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		<title>Six Sigma Blogs at the iSixSigma Blogosphere</title>
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		<description>Six Sigma Blogs at the iSixSigma Blogosphere</description>
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			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: It's a &quot;Circle of Life&quot; Thing!]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/its_a_circle_of_life_thing.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[I used to be really annoyed with people who took a wait-and-see approach to change.  They're not resistant, exactly, and they might be classified as "late adopters."  But I could understand active resistance better than passive indifference.
Now, however, I have a little different take on things.  Because I have realized that if you wait long enough, you may find that whatever was changed comes back around again!
Such as... 

Centralization vs decentralization of departments or functions
Use of consultants vs hiring internal resources
Outsourcing vs insourcing
This reminded me about the lines from the Disney movie, "The Lion King," where young Simba gets the explanation about how the antelopes eat the grass and the lions eat the antelopes, and then the lions die and their bodies turn to grass (OK, you knew it would be a PG version) which is then eaten by the antelopes.  So everything comes back to a big circle of replaying the same scenarios.
For process changes, it's easy to see how this becomes just another bright idea to wait out, to someone who's been around a long time.  Especially when you're in an organization that promises that every change is NOT just the flavor of the month, and then six months later it's disappeared.  So how can I criticize someone for saying, "Well, go ahead with this Lean thing, I'll just wait and see what comes of it before getting enthusiastic about it."  After all, they've probably been right about all the other wonderful new initiatives and changes that have come and gone before.
Maybe you are fortunate enough to work in a place which has solved this circular pattern, or maybe you are trying to break out of that.  Would you care to share your experiences, to help us put some perspective on the issue?
 
 ]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Sue Kozlowski]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Lean&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Fri, 09 Oct 2009 08:51:52 -0800</pubDate>
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			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: The Great Healthcare Debate]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/the_great_healthcare_debate.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[While the iSixSigma.com site has been down, the rhetoric about "fixing healthcare" in the US has dramatically heated up.  "We need to take the waste out of healthcare!"  "We're paying too much for healthcare!"  "Everyone should get all the healthcare they need regardless of cost!"
Without getting into the political debate, let's just touch on these points from a quality perspective.
There's a balance between cost, speed and quality that's quite a challenge in healthcare.  For example, if I order $5000 worth of tests on day 1, and can tell you your diagnosis on day 2 and start treatment, what's that worth to you and your health (even if it turns out that 5 tests out of the 30 ordered didn't help with the diagnosis)?  How about taking the cost-effective route:  I'll order one test per day, evaluate the results, and then order the next test.  It may take me 21 days to figure it out, while you are waiting all the while, but hey! it did cost less!  So, in which example was there more waste???
Paying too much for healthcare... does that mean we are paying more than the value we receive, or just more than we desire to (or can afford to) pay?  Most of us a) don't know how much our healthcare actually costs; b) can't judge the quality of the medical care we receive; and c) won't haggle over the cost of an IV solution when the care of a loved one is at stake.  There's an emotional element of this debate that is not susceptible to logical reasoning.  We see this in all the stories of people who have gotten poor care or ran out of money or their insurance wouldn't cover a certain procedure.  If we try to "ration" care in the most logical way possible, we immediately run into the emotional (or moral, if you prefer) discussion about denying care to those who need it on a purely financial basis.  The factual and emotional issues are entangled as we debate this topic.  
Should everyone get the healthcare they need regardless of cost?  It's my personal opinion that provision of basic services, including healthcare, should be a function of an organized society.  But, it's not a "commodity" service like garbage collection, is it?  Since we do have to look to our tax-paying citizens and employers to pay for "healthcare for all" - the question of course is, how much should each of us contribute to this worthy cause?  And who decides how that money is to be used?
Having stirred the pot this morning, I will close by saying - it's a complex system!

There are no "specifications" for inputs (patients who need care come in all conditions and with variation in their genetic, mental, physical, experiential, cultural, economic, and social backgrounds); 
Processes are highly complex with many stakeholders and overlapping responsibilities
There is an expert-based culture of physician caregivers (now expanding slightly to other medical professionals);
Outcomes may not meet the patients' goals through no-one's fault (you can mostly blame our biologically-based life processes, I guess) but which may in some cases be due to poor care or non-compliance on the part of the patient (for example, not taking medications in the way they were prescribed).  
So I just caution you to think carefully about all the proposals that will be floated to "fix" the healthcare system, and don't jump to solutions too soon on this one.
Is healthcare in its current form in the US perfect?  NO!  But first I think we have to go back to quality basics and agree on who are the customers, and what is value-added to those customers.  I've seen many more "solutions" floated, than thoughtful consideration of just what it is we want to get to.  I encourage everyone to join this debate from the quality improvement perspective, and to lend your expertise to the discussion!
 
p.s.  It's good to be "back on the air" again!  Kudos to those at iSixSigma.com who have been working to resolve the issues that interrupted service over the past several weeks.]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Sue Kozlowski]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Change Management&nbsp;,&nbsp;Lean&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Mon, 27 Jul 2009 05:36:37 -0800</pubDate>
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			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Training:  Enough, Already?]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/training_enough_already.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[I enjoy teaching, so if you asked me whether you could do too much training, my first response would be "no, of course not!"
But, on second thought, I would have to say, "well, maybe."
It's been my experience that knowledge alone is usually not enough to create an improvement.  A lot of people enjoy being trained (a day away from the office, with lunch included) and also like knowing what could be done to create a better process.  But, having a lot of knowledgeable people bumping around in your organization doesn't necessarily mean that there are any improvement activities going in.  It's the doing - or execution, if you will - that separates the thinkers from the achievers.  So the important question seems to be, when do you know enough to start improving things?
There is a train of thought that runs like this:  "We don't need to train our whole organization in Lean or Six Sigma; that takes way to long to get any ROI (Return on Investment).  Let's start by getting some project teams together and use them to drive improvements."
There's another train of thought that says, "Let's not go shooting off in a lot of different directions. We'll train our executives, then our other leaders, then our managers, then our front-line staff; we'll come up with a deployment plan, and then we'll be ready to do projects."
So is there a "right" way to approach a Lean Six Sigma deployment?
Now, before you all write back to me telling saying that the answer is "IT DEPENDS!" I will ask the question a different way:  Have you, in your experiences, ever found that an organization did too much training?  Or that an organization did too little training?  What were the effects or consequences?  And what advice would you give an organization new to Lean Six Sigma, on the balance between training and project focus?  Thanks in advance for sharing your thoughts!
 ]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Sue Kozlowski]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Lean&nbsp;,&nbsp;Methodology]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Tue, 26 May 2009 11:10:15 -0800</pubDate>
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			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Getting the Word Out]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/getting_the_word_out.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[When I begin a new project, I include a Communication Plan as part of my team work.  That is, we take the stakeholder list and think about who we need to be in communication with, as we move through the project phases.  Some of you may do this based on an ARMI exercise (Approvers/ Resources/ Members/ Interested Parties) or Stakeholder Analysis exercise (List of key stakeholders and their estimated level of commitment to the project).  We include activities like face-to-face conversations, presentations in department meetings, newsletter articles, postings on the web site, etc.
But even though we try to heed the mantra, "communicate 8 times, 8 ways" it seems like we always have a gap in our communication.
For example:  Our team invites a key department leader to our project meeting; we discuss our project and get agreement as to next steps.  We plan an elevator speech and ask the leader to discuss it at his/her next department meeting and get agreement to do that.  We talk about possibly sending an email or posting information on the department's bulletin board for those who can't attend the meeting.  All good so far!
Then, a week later - after the department meeting, and having seen for ourselves that the information is posted on the bulletin board, a few team members stroll through the department to gauge the level of buy-in.  And - do they find that everyone is informed, interested, and enthusiastic about the project?  Or, do they find that people are negative toward the new process that's coming their way?
Why, no!  We find that most people remember vaguely hearing something about some new process, and others just give us blank stares.  When the bulletin board is mentioned, we get the response "Oh, I know it's there but it never changes so I don't look at it."
So, what are our learnings from this type of situation?  We only communicated once or twice, one or two ways - so obviously we would need to keep our communication plan active!  But are there other ways that you have been successful communicating outside of your project team, as you make progress?  Thanks in advance for sharing!]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Sue Kozlowski]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Lean&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Mon, 11 May 2009 08:24:06 -0800</pubDate>
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			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Before &amp; After]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/before_amp_after.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[My organization requires that we write our annual performance goals into a web-based system that can be sent to our bosses for their review.  As I was working on this last week, it struck me that in the past I would not have written those goals the way I do now.
For example, "improve service" would have been a typical goal for one of my previous positions.  Today I'd be examining:  What data will be used to measure the improvement?  What is the target?  What type(s) of service would be in scope?  What customer segment would be studied?  Who are the stakeholders for this service, and how many would have influence or control over aspects of the improvement?
In other words, I'd be a lot more specific - call it SMART if you want - and at the end of the year I could clearly tell whether or not I had met the goal.  In the past, I'd say "well I worked really hard all year on this and I think people are more satisfied with the service, based on the 2 - 3 customers I spoke with."
Now, it's still possible to "game" the system by picking easy targets that would be hard to miss, or choosing focus areas without established metrics.  But, I wonder how much more effective I would have been as a supervisor, manager, or director if I had known and used a process- and metrics-oriented approach to leadership.
So here's my question to my readers!  Have you used a Lean, Six Sigma, or other process-based approach your whole professional career, or did you learn it mid-career?  It would be interesting to know what your reflections on the difference it might have made, had you been exposed to the concepts and methodology earlier in life - I invite you to share.
[Note:  For those who may not have run into this acronym before, SMART refers to goals or metrics that are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Time-bound.  There are a few variant versions but all reflect the same basic principles.]]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Sue Kozlowski]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Lean&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Mon, 13 Apr 2009 12:40:04 -0800</pubDate>
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			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Does It Get Easier As You Get Better? - It Shouldn't]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/does_it_get_easier_as_you_get_better_it_shouldnt.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[Throughout my career I’ve had the pleasure of meeting colleagues from a very large variety of manufacturing cultures.  Sometimes I talk to people that work in a "mass" environment with poor performance, and I hear about how good it must be to work in an efficient workplace, with relatively good performance.  I always get the questions about how easy it is.
Let me tell you...it’s not easy, and by the way - it shouldn’t be.
You might ask me why....and here are some reasons.
The name of the game is continuous improvement.  If your organization doesn’t get better, then you aren’t  going anywhere.  You maintain your improvements be continuously revising your metrics to reflect your improvements.  Your plant may start at 50% production efficiency, then move to 75%, then to 90%, then to 95%, 97%, 99%, 99.5%, etc...how hard do you think it is to go from 99% to 99.5% production efficiency?  It’s very difficult - probably more difficult than going from 50 to 75%.  No doubt, you’re doing much better at 99% than you were at 50%...but then again, the 50% number doesn’t matter anymore, since your system has grown to be much more capable than that.
Now, imagine what it’s like to have this approach with all of the organizational metrics.  The unique part about all of this is that this type of culture grooms people into constantly thinking of how to get better every day.  That’s a powerful element.  
Any people out there living through this type of culture?  What are your challenges and how do you get through them?]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Kosta Chingas]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Lean]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Mon, 13 Apr 2009 04:00:00 -0800</pubDate>
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			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Let Them Be Lean! - Um, What Does Lean Mean?]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/let_them_be_lean_um_what_does_lean_mean.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[Over the years, I’ve come in contact with several different companies that say that they are "lean".  Yes, TPS (the Toyota Production System) is a great framework for production, with its teachings of one-piece flow, kanban, etc...but what about the actual implementation of the lean concepts at other companies besides Toyota?
I’ve seen desks with outlines of where the stapler and the computer monitor should go, yet with no sense of continuous improvement in the culture.  I’ve also seen kanban implemented with min and max levels clearly marked, yet with no safety stock even left due to variation in production downtime.  On the other hand, I have seen a really good "lean" production system operating every day as well, but that has been the exception.  
What’s up here?  It seems like that it is almost impossible to get to real ’lean’ operations unless you actually start up with a lean philosophy.
So here’s a burning question--
Overall, is "lean" a concept that is being actively implemented with success at "mass production", or is it something that is being attempted by doing all of the easy things first while putting off the hard stuff?
As always, your input is always appreciated!]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Kosta Chingas]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Lean]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Tue, 07 Apr 2009 20:11:13 -0800</pubDate>
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			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Lean at Work, Lean at Home???]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/lean_at_work_lean_at_home.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[I was asked a very interesting question last week, after I gave a lecture on 5S.
"Do you find that people who are very organized and who apply Lean or Six Sigma principles at work, also apply these same principles at home?  Is this linked to a personality trait?"
Now I will confess right off that I am NOT always as organized at home as I am at work.  Part of that has to do with the different amounts and types of stresses that are in the work vs home environment, and part of that is related to my particular personality trait or preference if you will.  I am (believe it or not) an introvert by nature.  Now, my favorite definition of the terms introvert and extrovert is not related to being happy in a crowd - but is related to how we recharge our batteries.  Think of a Friday evening, when you have just gotten off work and are heading home.  It's been a long, exhausting week with a lot of extra time spent on the job.  Do you prefer to recharge by (a) going to a party or event with a lot of excitement and energy in the room, or (b) going home or to a quiet place with soft music, a good book or show, and limited interaction?  I'm in the (b) category, so I call myself an "adapted introvert" - most of my work is done with and through people, so at work I'm a driver and always "on" for my audience.  At home I'm a low-energy kinda gal.
So back to the question - my answer was that I know many people who are as driven at home as they are at work - color-coded containers, everything in its place, ready for a surprise meeting or out-of-town guests at a moment's notice.  I also know people like myself who are very organized at work but more laid-back at home.  Truthfully I don't know anyone who is unorganized at work, but very organized at home.  (But maybe I should get out more!)
What do you think?  Do you agree with my categories, and would you have answered the question differently?]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Sue Kozlowski]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[General&nbsp;,&nbsp;Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Lean]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Mon, 30 Mar 2009 10:25:44 -0800</pubDate>
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			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: The C Word]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/the_c_word.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[That would be... Consultants.
I was fortunate to have the opportunity to speak about lean for clinical laboratories at the recent Leadership Exchange conference, hosted by the American Society for Clinical Pathology.  In discussions during the conference, I was asked many questions about the use of consultants to get started with lean.  In many cases, stories started with "Our lab has been leaned out," with the consequences of positions being eliminated, front-line workers being unhappy with the standard work that someone else had decided for them, and being asked to clock each and every step of their process for days on end.
So my question is, what is passing for lean these days?  No wonder I hear people saying, "Lean doesn't work!"
Now, I know that there are many fine, upstanding lean practitioners out there, who use strategic planning and the A3 approach to lean deployment.  Maybe I don't hear about them because they're doing a fine, value-added job.  But I do hear many stories about lean gone wrong.
Have you had an experience where someone was claiming to be a lean expert, but it didn't resemble lean philosophy as you know it?]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Sue Kozlowski]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Lean&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Tue, 24 Mar 2009 06:49:30 -0800</pubDate>
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			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Edgar Allan Poe was a Black Belt]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/edgar_allan_poe_was_a_black_belt.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary,O’er Breyfogle, George, and other volumes of forgotten lore,While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,As of someone gently rapping, rapping at my office door.‘’Tis some Green Belt,’ soft I muttered, ‘working late on his R4 –Only this, and nothing more.”
Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December,And binders of Six Sigma projects lay like ghosts upon the floor.Eagerly I wished the morrow; - vainly I had sought to borrowFrom “Lean Thinking” ease of sorrow – sorrow for the lost Lean lore,For the rare and radiant flowing caused by using pure Lean lore,Flow of process evermore.
Back to my Cox Comics turning, all my soul within me burning,Soon again I heard a louder tapping, harsher than it was before.‘Surely someone’s working late, trying to finish their last tollgate,I don’t want to make them wait – I must this mystery explore - Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore; -‘Twill take a moment – nothing more!’
So I flung the doorway wide, and, without a glance aside,In there stepped a stately figure I could not in truth ignore.Not the least of hand-shakes made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he;Bold and mute and unafraid he came within my office door – Looked like young Shigeo Shingo coming in my office door –Looked, and sat, and nothing more.
Then this silent form amazed me by the way his silence dazed me,By the look of grave intelligence and utter thoughtfulness he wore,‘Thou thy head be shorn and shaven, thou’ I said, ‘art sure no raven.Ghastly grim and ancient maven wandering from the shop room floor –Tell me what thy lordly name is, teacher, I do thee implore!’Quoth the Sensei, ‘Nevermore.’
‘What?’ asked I, merely guessing what the Sensei was expressingAs his fiery eyes burned through my scattered R4s on the floor;Was he looking for my A3s, did he doubt my CTQ trees,Did he think my 5-Whys weak and my lead times so very poor?‘What!’ I shrieked, ‘You think my methods and my computations poor?’Quoth the Sensei ‘Nevermore.’
‘Trickster!’ said I, ‘Thing of evil! – Causing waste by this upheaval!It’s not Pull that brought you calling!  By the Flow we both adore –Tell this soul with deadlines harried if, within locations varied,Through deserts hauled or rivers ferried, I can find the lost Lean lore –Perhaps a book that you have written, penned to share the pure Lean lore?’Quoth the Sensei, ‘Nevermore.’
‘Be that word our sign of parting, foul-mouthed fiend!’ I shrieked upstarting –‘Get thee back into the workplace and your own shop’s gemba floor!Leave no A3 as a token of the word that thou hast has spoken!Leave me with my mind all broken! – quit the chair that’s near my door!Take thy Wastes and 5S forms and take thyself right out my door!Quoth the Sensei, ‘Nevermore.’
And the Sensei, not submitting, still is sitting, still is sittingNear the photo of Jim Womack framed above my office door;And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon’s that is dreaming,And the lamp-light o’er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floorShall be lifted – nevermore!
(With apologies to Edgar Allan Poe, whose poem "The Raven" was written in 1845.)]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Sue Kozlowski]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[General&nbsp;,&nbsp;Lean]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Tue, 03 Mar 2009 14:33:54 -0800</pubDate>
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			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Targets – Part 2]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/targets__part_2.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[In my last blog, Targets, I covered the situation of hitting time targets in a services environment. I thought I was onto something but wasn’t sure just what…….. 
Just to recap, people are targeted on delivering work within a certain time frame e.g. reply to a customer letter within X number of days. There was an understanding that this “drives the wrong behaviours” but no clarity on what to do. Here is what I have come to. 
What I did was look at the current measure and split time into value and non-value as shown.

