Lean Six Sigma Overview
Organizations are facing an environment of rapid change and dramatically increasing customer expectations. At the same time, the availability of internal resources is declining. In order to better meet these challenges and remain competitive in the marketplace, a more sophisticated approach to performance improvement is often needed.
The combination of the rigor of Six Sigma with the simplicity and practicality of Lean Enterprise gives organizations a larger cache of tools to solve a broader range of problems. The result is that organizations achieve value more quickly at the lowest possible cost.
Oriel Incorporated goes beyond the common approach of simply adding a limited set of Lean tools to the DMAIC improvement methodology. Instead, we go broader and deeper by giving you the opportunity to select and utilize an improvement or design methodology for change that is most suitable for your particular organization. Based on the type of problem you’re experiencing, the appropriate set of Lean Six Sigma tools and techniques can be applied. We provide your organization with a flexible approach to solve one, several, or a broad range of problems.
Download Integrating Lean and Six Sigma Methodologies
for Business Excellence white paper
Oriel Incorporated can help your organization:
- Integrate Lean into an existing Six Sigma initiative.
- Integrate Six Sigma into an existing Lean initiative.
- Initiate a new Lean Six Sigma initiative.
Summary of Lean Six Sigma Deployment Strategies
| Deployment Approch |
Used When | Advantages | Limitations |
| Augmented | Organization has an ongoing Six Sigma program which is highly visible | Easy to incorporate into training program | Focus is only on tools, not on an optimal integration strategy |
| Parallel - Seperate Lean and Six Sigma Deployments | Deployment is decentralized and established Lean or Six Sigma programs already exist. | Both Lean and Six Sigma are deployed when they are most needed | Lack of integration talks to optimize benefits |
| Parallel - Integrated Project Selection | Centralized Six Sigma program is mature and there is a need for speed of execution and for new tools | Broader selection of projects can cover a wider range of issues more quickly | Lean is primarily deployed as "projects" and does not exploit continual improvement in daily work |
| Sequential Deployment | Organization is just embarking on a process improvement effort | Quick wins through Lean projects help to demonstrate benefits | Lean is used as a problem-solving methodology with a limited toolset |
If your organization has been employing Lean Six Sigma using one of the above strategies, does it mean that you need to stop your efforts immediately? Of course not—there are contexts in which each deployment strategy is advantageous, and your organization may be implementing a Lean Six Sigma program that is effective for you. Because Six Sigma and Lean are management principles, they are much more than just a collection of tools and projects. A Lean Six Sigma implementation that pays attention to the essence of these principles can have a transformative impact on an organization. The integrated Lean Six Sigma approach that Oriel Incorporated offers is one way to achieve this kind of impact, but it is not intended to replace any existing approaches that you may currently be successfully using. Instead, the Oriel Incorporated approach is intended to complement and enhance your current efforts. For further information on Lean Six Sigma, read our white paper Integrating Lean and Six Sigma Methodologies for Business Excellence.
