Lean & Six Sigma – HRG Consulting

HRG Consulting Company will help your company to determine the right path toward more efficient, profitable, and innovative organization. We will evaluate your business and market to determine which or if all of the key concepts (Lean, Six Sigma, or Innovation training) would be critical.

Lean
The focus of lean is the elimination of waste of all types by concentrating on only what is required by the customer. From manufacturing perspective, such a system produces only the kind of units needed, at the time needed, and in the quantities needed. There are many tools available for achieving these tasks. One example is demand flow system, which provides shorter cycle time, lower overhead, and improved quality. This results in greatly reduced inventory and a dramatic cost reduction.
There are also some limitation associated with lean concept when the problems are unknown. One limitation is when the problems are complex and many variables are involved. In this situation Six Sigma approach becomes very effective to identify the problems. The other limitation is creating a long lasting solutions while the organization is going under more stress during the cost cutting, growth and change. Lean-Motive will be helpful to deal with this limitation.

Six Sigma
One other useful concept is six sigma approach. When the solution to a problem is unknown, and there are many variables, six sigma will be very helpful. There are situations when six sigma tools should be used to analyze the problems and control them. Unfortunately six sigma projects takes too long and it requires a commitment from different areas of the organization typically for 4 to 6 month. In order to resolve the timing issue, lean concept suggest using lean tools like Kaizen events to solve the problems within shorter period of time. Obviously the effort over the longer period using six sigma is not as intense as using the Kaizen events, but time is money and in some situations one month could add up to millions of dollars.

1- Evaluation

First the assessment of the current practices will be done to identify specific gaps between the existing operation and a truly lean enterprise. Several areas of organizations like scheduling, inventory management, customer service, communication, quality control procedures, manufacturing operations and type of improvement strategies (lean, six sigma, etc) will be reviewed.

4- Implementation

In this stage, the improvement process starts. The improvements could be cycle time reduction, quality improvements, waste reduction, inventory reduction, customer satisfaction improvement and more. This is also the stage where all the tools are put into work to enhance the existing process.

2- Identification

The system streamlining is done at this stage. The key areas of improvements are identified. The current financial status and data in these key areas will be recorded. This step is essential to measure how much change has been made after the improvement. This information can also be used as part of the feed back system in a continuous basis.

5- Motivation

This is the stage when lean-motive approach will be applied to assure consistency, and stability of the improvement process as changes happens in the organization. The motivational factors are added for continuation of the process improvement as the organization goes through the cost cutting process

3- Training

In this part, key employees are trained on how the improvement will be done. This is when six sigma implementers will learn about lean tools, lean implementers learn about six sigma tools, and lean sigma implementers learn about lean-motive concept and motivational factors. In case no strategy being used, all the tools will be introduced to the trainees.

6- Close / System Perfection

The procedure are provided for ongoing improvement to the business. Feed back system is established to monitor improvement progress. This stage is important in terms of identification of new problems that appears as the organization grows.