Then I looked at the two time components and put together two principles:
1. The time an item is waiting in a queue should not be the handler’s problem; it’s a management problem. The idea of pushing people to “work harder” because of variation in demand doesn’t work and alternative solutions are required.2. The time that a handler is working on an item should not be driven by a time target but should be against a quality target. We want our people to do a great job as quality drives down rework, defects and costs.
Now the tricky bit, how to translate these principles into actual measures. What I looked for were rules for defining the measures and came to these from Vanguard


The measure should help in understanding and improving performance – capability measures rather than targets

The measure must relate to purpose – measure what is important to the customer

The measure must be integrated with work – the measures must be in the hands of the people who do the work
 Looking at these and my principles I came-up with two measures:


Lead Time - The time from receipt to when work starts. Leadership and not handlers own this. They are responsible for improving Lead Times by changing the system not “cracking the whip”

Right First Time – This is not a time measure but a quality measure. For each step in the process, the “Must-do” &amp; “Optional” requirements are defined. These are the items that ensure the work is done correctly without defects being created. It is as simple as a check-list to ensure work is done as required.
The approach extends across the whole life-cycle. This splits the process into value and non-value adding steps. It focuses the right people on doing the right things – leadership to reduce Lead Time by reducing waste in the process – handlers to improve Quality by defining, doing and measuring what is required. 
Sound good? I am already getting challenges and resistance. Would appreciate comment on the logic and how I could make the proposal even better….. ]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Robin Barnwell]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Change Management&nbsp;,&nbsp;General&nbsp;,&nbsp;Lean&nbsp;,&nbsp;Methodology]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Fri, 20 Feb 2009 10:18:00 -0800</pubDate>
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			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Gemba Academy Intro to Lean]]></title>
			<link>http://www.sixsigmacompanies.com/archive/gemba_academy_intro_to_lean.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[If you'd like to take a beginner's course on Lean, look to Ron Pereira's Gemba Academy.  He has released his first video, Introduction to Lean Manufacturing. The clip below (and on the LSS Academy site) is the first 10 minutes of the 15 minute intro to Lean. Don't waste another minute in Lean ignorance...


]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Michael Marx]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Lean]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Thu, 19 Feb 2009 09:05:28 -0800</pubDate>
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		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Sensei Sue???]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/sensei_sue.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[I was talking with a group of people about leading lean, and someone asked me, "Are you a Sensei?"
So of course I said "No!"  I don’t call myself a Sensei, because I consider myself to be at the grasshopper-level of lean expertise.
However, the question did make me think.  I call myself a Black Belt without blinking an eye - on the checklist of how to be a Black Belt, I have filled in all the boxes:  [ ] Go through formal classroom training with hands-on practice and exercises. [ ] Be mentored in leading a project team through a Six Sigma DMAIC project, with all the bells &amp; whistles (graphical, statistical, and lean analysis). [ ] Get seal of approval in the form of a signed certificate from the MBB teaching the class. [ ] Fulfill additional years of leading Six Sigma teams with demonstrated tangible &amp; intangible benefits. And, because I’m an overachiever, [ ] Obtain certification from a national professional organization so my credentials would be a little more portable/marketable (being honest about it!).
So why don’t I call myself a Sensei?  What’s the checklist for that?  One of my teachers told me it would take leading hundreds of lean projects.  There’s a lot of debate about whether Lean practitioners should get into the certification race.  I’m starting to see jobs posted that require "certification in lean."
Are you a Sensei?  Do you know anyone who is?  And what does that mean?  Inquiring minds want to know!]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Sue Kozlowski]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Lean&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Mon, 09 Feb 2009 08:50:27 -0800</pubDate>
		</item>

		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Defects in Healthcare]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/defects_in_healthcare.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[Last Friday I taught a Lean Leadership class for my healthcare organization.  The participants included all levels of support staff, physicians, nurses, and department leaders.  They grasped the concepts easily, and we had a lot of fun with the simulation exercise.  In the first round, of course, no products made it to the customer.  In the second round, after applying 5S and reducing batch size for better flow, a few products made it to the customer but with some defects.  
In the third round, after applying takt time and level loading, more product units made it to the customer but with even more defects.  This prompted an interesting discussion, as we were reviewing the cost of defects (in our simulation, a delivered product brings revenue of $100 per unit, defects cost $20 and Work In Progress $5).  One of the physicians brought up a great point - what is the "cost of defects" in healthcare?  
In the most purely commercial aspect, the cost of poor quality is the cost of rework and so-called service recovery.  In a risk-managed world, you might add in the cost of potential law-suits and malpractice insurance.  You can even go so far as to put a value on the person's life, for example the number of years remaining of potential employability, and possible value and/or contributions to family, employers, and community.
But the defect that the physician was talking about was the defect of an adverse outcome for a patient.  And it was obvious that every single person in the room had a dedication to the safety of every one of the patients under their care.  So we talked about the cost of a defect related to patient safety, and that the lives under their care were literally "priceless" regardless of what the risk-adjusters might say.  And we can have a huge impact on that safety by using Lean concepts and tools, and integrating the check-do-check into our processes, while streamlining the work and empowering healthcare professionals to call "Stop!" when they see something that may not be right.
The rest of the exercise went very well - the fourth round was organized around a pull system adjusted to takt time, incorporating check-do-check.  The customer had just the right number of units, WIP was minimal, they made money, and they had no defects.
But the memory that I will take from this class is the absolute dedication that this group had to the welfare of their patients.]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Sue Kozlowski]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Lean&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Mon, 02 Feb 2009 06:25:32 -0800</pubDate>
		</item>

		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Hitting Target]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/hitting_target.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[Targets appear in all shapes &amp; sizes. Sometimes seen as positive, “we operate a target-driven culture” and sometimes negative, “targets drive the wrong behaviour”. So what is true? Given the sheer diversity of targets, I want to focus on a specific area, daily work targets in a services environment. Let’s look at a scenario.
Imagine an operator works in a services business. Work comes in three types and timing tests show each type can be completed within 20 minutes in most cases. Now imagine the operator being given items of work and being asked to work under two different management controls:

Control 1, Work items are targetted to be completed within 22 minutes. 
Control 2, There are no targets and work items must be completed regardless of the time required
Statistically speaking, an assessment of the two approaches could be made, something like:

Ho = There is no difference between the time taken to complete work items under control 1 or control 2
I am looking at running some tests to see if there is a difference as this is related to a project I am working. But what is your gut feel on the expected performance difference?
I have tried this in a very small trial and found that when working under a time target, you focus on the time target. As the pressure builds on any individual work item because you are watching the clock you find it more difficult to focus on the task in hand and end up missing the target. You lose valuable time because of the target.
So what does this show? Does this describe an example of why targets drive the wrong behaviour? Does it show that getting it right first time saves money? Does this show operator’s pulling work? Does this show a difference between batch and continuous flow?
I’m not sure but I feel I am looking at something quite important here, just not sure exactly what it is yet……..]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Robin Barnwell]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[General&nbsp;,&nbsp;Innovation&nbsp;,&nbsp;Lean&nbsp;,&nbsp;Research]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Tue, 13 Jan 2009 10:39:06 -0800</pubDate>
		</item>

		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: When is Lean... Not Lean?]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/when_is_lean_not_lean.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[I have been thinking a lot lately about how the Toyota Production System was developed.  Unlike those of us who have books, websites, and training programs in abundance, Toyota engineers took their process of assembly-line manufacture of automobiles and created, in incremental steps, the methodology that's now known as Lean.  It took shape over a long period, as different contributors added their ideas to create a strong "House of Quality" for the Toyota Motor Company.
But - what if these bright people had not come from automotive manufacturing?  What if they had come from (for example) healthcare?
I know that this is akin to imagining what the earth would be like today if there were no moon.  (Just think - no tides.  Different air and water currents.  Little shore erosion - no sand?  Hard to imagine!)

