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| Ellen Burts-Cooper, PhD |
Ellen Burts-Cooper, PhD, is an adjunct professor at the Weatherhead School of Management and senior managing partner of Improve Consulting and Training Group.
Everyday I go to work, I use my Lean Six Sigma
toolkit. I can't imagine
leaving home without it.
It helps me understand
the process for just about
anything and allows me to
help my clients increase their productivity,
reduce their costs and increase the quality
standards of their products and services.
But I didn't always feel that way about
Lean Six Sigma. In the winter of 2000, I had
a new boss come to my organization with a
process improvement background. He quickly
announced that we were going to implement
Lean Six Sigma. At the time I ran a global
team and was entrenched in the belief that I
didn't have time for new methodologies.
Besides, I had seen other methodologies
come and go and thought, “This too shall
pass,” so I didn't take it seriously. Shortly
thereafter, a person called a 'black belt' came
into my group and said she was going to help
me. Yeah right. I did my best to ignore her
because, remember, I was too busy running
my operations to learn how to run it better.
Shame on me. I was producing widgets
and our revenue was consistently growing; however, I was neglecting the bottom line.
In the process of making a lot of money,
I was also making a lot of scrap and
unnecessary mistakes that were costing our company and our clients. One of the
first things the "black belt" did to get
my attention was run an analysis called
the cost of poor quality. That number
added up all the inefficiencies related to
my process: unnecessary scrap; running
the plant longer hours to make up for
defective parts; additional dollars to pay
for special disposal for defective parts;
issuing warranties; reshipping to the client;
unnecessary checks and audits; technical
service, etc.
When I looked at the number, I found that
I could keep running inefficiently, but it was
going to cost me. After you see the number,
it's hard for any good leader not to make the
decision in favor of reducing costs. I wanted
to do something about it, but I didn't know
what.
She said, "I can help you with that."
Finally, I was listening. She walked me
through the five phases in the DMAIC
Methodology:
- define,
- measure,
- analyze,
- improve, and
- control.
By the time we got to "analyze," I could
see my problem as clear as day. Before that,
we were just turning knobs in the dark and
trying this and trying that until something
worked; documentation was not even an
afterthought. We were moving
too fast to get bogged down with all of that.
I finally understood the saying, "slow down
to speed up."
We put together a team for 2 1/2 months, while still running the operations, to work
on this issue. We isolated the problem and removed the defect, and as a result, our quality increased
drastically. It was a nice conversation to have
with our customers. By the way, we had
a lot more customers. Now, not only did the
top line look good, but so did the bottom line.
I've been sold on Lean Six Sigma ever
since. I now understand process improvement
to be a vital component in organizations. So
vital that it makes up most of the work I do
now.
Being able to turn things around like that
sounds great, right? So why isn't everyone
using it? Well, three components have to
be considered when using Lean Six Sigma:
- the methodology,
- the tools, and
- the
organization.
You can imagine the vast number of
organizational factors that prevent people
from using the methodology. Factors include
resistance to change, insufficient budget, not
having the skill set, lack of leadership buy-in, comfort with status quo, poor functional
integration, etc. The one I hear most is, "I don't have time." We claim that we don’t have time to adopt
a proactive methodology to increase quality,
but somehow we find time to fix problems.
Interesting.
I have seen the methodology
badly misused; some people are working
from a history of mismanaged projects. It's
hard to forget that. From a basic human
nature standpoint, people don't like to be
told what's wrong with the process that they
work so hard on every single day. I used to take this approach, walking in and asking,
“What’s wrong?”
Now, I approach it from a more
appreciative standpoint. I realize it's
okay, even when there are issues, to find out
what's working well first. I found that this
approach allows people to talk freely about
what they do best, and eventually the problem
is isolated anyway. Lean Six
Sigma is a defect-based methodology, and let's face it, there are a significant number of
defects in organizational processes, but we
can still appreciate things that are working
well and leave them intact.
Many organizations face the same
challenges that mine did and many
employees probably feel the same way I did
when I first learned about Lean Six Sigma.
But here’s the question. Do you want to
learn how to fix the root cause of your
problems and truly do better?
If so, there are programs like our
Lean Six Sigma Green Belt Certification or our
Master of Science in Management - Operations Research and Supply Chain Management degree at Weatherhead School of Management that train participants
to use the Lean Six Sigma methodology and equip them with the tools that made such a significant impact
on my work and organization. Participants
will learn to use enhanced problem-solving
tools and the DMAIC process along with
critical tools such as regression analysis, chi-squared analysis, 5S, value stream mapping
and others. Our Green Belt Certification
helps employees serve as trained operational
excellence team members within their
function-specific area of the organization and
learn how to "slow down to speed up" to
make a positive difference.
