ANNOUNCEMENT

Joint Venture offers new and powerful Lean tools to Clients

July 2008

We can help you fill in the gaps of your Lean implementation and

Introduce these new and powerful tools

To transform your people into effective ‘worker problem solvers’

Click [Here] to find out more!

Lean Six Sigma

Lean is a management philosophy that arose out of the development of the Toyota Production System.  (See Toyota Temple below.)

In many ways this philosophy is counter intuitive to the way managers have traditionally administered work design.  As Jim Womack has said:

A Lean management system involves managers at every level posing the key problems that need to be solved and asking the teams they lead to develop and implement the answers.

This practice of asking the correct questions rather than providing the correct answers… is perhaps the starkest contrast between Lean Thinking and orthodox mass production and the hardest to implement.

James P. Womack
Founder and Chairman
Lean Enterprise Institute

Lean is concerned with reducing waste (e.g., non-value adding activity) in all transactions within a business and with suppliers and customers. 

Farthing West’s interventions utilize Lean Six Sigma processes, tools and techniques.  We focus on:

Improving the 'flow' or smoothness of work

Eliminating waste and eliminating variation  …  in the pursuit of perfection

Major Elements:

- Involvement of people: the people who do the work are involved in redesigning the systems and procedures and the way work is done.

- Understanding, mapping and continually improving the flow of transactions between people, materials and information in business processes.

- Standardisation of procedures.

- Delivering value to the customer.

Working with Your People

By using Lean Six Sigma processes, tools and techniques, Farthing West’s interventions integrate

the distributed knowledge held by internal and external stakeholders about the problem situation. 

We do this within a project management framework as indicated in the following diagram.

A Practical Approach

We achieve agreed measurable project targets as we work with internal and external stakeholders to improve the performance of ‘value streams’ across the business enterprise.

We operate in a very practical manner, believing that there is a great deal of Knowledge already in the organisation that is often locked away in individuals or work units, and not available to everyone else.  We use our expertise to unlock this knowledge, develop new skills and ensure that the participants own the problem, and its solution.

We add value in how we manage this process and ensure that the gains are not only sustainable but able to be reviewed and improved by the participants in future.  In simple terms, this means that we:

- “Concretise” the problem to be solved into specific and measurable goals.

- Engage a wide range of participants to combine their distributed knowledge and understanding.

- Ensure a panoramic view of the problem is in view.

- Use evidence to make decisions.

- Introduce tools appropriately when necessary.

- Ensure that appropriate meaning is made of the data collected.

- Test, confirm and lock-in new processes and behaviours for sustainable performance.

Depending on the nature of the problem, the above process may translate into the following assignment steps for an organization.

1. Form cross-functional team.

2. Set agreed and measurable team goals.

3. Map the integrated work system that needs to be improved, to meet goals.

4. Include supplier and customer interfaces in the system map.

5. Collect Knowledge from team members about the issues in the system related to the “concrete” problem being solved.

6. Determine actions and responsibilities.

7. Use data to test the issues raised and to develop “meaning making” skills.

8. Rigorously pursue actions and follow up actions for meaning and new insights.

9. Develop new best practices and ensure compliance - use Story Boards to monitor.

Integrating Generic & Industry Specific Knowledge

As a result of the interventions the generic and industry specific knowledge held by staff involved is integrated for the benefit of the organization and staff.