What if their initial process studies were not based on repetitive motions that could be adapted to robotic or at least automated mechanisms?
What if their major source of variation was not the mechanical devices, but the people who provided the process?
What if their processes were not amenable to on-the-job training, but required differentiation of skill and ability at the level of advanced education and training?
What if their product was not someone who "ordered" a tangible object, but someone who showed up unannounced with a mysterious problem that couldn't be solved by just looking at it?
It made me think that if those bright young engineers had worked in healthcare, that what we now call Lean would be vastly different than what was developed by Toyota.
And, as a related thought, it made me wonder what we are doing by applying lean manufacturing principles to healthcare.
Now, I'm not the healthcare equivalent to Eiji Toyoda.  Or Shigeo Shingo.  Or Genichi Taguchi.  Or any of the other brilliant minds that helped to develop the Toyota Production System.
But, am I doing a disservice to my providers and customers, when I try to fit lean manufacturing methods to a highly technically-skilled service environment?
I've heard over and over again that lean can be adapted to any process, anywhere, in any industry or branch of service.  I've done many lean projects myself, and seen the very tangible benefits that value-stream thinking and creation of flow can produce, along with level loading and consideration of takt time.
But are we only seeing the tip of the iceberg?  What further benefits might we see if we developed a "service system" that used tools uniquely intended for service processes, rather than adapting manufacturing tools as best we can?
Just asking!]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Sue Kozlowski]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Lean&nbsp;,&nbsp;Methodology]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Mon, 29 Dec 2008 11:27:41 -0800</pubDate>
		</item>

		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: A Lean Carol]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/a_lean_carol.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[Well, it's time for my annual Christmas Blog!  With apologies to Charles Dickens, here is my adapted version of his "Ghost Story of Christmas" (first published in 1843).
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Stave 1:  Muda's Ghost
The workers at the Shusendo &amp; Muda Company are very busy being highly productive.  The boss, Ebenezer Shusendo, only gives performance bonuses based on individual productivity so everyone works as hard as they can regardless of what the customers want.  Shusendo's nephew, Eiji, stops by to wish him a "Lean Christmas!" but Shusendo dismisses him with "Bah, Humbug!"  The clerk, Taiichi, knows there is a better way to approach things and vows to "keep Lean in my heart, all the year long!"  After intense negotiating, Taiichi is allowed to take Christmas day off, which confirms Shusendo's opinion that his employees just don't work hard enough.
When Shusendo returns home, he starts to see all kinds of apparitions - movement of product in a continuous flow, loud ringing of andon signals, and pictures in his rooms turning into Value Stream Maps.  The ghost of Muda visits him, and warns that if he doesn't mend his ways, his company will continue to show decreasing profits.  All of his workers will leave and his company will fold.  He will walk the earth in misery, bearing the burden of waste that he could have eliminated in his processes.  His only chance of redemption is to listen to three spirits who will visit him that night.
Stave 2:  The First of the Three Spirits
The Ghost of Lean Past, Henry Ford, visits Shusendo and takes him on a journey to his childhood.  Shusendo is shown a happy party given by his first employer, who shared profits with his workers.  He is reminded of his first love, Puriti, and how she left him because he was too busy doing rework at his company.  They visit Frederick Winslow Taylor and see him writing "The Principles of Scientific Management;" and they take a tour of the Rouge plant in its heyday in Dearborn Michigan.  Finally, they end up at the Toyota Automatic Loom Works.  Furious at being shown the opportunities that were missed to make a huge improvement in his own company, Shusendo gets angry at the spirit only to find that he has been returned to his own bed.
Stave 3:  The Second of the Three Spirits
The Ghost of Lean Present, Genichi Taguchi, shows Shusendo busy factories and organizations in the modern day.  Many companies are incorporating lean principles into their operations, and sharing the least-waste way.  They value their employees as creators of value for their customers, and try to make sure that there is flow in each step.  Shusendo sees the huge impact that pull systems have, and becomes interested in lean concepts.  They watch his clerk Taiichi (who tries to use Lean tools when his boss isn't watching) at Christmas dinner with his family, including Tiny Toyoda, who has carpal-tunnel syndrome from unnecessary processing.  Even though many people are trying to become lean, the Ghost shows Shusendo two pitiful workers huddled under his robes who personify the major causes of poor production, Mura (unevenness) and Muri (unnecessary work).  As the bell strikes twelve midnight, the Ghost vanishes.
Stave 4:  The Last of the Three Spirits
The Ghost of Lean Yet to Come arrives as a shadowy figure, robed in black, who points grimly at all of the waste present in production processes all over the world.  The Ghost shows Shusendo's clerk Taiichi mourning the loss of his son, Tiny Toyoda.  Even worse is the scene of the Global Takeover Company in the process of purchasing what's left of Shusendo &amp; Muda, only to liquidate it for a quick profit.  In great fear over this possible future, Shusendo begs the Ghost to send him back so he can change everything for the better.  Weeping, he wakes to find that it is Christmas morning and he has been allowed to return to his former life.
Stave 5:  The End of It
Shusendo is overjoyed to mend his ways.  He sends his clerk Taiichi a roast goose "just in time" for Christmas dinner, and promises to implement Lean in his company.  He surprises everyone with his new-found respect for people, and reduces overprocessing so Tiny Toyoda doesn't need to wear his wrist braces any more.  He earns a reputation for incorporating the spirit and principles of lean, in addition to utilizing lean tools and concepts.  He even changes his name to Sensei Soushou.  
To quote from the end of the story:  "He had no further dealings with the Spirits, but lived upon the Lean Principle, ever afterwards, and it was always said of him, that he knew how to eliminate waste, if anyone alive possessed the knowledge.  May that truly be said of us, and all of us!  And so, as Tiny Toyoda observed, Learn To See, Every One!"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Happy holidays to all!
 
 
 
 ]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Sue Kozlowski]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[General&nbsp;,&nbsp;Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Lean]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Mon, 15 Dec 2008 07:27:36 -0800</pubDate>
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		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: The Least-Effort Way]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/the_least_effort_way.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[We've all seen the "resistance curve" where a few people are innovators, some are early adopters, early and late majorities, and a few are laggards, or skeptics, or what-have-you (from the work of Everett Rogers and other researchers). 
One way to get almost everyone to be an early adopter is to offer something of value - money, time off, presents.  Yes, bribes (as well as food) are well-known tools for speeding change acceptance.  Did you ever hear of anyone resisting a bonus check?  (I do know of one instance where a person received an unexpected bonus check for $100, then complained because the check wasn't for an amount that would have yielded $100 after taxes.)
However, there's another inducement to change that I've observed.  When people are introduced to the possibility of a new or different process, they sometimes are eager to embrace change as long as the new process meets one criterion:  It's "less work" for them.
Now, this is a little different discussion than most of us have had about Radio Station WII-FM:  What's In It For Me?  These particular folks don't want to be jollied into accepting more work; they just want to do less work (by their own definition).
Because, let's face it - often, it's "more work" to do something right the first time, in the way it's supposed to be done, than to do it poorly the first time and let someone else do the rework later.  Regardless of the potential benefit and value to the customer, some people who are "in the moment" just care about the work that they do personally.  It's so easy to get caught up in what's value-added for ourselves and to lose track of what's value added for the customer.
I don't want to get diverted into related discussions about the work ethic of our Generation-X and Gen-Y employees (not to mention the Millennials); or Theory X (people try to do the least work) vs Theory Y (people try to do a good job).  I'd just like to know whether anyone else has experienced this, and what they have done to address it.  After all, we won't get far with process improvement if the gold standard is that everyone will do less work than they were doing before!
Or will we?!?!?!?!
 ]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Sue Kozlowski]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Change Management&nbsp;,&nbsp;Lean&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Wed, 03 Dec 2008 10:22:58 -0800</pubDate>
		</item>

		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Lean Travel (or not!)]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/lean_travel_or_not.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[I've spent a good part of this past summer travelling for business.  In the past, I might have flown a few times a year for conferences, but this year I've earned quite a few "miles,"  Now, I know that some of you are already experienced Road Warriors, and you are probably already laughing at me, but I'd like to share some "learnings" from my lean perspective!
Who's the customer of an airport?  Not, it would seem, the fliers.  Yes, we spend the money for the ticket.  And what's value-added for us?  Getting on the plane in time for departure - comfortable flight - arriving on time, at the right airport, safely - retrieving baggage easily - obtaining transportation to the next destination,  Did I capture that value stream?
So let's take a look at the process of just getting on the plane.  In order to get on the plane in time for departure, we:
1.  Start boarding 1/2 hour before the flight.  In order to do that, we
2.  Arrive at the boarding area at least 1/2 hour before the flight.  In order to do that, we
3.  Arrive at the screening check gate at least 1/2 hour before that time, guessing how long the lines will be in the waiting lanes.  In order to do that, we
4.  Arrive in the terminal at least 1/2 hour before that time, guessing how long the lines will be in the check-in waiting lanes.  In order to do that, we
5.  Arrive in the parking deck/lot at least 1/2 hour before that time, guessing how full the deck will be and how long it will take to find a parking space, then walk or take the bus to the terminal.  In order to do that, we
6.  Leave our home or office (depending on the distance, of course) with at least an extra half-hour to spare, guessing how many construction or traffic delays will be encountered along the way to the airport.  
That's a lot of non-value-added time!  Now, of course the process has many "short cuts" for those willing to pay for, or arrange for, the extra "priviledge" of a lean experience!
6.  Could use a taxi or limousine service to the airport.
5.  Could park at one of those park-n-go places near the airport, and take the shuttle to the terminal.
4.  Could check-in on-line, to get the boarding pass printed out, and use curb-side check-in for baggage if available.
3.  Buy first-class ticket to go through the security check-points using the "first class" lanes, if available.
2.  Ditto, to board the plane first (extra benefit, have a drink &amp; sit in a comfy seat while watching everyone else file past for half an hour). 
1.  Or, take a chance and try to minimize waiting by arriving just as the boarding ends (might have to accept a certain risk of failure with this strategy, though!).
So how could the airlines/airports make the travel value stream a little less non-value-added?  Doesn't it seem as though the air travel experience could be made a little more lean for those of us who buy airplane tickets?  I'd love to hear from you frequent fliers who've had time to think about this during all those hours of waiting in line! 
 ]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Sue Kozlowski]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Lean]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Sun, 23 Nov 2008 07:09:23 -0800</pubDate>
		</item>

		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: My journey towards Lean]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/my_journey_towards_lean.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[When I started in continuous improvement (CI) four years ago it was via the traditional Six Sigma DMAIC route. I was indoctrinated into the Six Sigma world and have earned my ASQ CSSBB and can do impressive stuff with statistics. Lean was not even on the radar for me, it was just another approach that was used to solve the easy stuff. It did not have the rigour to make lasting improvements.
Then Lean appeared through our training material and we merged it to become Lean Six Sigma. But it was an unequal partnership. We had the DMAIC model with Lean as a bolt-on included in the Analyse phase. It focussed on analysing and removing waste in the process. It was a pretty easy concept; by removing waste you become a Lean business. And that’s how it stayed, everyone understood Lean.
Meanwhile I had nagging doubts that pure Six Sigma did not provide a complete package. There are the obvious issues around needing to include project management, stakeholder management, soft-skills training and deployment program management. There was also the concern that it was too generalist as specialist niches become prevalent, e.g. Customer Experience theory now goes way beyond the VoC approach. 
It started with The Goal. I really liked the concept of managing your process around exploiting the constraints &amp; bottle-necks. Then I met a few people who had started their CI journey from Lean who talked about different concepts &amp; approaches. Then I met someone who was a Systems Thinker and they thought Six Sigma was just plain wrong. Give these quotes a go, (more in a follow-up blog as I am still reading the book):

