What Is Lean Six Sigma?

What is Lean Six Sigma? Known by Lean Sigma as well, it reflects the combined form of two business managing strategies, namely, the Lean Manufacturing process, and the process of Six Sigma that was followed at Motorola. While the process of Lean Manufacturing zeros in on generating higher values through less work, Motorola’s system tries to do away with defects at the product development stage. This way, the Lean system fulfills two targets at the same time – it accelerates a business house’s decision-making strategy, and inhibits the production in-capabilities, and it also improves the product quality.

Management experts in many countries have rightly observed that high product development cost (where R&D is mostly involved) can lead to serious consequences often ending in bankruptcy. Understanding what is Lean Six Sigma is important here because it takes adequate care of this problem by reducing cost during the development of an industrial product, thus saving the business from dire consequences.

But the worst part relates to ‘passing the buck’ to the end customer. In 99% of all cases, the extra cost involved during the product development stage gets reflected in the price structure with the result that, the product becomes top heavy, and thus it cannot contend in a crucially competitive market and eventually loses out. Understanding what is Lean Six Sigma can be important here. The Lean system proves effective here since it invariably takes into consideration the product’s value from the customer’s perspective, and curbs all unnecessary costs relating to the development of the product.

Incidentally, lean manufacturing process or lean sigma have received many industry accolades after it fell in line with most Japanese manufacturing units that included Toyota, the famous manufacturer of automobiles.

As a matter of fact, Toyota has identified three distinct waste types. This includes Muri that refers to wasteful design; wasteful execution or Mura, and Muda or wasteful activities.

However, Lean sigma is more vigilant over activities that are wasteful rather than on design ineffectiveness or execution. At the same time, the Toyota Company has identified several harmful wastes that relate to transportation matters, inventory control matters, unnecessary shifting of equipment or personnel, lapses in overproduction, time management, extra processing and inherent product defects. Toyota recently had to recall a particular brand of vehicle to replace a vital part totally free of cost as it was subsequently found to have manufacturing defect.

The bottom line, however, will be all praise for the effective merging of Motorola’s Six Sigma management strategy that relies on statistical analysis to improve a company’s production process, while lean manufacturing theory is followed by the unit’s engineers and the top brasses to fine-tune its day-to-day operations. What is Lean Six Sigma is thus critical to understand.