices Calderon, also from CSI. Delegates came mainly from across Europe with a few exceptions, and MINITAB enjoyed primary sponsorship of the event.

Delegates first of all listed their objectives; why they were there and what they hoped to leave with. Broadly summarised, they included Networking, Learning experiences and new techniques and ideas, as well as the specific subject matter – Transactional Lean.

The bulk of the presentations described how Lean Six Sigma had been introduced into their company and how projects had been selected, with some subtle differences in the approach. In his summing up Mike Carnell pointed out that the inherent culture and different ways of rewarding success in a company needed to be first understood and the approach tailored to suit. A recurring theme was that "management buy-in" was a key factor, which for one poor presenter was and still is a major stumbling block! In fact he admitted that his management had been the last to be trained. It was therefore important to have "change management" skills within the organisation. Lonmin's experience was that "Leadership, Creativity and Innovation" were the most important drivers in achieving breakthrough.

Several presenters chose to interject their presentation with a short video to illustrate the points they were trying to get across. Whirlpool, for example showed a video about "Customer Loyalty" in which an exasperated domestic customer whose fridge door handle kept working loose had to pay for a service technician call, under warranty, and then see the problem fixed with a broken matchstick! Goodyear showed two rather funny but gruesome videos about their new model of car tyre which can "run on flat" – the videos were entitled "It can be dangerous to change a tyre" and in each case the person shown trying to change their flat tyre met with an unfortunate end – certainly got the point across!

The array of tools used in companies' Lean Six Sigma programmes was fairly consistent, but there were some used more than others. Whirlpool, for example, do not use Cp, Cpk, Hypothesis Testing, p-values, roadmaps – they replaced roadmaps with "thought maps" which was deemed quite a good idea by most. Dell on the other hand said that hypothesis testing was KEY at Dell – but they do not use the term "six sigma" preferring the programme to be under the umbrella of BPI (Business Process Improvement). A rather heated discussion ensued between Dell and Whirpool as to how the latter can get away with not using Cpk and hypothesis testing with the problem Whirlpool had just shown on their video!

Quality Function Deployment (QFD) was used quite extensively at Bombardier Transportation as well as at Honeywell. This tool helped prioritise and rank projects and actions based on the voice of the customer (VOC) as well as management's goals and key success factors. Bombardier used an acronym "DICOV": Define – Identify- Characterise- Optimise- Validate, rather than DFSS/DMADV where the customer idea or VOC is used to drive product development.

Most companies ran Kaizen events and used the 5S tool and Value Steam Mapping (VSM) with great effect. In fact some do this before embarking on a DMAIC project – get the shop floor running lean first and remove the "low hanging fruit". Walsh Western, a logistics delivery and supply chain management company very capably described how their warehouses had been laid out to facilitate "picking" customer's orders with the resulting cost benefits and savings. As a service provider they have to think like their customers, such as Dell, EMC, Apple to name a few.

A Deutsche Bank representative from India gave a very simple presentation on how Lean Six Sigma had been introduced into India over the last 10 to 20 years. In the '80s it was quality inspection, inspection, inspection… Then in the 90's ISO was introduced together with Management Information Systems. Today it is Lean, Six Sigma, Business Excellence. He concluded with three simple case studies , one of which was about a fertiliser company that couldn't sell it's product to farmers because the farmers could not afford to buy it even though the fertilizer would increase the crop yield. The fertilizer company therefore decided to offer its product free one year to six small village farmers in return for splitting their crop fields in half and demonstrating that with the half field fertilized the crop yield would be higher. This was the case and so in the following year the farmers spent the little money they had to buy fertilizer. Neat!

UBS Investment Bank, Switzerland, gave a very dynamic and pictorial presentation on how the Operations side of UBS had been trained on the use of lean six sigma tools. It would appear here that there was management buy-in a strong way with teams holding "events" and generally having fun. They also produced internal newsletters and displayed storyboards full of photographs of groups enjoying themselves. Their main problem was getting data both from within the operations side and from other entities within UBS.

The level of training within each company was also fairly consistent. All used external consultants resulting in a core of between two to five Master Black Belts (MBBs), more Black Belts (BBs) and teams comprising of mainly Green Belts (GBs) and in some cases Yellow and White Belts. One ex Siemens employee, now a private consultant gave an interesting insight into how, in his experience, Six Sigma could be integrated into an organization and what were the obstacles. The overall riding factor was again "management buy-in" and total management commitment. It is not a fad or fashion but a revolution.

In his final assessment Mike Carnell (CSI) talked about return on investment (ROI) – how well is a business using its assets and hence the Lean/Six Sigma efforts. He described Six Sigma reporting structure, which should be tailored for each company. A key person in this structure should be a "Benefits Capture Manager" who independently is used to calculate the cost benefits of each project. Whether one is in manufacturing or service the methodology is generally the same, just some of the tools used are different. It is key to evaluate the company's structure, culture and practices before starting the internal training, and it is essential to have the management on board and driving the process.
Richard M. Brade|

...Are you attending any up coming Six Sigma events, conferences, training, workshops or meetings that will be of interest to the onesixsigma.com community? I'd like to hear from you …. Please call Sophie Smiles on +44 (0) 7989 979 238 to discuss opportunities for getting your reviews published