It starts with ‘define’ so the wrong problems get tackled, not the actual problems, which will only be revealed when you study the organisation as a system.
Loads of money is spent on training tools, most of which will never be used; and tools are not the means for changing the system. 
The reporting systems ensure benefits are ‘realised’ but they are, most often, spurious e.g. claiming productivity improvements through speeding up part of a process with no knowledge of the impact on the end-to-end process 
It has been used to focus on cost; managers should instead get focused on value as the better way to reduce costs and increasing capacity. 
In short, Six Sigma is a classic packaged invention aimed at gullible managers. The wrong facts are misleading; we should salute its demise.
All good stuff to challenge the orthodoxy. So I have been studying pure Lean. First problem I had was translating the tools out of manufacturing into a service organisation. With things like SMED you seem to have to abstract the concept and look for applications. Or 5S, it’s not a safety issue having a messy desk and I am doubtful on the benefits (I have a clean desk). But as I got deeper I found this doesn’t do Lean justice, the fundamental principles and practises go way beyond “just eliminate waste”. Lean seems to provide much more in terms of the complete package and inparticular around empowering people.
As ever, I still have my doubts e.g. how does break-though innovation happen in a Lean environment? And what about the “Lean is just removal of waste” label? But it has definitely shifted my thinking. Now I am "Learning to See" I wonder if there are any other approaches I should be looking at?]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Robin Barnwell]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Change Management&nbsp;,&nbsp;General&nbsp;,&nbsp;Lean&nbsp;,&nbsp;Methodology]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Fri, 17 Oct 2008 06:46:13 -0800</pubDate>
		</item>

		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Lean Banking]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/lean_banking.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[I can’t help but wonder if banking and finance has an administrative concept equal or similar to lean process strategic planning. 
As accounting goes I suspect that efficiency, correct mathematical computation and balanced accounts all are considered important and of value to the banking customer.  But what is the value added to high or irresponsible risk? 
Certainly the possible return is always measured against the potential risk, but if all investment were guaranteed by some umbrella organization then we all would be in the banking business. 
Seems very clear that lean thinking, customer value and reduction of waste is missing in the deliberations of some companies in the finance industry. Maybe they could learn something from the manufacturing industry? 
Just a thought.]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Stephen C. Crate]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Lean]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Thu, 02 Oct 2008 10:46:34 -0800</pubDate>
		</item>

		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: 5S Your Email Out-Box]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/5s_your_email_out_box.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[After reading my last post, 5S Your Email In-Box, a couple of colleagues asked whether they could apply 5S to sending emails as well.  Here are the guidelines that I use - I'm sure others have their methods, too, so feel free to share your own best practices!
SORT
1.  Ask yourself, does the recipient really need this email?  What is it that you want them to do with it when they get it?  What makes this email, out of the 250 they will receive today, worthy of their stressed and limited time?  If it's not needed, don't send it.  (But, see the note about thank-you emails below.)
2.  Be careful of cc's (copy-to) and bcc's (blind copies).  Don't add people to the distribution list as a way to let the primary recipient know that you don't trust them to take action, or you're setting up a blame-sharing scenario (trust me, they'll figure this out without you telling them).  And I've been burned by bcc'ing something to which the bcc'd individual responded by hitting reply-all.  Very embarrassing.
3.  Know when to pick up the phone.  For any email with more than 3 back-and-forth volleys, I call the person to finish the conversation.  And some communication just shouldn't be done by email.  You already know that readers can attribute "tone of voice" to email communications, so if you've got something sensitive or confidential to share, do it in person or by phone.
STRAIGHTEN
1.  Help recipients know what you want them to do with the email.  Put it in the title:  Project XXX (please read and provide feedback by Friday).  Status of Team YYY (please respond with any questions).  Action Plan for Department ZZZ (Urgent - Action Needed by End of Business Day).  Meeting Notes from xx/yy/zz (Review and File).
2.  Remember that a lot of folks scan through emails using the Preview function.  Put the most important things in the top 2 or 3 lines of the email, including an executive summary, action requested and deadlines (if not in the title).
3.  If you're sending to more than one person, be very clear if there are specific action items requested of some individuals, versus the expectation that they will read-and-review.
SCRUB
1.  If the email is longer than a couple of paragraphs, consider sending an attachment instead.  Within the email, use bullet points to draw attention to important issues.  Use bolding (sparingly) to draw the eye to essential points or deadlines.
2.  If you are sending an attachment, consider sending the .pdf version to save space.
3.  Review your email before sending it.  Take out any unnecessary verbage - be concise and at the end, close by saying something like "please feel free to contact me if you have any questions or concerns about the above."  Trust that your readers will let you know if they need more info.
STANDARDIZE
1.  Many time-management experts think that you should set a certain time aside each day to read and reply to emails.  In the spirit of continuous flow, that doesn't work for me, but only you can decide how to handle your inbox.  Pick a method that works for you, and practice it.
2.  You can sort your sent mail into folders, so you can easily find it again - it's an option you can consider.  Also, did you know that you can drag your sent email into your in-box folders?  That way you can keep all your to-and-from correspondence together, if that works for you.
SUSTAIN
1.  Make up a little email audit form to review when sending email, comprised of the check-points you want to review before you hit send.  Mine looks like this:

Check, do all recipients need this email?  Check cc's.  Phone instead?
Action requested vs review - clear to all recipients?
Concise enough?  Need attachment?
OK to go?
I've been asked about those little "thank you" or acknowledgement emails; some people love them, some think they're a waste of email space.  I love to get them, I appreciate them, I feel warm and fuzzy about them, and then I delete them.
A note about tracking:  To me, it always feels a bit like "Big Brother is watching you" when I get the notice that the sender wants to know when I've read the email.  I use tracking very sparingly; I'd rather set a reasonable timeframe for response and then give the recipient a nudge if they don't get back to me.  But, it's a personal preference; I know some people who track all their emails (just as I know some who flag every email "high importance").
Lastly:  Your email signature / contact info is an essential part of business communication.  Don't just sign "love, Sue" - if someone needs to call you back or fax you a response, it's very frustrating to have to go searching for the information.  The basics include:  Name, title, company, mailing address, phone, fax, email, website if there is one.  Use with caution:  motivational quotes, images that add size to the email, blinking or moving graphics, background stationary, fonts other than web-safe (arial, verdana, courier, times new roman).
Now that I've shared my preferences, I'd love to know what other methods you are using to send emails in a lean manner!]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Sue Kozlowski]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Lean&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Mon, 08 Sep 2008 05:51:17 -0800</pubDate>
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		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Houston, TX Lean and Six Sigma Pros Unite!]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/houston_tx_lean_and_six_sigma_pros_unite.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[There will be a Lean and Six Sigma meeting in Houston, TX, on Thursday, September 18, 2008 at 5:30 PM. Tom Tatevasion of Cameron will host the event. Tom will provide an overview of the group, a tour of the Cameron Compression Systems facility, and discuss their Lean Six Sigma program.
If you live in Houston and are practicing Lean or Six Sigma, you do not want to miss this event.
To learn more:
Join the iSixSigma Network on LinkedIn
Learn more about this learning and networking event]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Michael Cyger]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Buzz/Press&nbsp;,&nbsp;General&nbsp;,&nbsp;Lean]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Fri, 05 Sep 2008 17:10:11 -0800</pubDate>
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		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: 5S Your Email In-box]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/5s_your_email_in_box.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[I love to open my business email in-box in the morning, don't you?  Especially if you've been practicing good work-life balance and haven't peeked at it since the end of business the day before.  When I go on vacation, it's a special treat.
Here's a 5S strategy that I have used to keep up with the "input."  [Note:  I'm using MS Office terminology since that's what I'm most familiar with - please substitute your own email application terms as you read.]
SORT
1.  If you've been gone a few days, or have LOTS of email to go through, sort the senders by name.  Tackle your boss's emails first, then other VIPs, then go down the list in order of importance to your current task load or priority projects.
2.  Be ruthless.  If you don't need to know it, "red-tag" the item by dragging it over to the "Deleted Items" box.  [Added action:  If you hate getting those cute kitten-pictures and the latest urban rumors from your friends, take 10 seconds to reply to the sender to say tactfully: please don't send them any more.  It's a worthwhile investment, and a true friend will appreciate your need to keep your business in-box for business only.]  
STRAIGHTEN
1.  If you do need to know it, but it's an on-going progress report or something that doesn't need a response, file it immediately under a helpful heading that you will find again.
2.  If you need to take action on an item, you can:  a) Place it in an "action needed by date" folder.  b) Leave it in your inbox as a reminder.  c) See if you can drag it into your Task List - it may convert to a task to which you can add details.  d) See if you can drag it into your calendar - to add it as a calendar item on the day of your choice.  e) Print it and put it in a "to-do" pile.  --The goal is to keep a clear picture of actions that you need to take, in a way that puts you on or ahead of deadline - not frantically searching for the original email when your boss or colleague asks you how you're coming on project X.
SCRUB
1.  Do you archive your emails?  I don't let the computer do it automatically - there are some long-term projects that I need to keep the running history on, all in once place.  When a project is finished, I move the whole folder to archive.
2.  If you email inbox has a restriction on size, you have options:  a) you can save everything to your hard drive or shared drive (open the email, click on FILE then SAVE AS), and then save any attachments to the same place.  There are also applications you can buy or download for free that handle this action.  b) or, at least in MS Office, you can create a .pst file that stores on your hard drive or shared drive, looks just like a folder in your mailbox, and you can store emails there just as you do in your regular mailbox.  Click on FILE, NEW, OUTLOOK DATA FILE.  (Get someone to help you if you have never used this, but after you've done it once it's easy.)  It doesn't usually "count against" your regular mailbox size limitations.  I use this for SENT MAIL since that's what usually kills my in-box size!  For example, SENT-2006, SENT-2007.
STANDARDIZE
1.  There's no one way to organize your folders.  I've seen success with folders by name of sender; week of the month; project name; etc.  A general rule of thumb is to have no more than 3 levels of folders for any one heading - unless you have a perfect memory.  But pick a system and stick with it.
2.  Corollary:  Most of us still use and receive paper in our jobs.  It's a lot easier to find things if your paper filing system matches your email folder structure, so when you try to find your hardcopy master project list for company A in region D related to Widget X, it's under the same paper file folder headings as you would find it if it had been sent electronically.  [Or, get with the new century and scan all documents into your computer, if you have access to a scanner!]
SUSTAIN
1.  Pick a slower-than-usual week, like a holiday week.  Set aside a couple of hours to go through your emails and see what you can archive - what you can discard - what you can file more appropriately.  The investment of time is well worth it.
There are usually many other options in each email system, such as assigning categories to emails or flagging them with various colored flags, that you can delve into as well.
However, the steps above have been helpful for me.  Do any of you have equally effective methods of taming the in-box jungle?  Please share!]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Sue Kozlowski]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Lean&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Mon, 01 Sep 2008 05:56:05 -0800</pubDate>
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			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Small Change Big Impact]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/small_change_big_impact.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[Across the globe food prices are rising rapidly. The potential causes are many including big ticket issues like rising demand in emerging markets, oil prices, bio fuels, trade tariffs, global warming, population growth and tight supplies. With all that lot stacked-up its no wonder that prices are going up. Big problems call for big solutions and we have innovations such as GM technology and global cooperation coming to the fore.
But just how efficient is the value-chain of food production? How much waste is built into the process? 
Here in the UK, a recent study by Waste &amp; Resources Action Programme estimated that one third of food people buy is thrown away unused. The report makes incredible reading and examples of annual waste include 1.2 million sausages &amp; 4.4 million apples. This inflates the cost of food as more has to be produced to compensate for the waste.
What kind of improvement could we get if we just ate what we bought? 
Another example is the European Union’s food quality standards that specify the dimensions that fruit &amp; vegetables must reach in order to be class one. Hence if it’s out of spec it doesn’t get through. The food is not dirty, rotten or diseased just misshapen. Luckily these rules are planned to be rolled-back as commented by an EU spokesperson, “People are saying that prices are too high, it makes no sense to be chucking food away. We want to have two classes, allowing supermarkets to sell funny shaped vegetables”. It’s just another form of waste. I have no figures on how much is lost in this part of the value-chain.
I noticed a recent example in the US election. There was talk about how to solve demand for oil and the need to start drilling offshore. Barack Obama comes in with “keep your tyres correctly inflated”. Not sure on the math but throw in cars with better mileage and I would guess its going to have an impact.
The point is it’s just the same in business; there are always the low-hanging fruit (and veg?). Start by doing the big easy wins that cut unnecessary waste. In general they are not particularly radical but can have dramatic outcomes.]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Robin Barnwell]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Change Management&nbsp;,&nbsp;General&nbsp;,&nbsp;Lean]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Mon, 18 Aug 2008 13:54:30 -0800</pubDate>
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			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Dirty Socks]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/dirty_socks.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[I have heard people say that once you have experienced the power of Lean Six Sigma that you will never be the same.  I can vouch for that.  Process thinking and waste elimination will begin to infiltrate every part of your life - including how you do laundry.  I never thought of laundry as a ’process’ but after watching my husband do laundry, I realized that batch processing was prevalent in our house.  Some of it I can deal with - at least the part where you collect laundry, put it through a wash cycle and load it in the dryer.  It’s the batch processing of laundry after it has dried that needed to be addressed. 
 
