Lean Six Sigma - Explained
What is Lean Six Sigma or LsS?
Written by J. Mance Gordon
Updated at April 21st, 2024
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What is Lean Six Sigma?
Lean Six Sigma (LSS) is a comprehensive method for removing waste for organizational operations through standardization and procedure. It is a combination of Six Sigma and lean manufacturing to dispose of eight different types of waste. These eight types of waste are from different departments (1) Overproduction, (2) Inventory, (3) Defects, (4) Waiting, (5) Extra-Processing, (6) Non-Utilized Talent, (7) Motion, and (8) Transportation.
How is Lean Six Sigma Used?
Lean Six Sigma was first employed in the United States at Motorola Company in 1986. The purpose behind its use was to compete with the business model of Japanese company Kaizen.
In 1990, Larry Bossidy was hired by Allied Signal company to implement Six Sigma for heavy manufacturing purposes. Jack Welch from General Electrics consulted with Bossidy and brought the concept of using Six Sigma in the organization.
In 2000, Lean Six Sigma was formed as a separate branch of Six Sigma. From the beginning of 2000, the use of Six Sigma was extended to use in other sectors such as supply chain, finance, healthcare, etc.
Lean Six Sigma combines the principles of lean and six sigma to improve production quality, to cut down the production costs, to increase the operational competitiveness, production process, and to save money.
Six Sigma decreases parts variations while Lean focuses on cost reduction by using methods of waste reduction.
The combination of lean and six sigma produce organized solutions that are cost-effective and improve parts production. Lean is famous as it systematically assists to eliminate manufacturing waste and to improve service delivery for customers.
Lean helps in processes such as Kanban, schedule leveling, production time reduction, visual management, error proofing, setups, 5s, reduced lot size etc.
Six Sigma is used with an efficiency enhancement objective and to minimize production problems. The decrease in defective production and services enhancement boost revenue along with customers satisfaction. Lean Six Sigma, indeed, improvise all organizational processes either related to services or production.