Here’s how my husband does it.  Once the laundry is dry, he first hangs up the shirts.  Next he unloads the remaining clean laundry in a basket and takes it upstairs where he places the basket on the floor next to the bed.  It can sit here for hours or sometimes days.  Next he picks things out of the basket and sorts them into piles on the bed (kid’s clothes, towels, etc).   Next he goes to each pile and folds the pile and stacks it on the bed.  Finally he takes the stack to the final location and either puts it away or leaves it sitting on the kid’s bed for them to put away (right - like that ever happens).   Taa-daa, the laundry is finally done. From dry to final location the laundry was batched up to four times and could take up to three days.
Being the process excellence zealot that I am, I advised him that changing his process to incorporate the concept of "one-piece-flow" would be much more efficient.  For example, here’s my process.  Get an item out of the dryer fold it and put it in the basket organized by where it needs to go.  When complete, walk the basket up the back stairs making stops along the way - putting things in their place.  I have cut the process down to one batch and have achieved a cycle time of 12 minutes.  
After my husband told me what I could do with my ’one-piece-flow’, he proceeded to batch the laundry.  So what are the lessons learned?
1.  One-piece-flow can drastically reduce cycle time
2.  Cultural change is at the root of all efficiency gains
3.  Batch processing is still better than having dirty socks!
 ]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Gianna Clark]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Lean]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Mon, 21 Jul 2008 05:50:24 -0800</pubDate>
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			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Take me out to the Gemba]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/take_me_out_to_the_gemba.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[By popular demand, words to an old favorite tune that you can use while watching the Major League Baseball All-Star Game, at the Seventh-Inning Stretch:
Take me out to the Gemba
Take me out to the flow!
Find me a Value Stream I can track
I don't want waste to ever come back!
For it's root, root, root out the defects,
Reduce variation even more,
For it's 1-2-3-4-5-6 Sigma we want
On the old shop floor!
 
(With apologies to Jack Norworth who wrote the original words in 1908, and with thanks to Albert Von Tilzer who wrote the tune!)
 ]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Sue Kozlowski]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Lean]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Mon, 07 Jul 2008 15:35:41 -0800</pubDate>
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			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: The  Lean Six Sigma All-Star Game]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/the_lean_six_sigma_all_star_game.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[As you may know, if you're a baseball fan, Major League Baseball is holding its All-Star Game on July 15 at Yankee Stadium.
You may also know that you can create your own "fantasy" baseball team, on-line, by selecting players and assigning them to your team.  Then, as the statistics build up week after week, the organizers compile the results and figure out who has the best team roster and therefore the best record in stats and games won.
Now, I think we could have a kind of fantasy all-star game of our own, based on outstanding Lean and Six Sigma accomplishments.  What do you think?
THE STARTING LINE-UP
1 Pitcher:  Taiichi Ohno
2 Catcher:  Shigeo Shingo
3 First Base:  Eiji Toyoda
4 Second Base:  Sakichi Toyoda
5 Third Base: Kiichro Toyoda
6 Shortstop:  Genichi Taguchi
7 Left Field:  Bill Smith
8 Center Field:  Jack Welch
9 Right Field:  Bob Galvin
Designated Hitter:  Henry Ford
Manager:  W, Edwards Deming
I'd be interested in hearing whether you'd like any other "team members" to play on your all-star roster!]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Sue Kozlowski]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[General&nbsp;,&nbsp;History&nbsp;,&nbsp;Lean]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Mon, 23 Jun 2008 15:17:43 -0800</pubDate>
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			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Educational]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/educational.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[I had the privilege recently of helping to teach lean to a group of university leaders.  I had great fun assisting with the first day of class, when we introduced basic lean concepts.  However, when my instructing partner and I looked at our plus-deltas from the day (comments about what the participants valued, and what we should change), there were some sticky-notes saying "too much material" and "went too fast" and "too much to remember."  Even though we had paced the day rather slowly, as I thought, it caused us to wonder whether we needed to restructure the day - or had we just not taught effectively?
On the second day, we got into Value Stream Mapping.  As we went through the material, topics from Day 1 kept popping up, as you would expect.  By repeating the concepts and giving specific, education-based examples, we were able to build a lot of momentum around the purpose and usefulness of Value Stream Mapping.  The plus-deltas on Day 2 showed that most people enjoyed putting the concepts to work around real-life examples.
By Day 3, when we used examples of frustrating processes to create Future State maps, the group was in full swing.  They were coming up with so many ideas to remove waste and reduce delays and hand-offs, that we were hard-pressed to keep them from going right out and implementing their suggestions.  ("Wait, you don't have enough feedback from the front-line workers yet!!!  Remember, it's JUST an exercise!!!")  The evaluation included many "plusses" and only a few "deltas."
What made the difference?  We introduced just as many new concepts the first day as we did the second and the third.  But by incorporating the tools that we'd already introduced, as we brought up new ones, we gave the group practice in "trying on" the lean approach in different ways, and finally we let them loose on real-life examples.
This experience made it clear to me that I shouldn't be judgmental when people need to hear things more than once, in order to incorporate and integrate the concepts.  I've seen many learners become anxious when they're overwhelmed with new terminology; but on the other hand, there are always some "drivers" in the audience who aren't satisfied unless you're covering each slide in about 30 seconds.  It's interesting that each group seems to have its own pace of learning.  In the educators' group, we may have gone a little too fast at first, but then they hit their stride on the second and third days.  It was fun to watch the light bulbs turn on and the enthusiasm kick in!
As usual, for every day that I'm giving instruction, I learn just about as much as I teach.  Hooray for the educational process!]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Sue Kozlowski]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Lean&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Mon, 16 Jun 2008 17:18:49 -0800</pubDate>
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			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Do the Public Policy Guru's get it?]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/do_the_public_policy_gurus_get_it.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[Lean government is making public sector inroads through out the US.  It is exciting to see this.  But I am worried.  Some managers seem to see it as a weapon, rather than a tool.   “The legislature is making us more accountable so we have to do something or else”.   “Do more with less”.  “Cut staff so we can lower the budget”.  These attitudes have nothing to do with lean government and everything to do with poor public policy. 
It is important for Lean process analysis to gain some better more understandable public recognition.  This needs to be done by not only the Champions, and Managers but more importantly practitioners who understand public policy language.  The facts show that lean process analysis and implementation can make a difference between a well run efficient and value laden government service and a wasteful bureaucratic mess. 
Are any candidates listening?
 ]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Stephen C. Crate]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Government&nbsp;,&nbsp;Lean]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Sat, 31 May 2008 05:09:53 -0800</pubDate>
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			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: To QFD or C &amp; E when defining the VOC]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/to_qfd_or_c_amp_e_when_defining_the_voc.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[For defining the 'VOC' (Voice of the Customer), I typically use a QFD (Quality Factor Diagram) -- Of recent, I have found that QFD's can be hard to understand for some, while even more painful for belts to explain to others. 
If you find this to be the case, there are 3 tools used sequentially that can arrive at a similar answer: 

Start wtih an affinity grouping diagram - This approach will help to logically group the world of potential answers you get while interviewing folks in your company. It will also help to keep the lens of the customer's value proposition with your company on during your analysis. Two that wash to the top, for example, are website experience &amp; customer service operators. 
Those groupings can be used as two of the bones of a fishbone diagram (aka cause and effect diagram) - They are synonymous to Manpower and Machinery, two traditional bones of the diagram, if you think about it in terms of the 6 M's. Website experience is a machine, and call center operators would equate to Man. Once you populate all of the drivers or inputs (or x's) that affect a customer's value proposition when they use the website or call into the call center on the fishbone, along with the other 4 bones: Methods(Process), Mother Nature(Environment), Measurements and Materials (tools to do their job), you will most likely notice a commonality between the smaller bones under each heading. For example, under website experience, Manpower (Agents, in our example), you might see inputs like training, administration/support procedures and computer response latency, which are affecting their ability to service the customer. I would expect to see computer response latency under Machinery as well. Likewise, I would expect to see administration/support procedures under Methods as well.
Use those sub-bones that show up the most for fill in the next step which is to apply a cause and effect matrix, to help simplistically drive a stack ranked priority based on relative importance of each output and factor (input) to your business. In my opinion, tt is a poor man's way of extrapolating some of the same benefits that using a QFD would provide while not completing confusing the folks who are trying to distill information from the results set. ]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Laura Gibbons]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Lean]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Thu, 15 May 2008 12:40:31 -0800</pubDate>
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			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: House, M.D.]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/house_md.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[While flipping around the channels a while ago, I happened to catch an episode of "House."  This show, for those unfamiliar with it, features a physician in a hospital setting.  He's faced with patients who have complex and puzzling disease conditions that he must diagnosis in order to save their lives.  I was intrigued, at first.
But after watching a few episodes, I found the plot of each episode to be similar.  House is confronted with a patient who has puzzling symptoms.  He guesses one diagnosis, and makes his residents do all kinds of diagnostic tests.  Sometimes he treats on the basis of his presumptive diagnosis, and this can lead to complications.  Then, when the first guess doesn't prove correct, he makes another guess and has his residents do lots more diagnostic testing, sometimes invasive.  Again, presumptive treatment may result in adverse effects.  When the puzzle still isn't solved, he tries a third time and (you guessed it) after further diagnostic tests, he hits on the correct solution and now can give the patient the treatment they've needed all along.
This may make for compelling medical drama, but I hope my own physician has a better diagnostic track record than House seems to have.
Upon reflection, I realized that it reminded me about how we improved our business processes before we started to use Lean and Six Sigma.  Often, the leader would guess at what was wrong with a process, come up with a solution, write the memo, and then be surprised when the expected improvement didn't appear.  Sometimes, the process became even less effective.  Then, it was "back to the drawing board" and another solution from the mind of the leader would get published as a memo.  And so on.
I am very happy to have learned a more  effective method for facilitating change in the business (in my case, healthcare) environment.  With leadership commitment, engagement of the front-line workers and stakeholders, setting targets according to the customer's CTQs, analyzing the process in order to create solutions, and using statistical process control to sustain the gains, we can produce positive change that gets the organization closer to where it needs to be to remain competitive.
Will anybody ever pitch a drama to the networks that uses a Lean / Six Sigma Black Belt as its protagonist?  But then, it's not very dramatic to show someone following a proven methodology to create streamlined, effective processes, is it???]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Sue Kozlowski]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Lean&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management&nbsp;,&nbsp;Methodology]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Thu, 20 Mar 2008 12:57:46 -0800</pubDate>
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			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: ASQ CSSBB]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/asq_cssbb.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[In January I looked through the ASQ body of knowledge (BoK) for Black Belt and said to myself, “I know most of this stuff now”. So put in my entry and passed the Mar’08 exam. I thought I would share the experience, as I believe a number of practitioners may have looked at the ASQ exam. Get a good foundationI reviewed the ASQ exam a couple of years ago and concluded I did not have the experience to guarantee a pass. So waited until I had delivered the projects, trained the Black Belts and invested my spare time in learning the tools. After all this I decided I had the right foundations in place. ASQ recommend three-years work experience and that seems about right.
Find what you don’t knowReading through the BoK and doing the sample exam I identified clear areas of weakness. Coming from a Transactional background, there were manufacturing areas I had never covered in particular around Measurement Systems and Design of Experiments.
Invest the time in preparationI went through every section of the BoK. Be ready for set-piece questions that require calculating from equations, things like confidence intervals and probability. If you are used to having Minitab do the work, practice doing the equations. I invested in the QCI Exam CD and although I found some of the questions infuriatingly ambiguous it does help.
On the dayThe exam is open book and covers 150 questions over 4 hours so it’s a bit of a slog. I found my collection of books &amp; materials were good enough and included Six Sigma, Lean, DFSS, Statistics and quick-reference books. I found I needed to refer to all of these during the exam.
Next StepsI found the brief review of the industry greats, Deming, Juran, Ohno &amp;Taguchi whet my appetite and am keen to learn more. Now I have covered the BoK I am ready to move on and am looking now at understanding the big-picture stuff like strategy planning, target operating model and other related areas
Good luck if you are planning to gain ASQ, let me know if any questions.]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Robin Barnwell]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[General&nbsp;,&nbsp;Lean&nbsp;,&nbsp;Methodology]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Fri, 14 Mar 2008 09:46:33 -0800</pubDate>
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			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Achieving Lean]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/achieving_lean.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[There's a great quote from Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night" that I was thinking of today, in relation to how we teach lean.  The character Malvolio says, "Be not afraid of greatness.  Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon 'em."
So, with apologies to Will...
"Some are born lean, some achieve lean, and some have lean thrust upon 'em."
When our organization started to explore lean methods, we were informed that we would learn by doing.  No classes!  (That sure felt like having lean "thrust upon us" at the time.)  The Toyota way is to teach lean as an integral part of the job, as the tasks are learned.  In our situation, since we weren't "born lean," our sensei taught us tools and concepts throughout the first Rapid Improvement Event.  When we asked how we could learn to lead events ourselves, we were told that we would have to do hundreds of events before we could consider ourselves to be senseis.
Well, I confess - we didn't listen.  We incorporated lean concepts and tools into our classes and taught our leaders lean right along with Six Sigma.  We even renamed our Green Belts as Lean Green Belts.  We started running our own events and had many successes - some failures, but with overall effectiveness.
So although we weren't born lean, we seem to have figured out how to work toward achieving lean.
The question that I'm pondering is, how do other organizations approach this issue?  Do you teach lean concepts and tools to your employees in a classroom setting?  Or do you espouse the "learn-by-doing" philosophy?  I'm interested to find out what has worked for you.]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Sue Kozlowski]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Lean&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Wed, 12 Mar 2008 17:18:50 -0800</pubDate>
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			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Lean?  or Mean?]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/lean_or_mean.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[I was privileged to speak at a conference in San Francisco last weekend, sponsored by the American Society for Clinical Pathology.  The topics focused on leadership in the clinical (medical) laboratory.  After giving a presentation on 6S, I served as a panel member for questions submitted from the audience.  One of the questions asked, "What can we do when our leadership tells us we have to do Lean Six Sigma so we can cut employees from the payroll?"
Our panel, in an unrehearsed answer, all chimed in:  "That's not Lean, that's Mean!!!"
Although some hospitals have been using Lean and Six Sigma for the past several years, it's still relatively new in healthcare.  With the threat of decreasing reimbursements from national and private healthcare insurers, and increasing demand for services, you might think lean was a natural fit for improving quality while decreasing costs.  However, there were many at the conference who had experience of consultants offering to prove that they could use Lean and/or Six Sigma to decrease "the payroll burden."  In those cases, quality seemed to take a back seat to so-called productivity.
Now, my lean training didn't come directly from a Toyota sensei, but I've been informed that, at Toyota, the Toyota Production System is not used to generate layoffs; that the employees who are no longer needed in a certain part of the organization are redeployed, with some becoming dedicated to full-time quality/process improvement.
Can I ask our expert readers to weigh in on this?  What should our response be, when confronted by consultants who sell Lean (and Six Sigma) as a way to cut the payroll?  Or am I hopelessly naive, in today's environment, to think that we can retain "respect for people" as an aspect of any process improvement methodology?]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Sue Kozlowski]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Lean&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Wed, 05 Mar 2008 14:02:50 -0800</pubDate>
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			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Is a Wait Always a Waste???]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/is_a_wait_always_a_waste.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[In healthcare, we are definitely trying to speed things up for our patients.  Billboards around our area (and maybe, around the country) promise 30 minute door-to-doc time in their Emergency Departments (EDs).  One promises no waiting to be seen by a healthcare professional!  Mini-offices are springing up in chain pharmacies, promising no waiting for minor problems.  One health system promises a "money-back" guarantee if you have an "excessive wait time."
But there are still some things in healthcare that you have to wait for, with good reason.  When you receive a medication, sometimes you have to wait for it to take effect.  If you receive a breathing treatment, it may take awhile to breathe a little easier.  When you have surgery, you usually have to wait for some healing to occur before you are sent home - even if everything else is ready for the patient to be discharged and all other medical tasks have been completed.
In these cases, the waiting periods can't be made faster - they're processes, but not processes over which we have control.  When mapping these timeframes in a lean value stream map, are they automatically wastes?  Or something else?
In the automotive industry, it takes a certain amount of time for paint to dry, but you can work on faster-drying paint.  When you are working on a process that has a wait time required for a patient to heal up, should you just skip over that part and work on a different part of the value stream?I'd like to know your thoughts on that matter, and thanks in advance for helping to clarify my thinking!]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Sue Kozlowski]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Lean&nbsp;,&nbsp;Methodology]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Tue, 19 Feb 2008 14:31:47 -0800</pubDate>
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			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Ron Pereira, One Piece Flow Video]]></title>
			<link>http://www.sixsigmacompanies.com/archive/ron_pereira_one_piece_flow_video.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[LSS Academy’s Ron Pereira goes live with his first vlog (video blog).  In this video Ron walks us through a "one piece flow" versus "mass production" simulation to show differences between the two approaches.  

Today with his first vlog, Ron also relaunched Lean Six Sigma Academy with the added functionality of a web 2.0 site. Take a minute to visit and see what Ron’s been up to.  ]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Michael Marx]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Guest Blog&nbsp;,&nbsp;Lean]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Mon, 18 Feb 2008 14:54:41 -0800</pubDate>
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			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Banking on Risk]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/banking_on_risk.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[Reacting to the last several months of turmoil in the capital markets, I want to discuss an area where Lean Six Sigma professionals who work in banking and financial services should focus their attention, acquire new skills, and start having an impact – enterprise risk.
A couple of years ago, one of my former colleagues investigated the contribution of Lean Six Sigma to shareholder value at a small group of well-known banks.  He researched public statements by these companies to quantify their self-attributed savings.  He then developed a crude expected shareholder value multiplier based on price-to-earnings ratio.  Multiplying self-attributed savings, which he assumed flow to the bottom line, by the shareholder value multiplier led my former colleague to conclude that Lean and Six Sigma created at least $4-6 billion in shareholder value for these banks.
Conventional wisdom leads me to believe that recent turmoil in the credit markets wiped out these gains.  The stock prices of many investment banks, asset managers, commercial banks, mortgage finance companies, monolines, and other major participants in structured finance are trading new two-year lows.  While each firm and industry segment has its own unique issues, weak risk management is a common storyline.
Looking ahead to the trends for 2008 and 2009, strengthening risk management practices is an imperative and a mammoth challenge for banking and financial services companies and their executives.  The global interconnectedness, complexity and volatility of capital markets necessitate a holistic, innovative approach.  Conventional practices do not stand up to the challenges in 2008 and beyond.
Exogenous Pressure
Curing the current ills will depend on fortifying balance sheets, and regulatory intervention will increase the pressure on business and operating models.  Banking and financial services firms can look forward to:

Economic uncertainty: Recent economic data and interest rate cuts by the Federal Reserve Bank in the U.S. indicate an economic slowdown has begun.  Its severity and duration cannot be predicted, but banks will feel the effects of a lingering mortgage-market crisis, rising consumer credit defaults, and disruptions affecting commercial lending, structured finance products, and securitization.  Some forecasters predict future shocks, such as a decline in commodity prices or downturn in commercial lending, that further threaten banks. 
Capital boosting and cost cutting: In response to economic pressures, banking and financial services executives will continue to seek capital to fortify their balance sheets, increase their safety and soundness, and weather the economic downturn.  Many banks will pursue cost savings as part of restructuring operations, becoming more efficient, or both.  Cost cutting may be mild or severe, if a bank is facing adverse circumstances like insolvency. 
Increasing regulatory scrutiny: Regulatory are reacting to the turn of events in the capital markets in 2007.  Scrutiny of capital adequacy, liquidity, credit risk, and management practices will pick up.  Supervisory actions and matters requiring board attention will grow in number.  Contingency planning and quality assurance for safety and soundness will receive new attention, as regulators push banks to find and adopt industry best practices that safeguard against future crises. 
Questions about information and systems for risk management: Over the last decade, many firms began initiatives to implement systems that address credit, financial, and operational risk, as well as compliance with laws and regulations.  Broadly speaking, these systems are designed to ensure compliance failures are prevented or detected and managed.  The capability of these systems – looking at risk through an integrative lens – may be called into question.  Banks may be required to rethink their information systems strategies and redesign their applications for managing risk.  Likewise, information asymmetries in the capital markets may receive new attention, leading firms to question what they thought they know about collateral underlying securities, concentration risk, economic and valuation models, and accounting practices. 
Investigations, lawsuits and jawboning in the town square: The effects of mortgage defaults, credit-card delinquencies, public outcries about banking practices, stock-price volatility, and growing losses foretell banks facing a new wave of investigations by state attorneys general, shareholder lawsuits, and pressure from consumer advocates.  Stories in the press bear this out.  The open question is how loud and deafening the trends will be over the next two years.
My own background has convinced me of the need to extend the disciplines of Lean Six Sigma to processes for creating governance structures, compliance monitoring, and managing operational risk.  Perhaps banks will benefit from a higher degree of knowledge integration (e.g., transplanting gauge methods to credit risk management). 
Endogenous Defense Starts with Dialogue and Knowledge
In many respects, the current state of banking and financial services is the product of thousands of decisions about risk taking.  Clearly, reward seeking won out, and we now face a period of living through the consequences of risks not being properly managed.  Lean and Six Sigma are proven tools for optimizing reward by eliminating waste, creating capacity, and reducing variation.  Resilience and reliability are a new frontier for Lean and Six Sigma, and the focus is squarely on transforming how risk is managed.
How Lean and Six Sigma contribute to the field of risk management is a story waiting to be told.  For starters, I encourage Lean Six Sigma professionals to build the relationships, internal networks, and critical mass necessary to transplant their best practices to the risk management and compliance functions at banks and financial services firms.  In conjunction, I recommend seeking new knowledge about relevant aspects of credit, financial and operational risk, as well as regulatory trends that will weigh heavily on operating models and expenses.
Lean and Six Sigma is a knowledge-based profession, and its value comes from connecting best practices to problems, so performance can be improved.  Clearly, for banks and financial services firms, enterprise risk is a huge problem to be solved in 2008.]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Charles McKinney]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Buzz/Press&nbsp;,&nbsp;Change Management&nbsp;,&nbsp;Customer Satisfaction&nbsp;,&nbsp;General&nbsp;,&nbsp;History&nbsp;,&nbsp;Innovation&nbsp;,&nbsp;Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Lean&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management&nbsp;,&nbsp;Research]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Sun, 17 Feb 2008 10:45:47 -0800</pubDate>
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			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: &quot;Someone Didn't Care Enough To Be Right&quot;]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/someone_didnt_care_enough_to_be_right.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[I opened this morning’s USA Today while on the road, and was struck by this story. It details how a simple clerial error on the part of a pharmacy technician resulted in wrong dosage instructions - "As Needed" rather than "4 pills, 2 times per day" - and a fatal overdose for a Florida man. 
The man took 22 pain pills in a 36 hour period.
Clearly there are numerous points of failure in this story, as well as the entire drug dispensing process. The article does go into many of the process factors at play in the incident, as well as the various error-proofing techniques pharmacies are now using to prevent errors from happening. 
But what continues to trouble me is the recurring theme that the workers involved didn’t care enough. I have no reason to believe that the pharmacist and pharmacy tech did not give their "best efforts" - but as Deming tells us, something more is needed. (Interestingly, the commentors on the story cite problems throughout the process, not just the pharmacy tech’s mistake.)
So readers, what more is needed? Post your thoughts in the comments section.]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[James Considine]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Lean&nbsp;,&nbsp;Methodology]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Wed, 13 Feb 2008 07:17:13 -0800</pubDate>
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			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: A quality bubble?]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/a_quality_bubble.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[Gianna Clark notes that several hundred companies began their Six Sigma journeys about seven years ago. 
Is Six Sigma the quality equivalent of a stock market bubble? Are we cheerleaders of an irrational exuberance where performance economics do not match the hype we create? Is Six Sigma on the verge of becoming the next TQM - run over by advances in technology and easier approaches to improving performance? ]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Charles McKinney]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Buzz/Press&nbsp;,&nbsp;Change Management&nbsp;,&nbsp;Conferences&nbsp;,&nbsp;Customer Satisfaction&nbsp;,&nbsp;General&nbsp;,&nbsp;Government&nbsp;,&nbsp;Guest Blog&nbsp;,&nbsp;History&nbsp;,&nbsp;Innovation&nbsp;,&nbsp;Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Lean&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management&nbsp;,&nbsp;Methodology&nbsp;,&nbsp;Podcasts&nbsp;,&nbsp;Research]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Sat, 12 Jan 2008 12:32:57 -0800</pubDate>
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			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Downgrading the applicability of Six Sigma]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/downgrading_the_applicability_of_six_sigma.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[In a recent blog at Harvard Business School Press Online, Tom Davenport challenges the applicability of Six Sigma. You can read his post at http://discussionleader.hbsp.com/davenport/. 
Coming from anyone else, a statement that Six Sigma "should only be used in product manufacturing, where the idea of reducing defects to one in six standard deviations really makes sense" might be dismissed out of hand. But Davenport has credibility as an expert on business process management and information technology.
Perhaps he’s right, and Six Sigma should be viewed as one among several toolkits to embed statistical methods and scientific thinking in managerial practices.]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Charles McKinney]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Buzz/Press&nbsp;,&nbsp;General&nbsp;,&nbsp;Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Lean&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management&nbsp;,&nbsp;Methodology&nbsp;,&nbsp;Research]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Sat, 12 Jan 2008 12:21:54 -0800</pubDate>
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			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: 5S in Translation]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/5s_in_translation.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[5S is one of the foundation concepts of lean.  The Japanese originals were:  Seiri, Seiton, Seiso, Seiketsu, Shetsuke.  (Additional S's such as Safety or Security are sometimes added.)  I did a quick survey on-line to see what variations are out there.

Sort - Straighten - Scrub - Standardize - Sustain
Separate - Sort - Shine - Schedule - Self Discipline
Sort Out - Straighten - Spic&amp;Span - Systematize - Sustain
Sorting - Simplify - Systematic Cleaning - Standards - Sustaining
And the non-alliterative translations:

Housekeeping - Workplace Organization - Cleanup - Cleanliness - Discipline
Organization - Orderliness - Cleanliness - Standardized Cleanup - Discipline
Put things in order - Proper arrangement - Clean - Purity - Commitment
Tidiness - Orderliness - Cleanliness - Standardization - Discipline
Clearing up - Organizing - Cleaning - Standardizing - Self Discipline
Disposal - Arrangement - Cleanliness-System Methodology-Disciplined Culture
And the related 5C's (from Wikipedia):

Cleanout &amp; Classify - Configure - Clean &amp; Check - Conformity - Custom and Practice
And of course, there are Anti-5S acronyms as well:

Scrounge, Steal, Stash, Scramble, and Search
Stagnate, Scatter, Sandbag, Scapegoat, and Sabotage
We know it really doesn't matter what phrase we use, as long as we actually follow the 5S principles!  Do you use a different translation for 5S?  It would be interesting to see other variants!
[Note:  The preferred spelling of Shetsuke has an "i" as its third letter, but the editing software substituted @#$% for the first syllable when I spelled it that way!]]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Sue Kozlowski]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[General&nbsp;,&nbsp;Lean]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Tue, 18 Dec 2007 08:09:48 -0800</pubDate>
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			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Eco-efficiency at the server farm]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/eco_efficiency_at_the_server_farm.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[In his Rough Type blog, Nicholas Carr -- contrarian author of the book, Does IT Matter? -- comments on Microsoft's plans to build a data center in Siberia and upcoming completion of the world's largest data center in Chicago.  Construction of these facilities costs hundreds of millions of dollars, and each will hold tends of thousands of servers.  Microsoft's Chicago data center will employ only 35 to 50 people.  Apparently, climate in Chicago and Siberia were prominent in these sites being selected because their colder weather makes it cheaper to cool the data center equipment.  Large server farms built for environmental efficiency and staffed by just a few people -- is green physical and virtual platform design a new frontier for Design for Six Sigma?  Microsoft is a big proponent of Lean Six Sigma.]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Charles McKinney]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Buzz/Press&nbsp;,&nbsp;General&nbsp;,&nbsp;Innovation&nbsp;,&nbsp;Lean]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Mon, 26 Nov 2007 18:25:08 -0800</pubDate>
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			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Elevating strategic relevance: Understand and inform strategy implementation]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/elevating_strategic_relevance_understand_and_inform_strategy_implementation.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[My last blog discussed elevating the strategic relevance of Lean, Six Sigma and process excellence.  My view is that mature Process Excellence Organizations enjoy or achieve credibility and success by executing a flexible performance-improvement process—attacking the top priorities, employing the best tools, selecting the right projects and leveraging organizational momentum.  The first thing mature Process Excellence Organizations do well is informing strategy setting and implementation (beginning with their own understanding of their enterprise’s strategy).
The most successful process improvement professionals are proactive rather than reactive about understanding and discussing strategy.  Executive level process excellence leaders share in common an understanding of the competitive position of their companies, options to shape competitiveness, and critical factors for success.  Further, these individuals understand the mechanics of a strategic management process and dynamics of organizational behavior that affect managerial commitment to change, execution against a plan, and responsiveness to opportunities and threats.
Positioning of the Process Excellence Organization determines its access to inform strategy setting and implementation.  Commitment from the COO to deploy best practices, for example, is more likely to result in Lean and Six Sigma becoming strategic levers, embedded in an organization’s culture and practice, than localized, bottom-up advocacy by a business unit executive, shared services leader or plant manager.  Yet unless market pressure, a crisis or some other impetus motivates a senior executive team to broadly rely on Lean and Six Sigma, Process Excellence Organizations must demonstrate credibility through their recommendations to improve performance and their track record of delivering returns to their companies.
Lean and Six Sigma professionals may ask how they are to shape strategy setting and implementation, if they lack access to regularly advise and influence senior leaders at their companies—the CEO, COO, CFO and especially the senior vice presidents in charge of business units, operations and technology.  Starting from their current base of deployment, Process Excellence Organizations should position themselves to identify and focus on strategically aligned opportunities for Lean and Six Sigma.
My assertion may not be fruitful in bureaucratic organizations—such as government institutions where the pace of change is slow, and status quo prevails.  At other companies the Process Excellence Organization can influence strategy. There is the annual planning cycle, where Lean and Six Sigma can inform the definition of change initiatives and funding of these projects, as well as progressive reduction of sales, general and administrative expenses.  Second, Process Excellence Organizations can bring a unique perspective to dialogue about longer-term strategies and programs.
Process Excellence Organizations can influence strategy because the strategic decision-making is ambiguous, dynamic and often chaotic.  Academics frame strategic planning as a formal process of answering three questions: (1) What does the business do?  (2) Form whom does it do these things?  (3) How does the business excel?  And the process has stages: evaluating the current situation, defining goals, mapping a route to achieve these goals, and monitoring implementation.  In a formal sense, the stages of strategic planning are not unlike the Deming lifecycle of planning, doing, studying and acting.  In practice, though, strategic planning is a communicative process, and strategies emerge from the habits and behaviors of organizations and their managers.  Executive dialogue, shareholder concerns, customer interactions, supplier dynamics, labor relations, information technologies, managerial fads all interact to form the content of strategy and direction of execution.
As an aside, I encourage anyone interested in sociological and behavioral approaches to strategy to look into research focusing on strategy as practice.  Over the last three decades, strategy research has tended to focus increasingly on organizational strategies as opposed to the activities of people in organizations as they define, elaborate, and implement strategies.  In contrast, strategy as practice is concerned with issues of practice within organizational contexts.  Lancaster University’s Management School is a good source of information about strategy as practice.
Start with the basics
Much is written about Lean and Six Sigma as tools for cost reduction.  More recently, the exploits of Starwood, Procter and Gamble, Capital One, and others highlight their relevance to innovation.  In terms of basic strategies, companies have three options, according to Michael Porter and others: low-cost production, differentiation, or some combination of the two.
Low cost production is a familiar paradigm among Lean and Six Sigma professionals in manufacturing, consumer products, healthcare, retail and service, and financial services industries.  Every industry has its favorite measures of efficiency: funding costs as a percentage of portfolio size for a mutual fund, percent of seats sold per airline flight, gross margin for product categories, etc.  Lean and Six Sigma professionals are familiar with the notion that reducing defects or eliminating cycle time can improve operating metrics, and these metrics contribute to the enablers of low cost production (e.g., economies of scale).
Differentiation is less familiar, especially for those of us who have focused on reducing variance of a distribution instead of shifting a mean.  Innovation is one way to differentiate.  Apple Computer is the most interesting, popular case study of innovation in the business literature today.  Another example is Proctor and Gamble’s shared services business unit.  After four years of successful cost cutting, Proctor and Gamble is now focused on managing its shared services as a business—figuring that exploiting core competencies in brand management and aligning delivery with marketing strategies can create sources of differentiation.  Whereas efficient production and processes are appropriable, strategies of differentiation are hard to craft and implement.
Corporate strategies are never as simple as low cost production or differentiation.  Rather, they emerge from the structures, habits and power in industries and at companies.  A few companies do well at managing strategy.  Most other are stuck in the middle—including companies with a significant investment in Lean and Six Sigma training and deployment.
A process excellence paradox highlights why understanding strategy is important—starting with the basics to develop a perspective on an enterprise’s current competitive position and future outlook.  The paradox goes something like this: Lean and Six Sigma have potential to raise any company to industry leader status, but too often returns on investing in process excellence are measured in six and seven figures instead of payback multiples greater than 20:1.  Pulling process excellence out of a rut and companies ahead in their industry has to be an exercise in strategic execution.
Institute disciplines to understand strategy
Efforts to understand strategy need to be disciplined, more than informal or one-off conversations.  Depending on the potential of the process excellence organization, many tools are available to understand strategies and their implementation at companies.  If formalizing disciplines to understand strategy is new, my advice is to start with a brown-bag discussion of your company within the process excellence organization or among its professionals and key business partners.  Things to cover include the economics of your firm’s industry, the external environment in which your company operates, and the internal capabilities of your firm.
The discussion should focus on understanding current state and future direction of the company at three levels of strategy: enterprise, business units and functions.  Leverage of Lean and Six Sigma tools is most often part of functional strategies, such as a multiyear plan to transform the operations and technology of a company or expand plant infrastructure in an overseas location.  Finding opportunities to have strategic impact depends on plans for the company and its business units.
These discussions do not need to produce a specific deliverable, but should factor into deployment planning and performance measurement for process excellence.  A number of frameworks can assist strategy discussions and create segues to efforts to evangelize, measure and govern process excellence.  One of my favorites is McKinsey’s “Star” or “7S” framework because it offers a holistic context in which to examine strategy implementation.
Accumulate knowledge from staff and line functions
By signaling its interest in understanding strategy, process excellence organizations may accumulate sufficient knowledge of strategy from their own professionals, colleagues in business areas and executive sponsors.  In my experience, Lean and Six Sigma advocates are willing to share knowledge and generous with information.  Though it never hurts to cast a wide net for knowledge and reach out to unlikely sources.
 Here are a few places to look:

Strategic planning: Many large companies have a strategic planning function, and a Chief Strategy Officer is becoming fashionable.  Often staffed by ex-management consultants, strategic planning departments provide analysis and advice to senior management about competitive positioning of the company.  While these departments may guard their work, they can facilitate building mind share with senior executives.
Corporate development: If your company relies on mergers and acquisitions to grow and compete, the team in charge of corporate development may provide a forward-looking perspective on the company, and assist tactical positioning of the process excellence organization.  Post-acquisition integration is a driver of strategic risk, and this is an area where Lean and Six Sigma can add value.
Corporate planning, budgeting and finance: These functions manage the multiyear and annual process of budgeting for programs, initiatives and operations.  Corporate planning functions can provide information about the efficiency of the company and performance of internal firm capabilities (e.g., operating metrics and ratios).  Information from the corporate planning department can be instrumental and is often necessary to sell a deployment strategy and benefits tracking process to senior management.
Financial engineering and modeling: Not all companies employ financial engineers or utilize financial modeling outside the strategic planning department.  At banks, insurance companies and firms with complex balance sheets, financial engineering disciplines can provide knowledge about the esoteric aspects of corporate finance that impact financial health and shareholder value.  Expertise in corporate finance is a weakness for most process excellence organizations that plan to market Lean and Six Sigma to finance departments.
Market research: Market research departments review secondary data, conduct original studies, and use qualitative methods to understand market and customer requirements.  Their work is a sophisticated voice of customer process, so market research managers can provide unique information about how markets and customers perceive a company.  Obtaining input from the market research department can assist with framing your understanding of market-facing strategies and opportunities to improve customer-facing processes.
Information technology: In companies that rely on information (most organizations today), the information technology architecture, program management office and database administration functions can provide useful information about problems with technology that limit internal firm capabilities.  In my experience with Six Sigma, data quality is an overlooked area that holds real potential for having strategic impact on cost and customer satisfaction.
Internal audit: Internal audit departments have a deep understanding of internal capabilities gained from rotational audits of all parts of a company.  Reaching out to an internal audit director requires sensitivity to matters of professional independence.  An internal auditor’s perspective on planning and control systems can provide useful information about governance, risk and compliance constraints that will impact opportunity identification and project selection.
Human resources: Many human resources departments cover organizational development and performance management.  Human resources managers who specialize in these areas can provide useful information about how raising employee satisfaction, reducing turnover and generally improving human capital will boost company performance.
These are a few areas where conversations about strategy may yield unexpected insight.  When reaching out, it’s important to frame discussions with these areas.  Asking focused questions, gathering perspectives, and testing impressions of a company’s strategy are the right level for these discussions.  If opportunities for Lean and Six Sigma come up, capture them in a pipeline of future projects and carry forward the discussion to deployment when the time is right.
Inform strategy through ideas for process excellence
The most successful process excellence organizations guide themselves with a deployment plan and through a governance process.  Some companies charter a management committee to decide where to apply Lean and Six Sigma and monitor realization of benefits.  In addition to promoting rigorous project selection, formal governance offers a forum in which to discuss strategies and influence big decisions.  Process excellence organizations with a bottom-up or less formal structure may want to pitch senior executives on possibilities for the company – pilot projects that may lead to strategic initiatives or higher impact participation of Lean and Six Sigma in ongoing initiatives.
To prepare for these discussions, the process excellence organization needs to synthesize its understanding of the company’s strategy.  One approach is to prepare an aide memoir that documents the following:

Industry and company facts
Key financial and operating metrics
Industry facts and analysis
Assessment of internal firm capabilities
Overviews of key company strategies and initiatives
Opportunities for process excellence
Key success factors for deployment
An aide memoir can take on many forms, and it should guide marketing and governance of Lean and Six Sigma deployment within a company.  To prepare an aide memoir, opportunities for process excellence need to be defined and mapped to company strategies and initiatives.  In this respect, one purpose of an aide memoir is to serve as the foundation of a marketing plan.
Ideation of opportunities is perhaps the most critical and actionable part of understanding and informing strategy.  In my experience, the most successful process excellence organizations use tacit or explicit methods to define opportunities to further implementation of strategy through Lean, Six Sigma and other best practices.  One approach is to set aside time for brainstorming at key points after conversations about strategy with business partners in a company.  The purpose of these sessions is to creatively tackle problems facing the company where Lean and Six Sigma can add value.  Another is to use nominal group techniques to structure similar discussions and to conduct a concurrent review of project opportunities in the pipeline.
Informing strategy depends on ideas from the process excellence organization.  In fact, informing strategy is continuous, subconscious and played out through the marketing, selling, execution and measurement of Lean and Six Sigma projects.  Bringing opportunities to the project selection process that are informed by an understanding of corporate strategy will help the process excellence organization create mindshare with senior management and build credibility through its focus on solving the most relevant problems through Lean and Six Sigma.
The deployment plan is a cornerstone of execution by the process excellence organization.  My next blog will cover deployment, starting with the early activities of marketing and selling process excellence.]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Charles McKinney]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Change Management&nbsp;,&nbsp;Customer Satisfaction&nbsp;,&nbsp;General&nbsp;,&nbsp;Government&nbsp;,&nbsp;Innovation&nbsp;,&nbsp;Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Lean&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management&nbsp;,&nbsp;Methodology]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Sun, 25 Nov 2007 18:18:21 -0800</pubDate>
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			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Organizing Concepts]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/organizing_concepts.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[A conversation I regularly get into involves discussion of the difficulties encountered when deploying Six Sigma in an environment that is already saturated with other programs and toolsets. A majority percentage of the time the discussion is about deploying Six Sigma in an area where Lean is already well established, but there are many other variations out there.
Certainly it is possible to create conditions where Six Sigma plays nicely with other disciplines. First order combinations like Lean Sigma and its many variants are an example of this. So are higher order hybrids, like Design for Lean Six Sigma Using Triz. And from an intellectual perspective, there is a lot of appeal to this approach. If you think about it hard enough, there are significant synergies to be explored and interesting combinations to be leveraged.
But from a practical perspective, I’m not so sure. For my money, a significant amount of the value of a program like Six Sigma comes from its ability to function as an organizing concept. It gives the organization something to rally around. It crystallizes diverse thoughts and aligns what might otherwise be diverse efforts as improvement. Six Sigma has value simply as an excuse to get everyone thinking about problems in the same way. Diverse groups come together through training programs to have prolonged discussions about approaches to problem solving. Results (and lack thereof) start to get visibility. Executives take an interest. People on the shop floor get involved. Everyone goes on the journey together. Even if you don’t think that the content of Six Sigma is useful, the cohesion of thought and action it produces clearly has value.
The thing is, this is true of almost any program properly deployed. Lean will certainly do it. Numerous safety programs do it. Good business transformation initiatives do it. Implementation of major systems like SAP or Oracle do it. Assuming you can execute, the one thing you need to get this sort of benefit is a simple, compelling organizing concept. Or to put it more colloquially, you need an approach. The simpler and more persuasive, the better.
If you buy this line of thinking – that a large part of the value of any particular organizational program lies in the fact that it is a program at all, not in its content – then the question of how to deploy multiple overlapping programs becomes easy to answer. Don’t do it. If you already have an organization succeeding with Lean, don’t mess with it by deploying Six Sigma on top. You’ve got your organizing concept. Adding another program on top (or even worse, visibly switching to the new program from the old one) can do nothing but detract from that focus. Simpler is better in terms of rallying a group around a way of thinking, even if there really are synergies to be explored through more complicated approaches.
Don’t get me wrong – I’m not suggesting that new toolsets and approaches shouldn’t be added in over time, and that new techniques shouldn’t constantly be considered. But I am suggesting that moving too far away from an organizing concept that is already working well is a mistake to be avoided.]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Andrew Downard]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[General&nbsp;,&nbsp;Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Lean]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Thu, 08 Nov 2007 22:01:00 -0800</pubDate>
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			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: TWOL (The Wastes of Lean)]]></title>
			<link>http://www.sixsigmacompanies.com/archive/twol_the_wastes_of_lean.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[A common way to learn principles or tools is to associate a word as an acronym.  The seven/eight wastes of Lean is a great example of acronymic variation.  I’ve come across five different words invented to illustrate the wastes of Lean:
The iSixSigma dictionary uses the word DOTWIMP to list the seven wastes of Lean and TIM WOODS for the eight wastes.
Six Sigma Guy learns the eight wastes of lean from his co-worker as TO WISDOM and an article from the Lean Mining Network suggests WORMPIT as a way to remember the wastes.  
Another acronymous word for the eight wastes is DOWNTIME.
Is all this variation good?  If all you are going to do is memorize the acronyms...then the more there are the better.  Choose the one you like best and roll with it.  Any others acronyms out there for the 7/8 wastes of Lean?  Do share.]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Michael Marx]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Lean]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Mon, 17 Sep 2007 13:36:07 -0800</pubDate>
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		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Why Does This Keep Happening to Me?]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/why_does_this_keep_happening_to_me.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[An iSixSigma reader submitted the following article for publication on iSixSigma.com.  From time to time we receive excellent submissions such as this one, but they are just a bit too short for publishing to the website.  The iSixSigma Blogosphere, however, is the perfect place for these "mini" articles. 
By Johnny Welch (Originally posted on his blog.)
The unique demands on repairs, presented by the production environment, do not prevent us from revisiting the machine later and planning for a more permanent repair, if needed.
Likewise, we are not prevented -- and are again obligated -- to not only repair the problem, but to prevent the problem if at all possible. Just a few minutes of failure analysis can prevent hours of downtime later.
One of the Lean/Six Sigma tools that lends itself perfectly to this is the 5 Whys. By stating what happened, and continuing to ask why, we hope to arrive at the root cause of the problem. (Even though it is called the Five Whys, we only need to use as many as are necessary to arrive at the root.)
For example: “We had half of an hour downtime because we had to replace a sensor.”

Why? — because the sensor failed. 
Why? — because it had a crack in the casing. 
Why? — because it is sometimes hit when unjamming product in the machine. 
Stop — put a guard over the sensor.
Of course, this begs the question of why the operators are having to unjam product from the machine, but for purposes of this discussion we’ll stop.
This is a simple example, but I hope we can see that this could be and should be used for all failures, no matter how complex.
However, we are not only tasked with preventing and correcting failures. As important as getting the problem fixed, in the industrial world, is the amount of time it takes to fix the problem. Therefore, our analysis of the failure is not yet complete.
Call it the 10 Whys, 5 Whys Times Two, whatever, we have not done our job until we have analyzed both the failure and the time involved in repairing it. This is where we finally locate the gun we keep shooting ourselves in the foot with — parts, documentation, training, etc.
For example: “It took an hour to replace a sensor.” 

Why? — because it took fifty-five minutes to isolate the problem to the sensor. 
Why? — because we changed another switch first. 
Why? — because we thought it was the only sensor involved. 
Why? — because we didn’t fully understand the sequence of operation.
We’ll stop here, but we see what needs to be done — we need to spend the couple of hours offline figuring the sequence out and then train everyone accordingly. 
About the Author: Johnny Welch is an industrial electrician/electronics tech that has been working in industry for fifteen years.  He has held leadership and supervision/management positions for more than seven years.  He is currently working as a maintenance supervisor at a leading manufacturer of flooring products.  Johnny recently completed Black Belt level Lean/Six Sigma training.]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[iSixSigma Editor]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Guest Blog&nbsp;,&nbsp;Lean&nbsp;,&nbsp;Methodology]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Mon, 17 Sep 2007 10:27:26 -0800</pubDate>
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		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Resistance is Futile]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/resistance_is_futile.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[    "Resistance is futile". That is the warning statement from the Borg Collective, an arch enemy of the Federation of Planets in the Star Trek television series. Any trekkies out there? The first time I heard that phrase I thought; boy are they over-confident, they have not dealt with Captain Jean Luc Picard yet. And of course after moments of near destruction the Enterprise destroys the enemy and the crew sighs with relief that they have not been assimilated. 
     During my early learning about the lean transformation paradigm the concept of staff resistance to the process was paramount. Being a creative soul this statement came to mind.  I thought of Captain Picard and his eventual triumph over the Borg. Resistance is futile became a mantra of sorts as I worked the new process into the daily routine of the operation I manage. 
    Now… two years later the word lean is almost never mentioned except in the past tense as the Management Initiative that started a few years ago. But, my observations are clear. Many staff are sustaining 5S work spaces, we are in a pull focus completing the tasks way ahead of schedule and ready for new work from our referral base. The plan is working because people are working the plan. Certainly some personal work style transformation has occurred. That is a good sign of the long term benefits of this organizational development tool. It takes time for staff to use the knowledge and work it into their daily work habits, but I remain convinced that there has been some behavior change which is good for the individual employee and the organization. ]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Stephen C. Crate]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Change Management&nbsp;,&nbsp;Lean]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Fri, 09 Mar 2007 10:31:50 -0800</pubDate>
		</item>

		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Balancing Production and Planning in a Lean Environment]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/balancing_production_and_planning_in_a_lean_environment.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[Now we have the tools.  Supervisors are watching the process, identifying muda, re-work and redundant processes. Front line staff are meeting production goals within acceptable standards. Our work-in-progress is flowing with less wait time, a focus on pull of resources and just-in-time customer service.  We are sustaining production within dictated standards. What is next?   A meeting.  A person in the production line is not working within standards.  The governing authority inserts some new standards or a new program.  Somebody at the top still is not happy?  In government it may be a powerful citizen group driving the change, or a manager who has a new idea, or a legislative accountability unit.  
An intervention plan is required. Management must decide what to do. How much muda exists in a meeting? When does listening, brainstorming and planning becoming waste?  We know from experience that with out a plan there is no standard or map. With out standards there is no measurment and without measurment, well ... that is the whole point of continious improvement and lean thinking.  
But the real question is this. How many times can a work group review and plan before making a decision. When does this become muda?     
 ]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Stephen C. Crate]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Lean]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Wed, 13 Dec 2006 14:58:39 -0800</pubDate>
		</item>

		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Is Lean Thinking Another Name for Prudence?]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/is_lean_thinking_another_name_for_prudence.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[Recently I had a call from a well known training company in England who were planning a Six Sigma Lean Government workshop in February of 2007.   He did not ask about successes, or best practices, he wanted to know the major difficulties with our Lean initiative in Maine.  Thinking about it, I reached the conclusion that anxiety/resistance that stemmed from organizational change was a potential major barrier to successful implementation of a lean transformation if not the most significant concern.  Resistence causes anxiety from both labor and management.  Change is difficult, with union/management pressures, budget constraints and significant accountability expectations many government employees are stressed to the max. Some deal well with this through exercise, appropriate time managment and other personal wellness strategies. However, this potential state of mind is not a good situation if management is in denial about this reality.   Ultimately the lean government strategy will fail if this important detail is not part of the overall strategy.  Measurement of work to reduce waste combined with innovative use of technology is only part of the overall picture.  The people part of lean continues to be a critical aspect which can be fogotten in the hype of scientific management, continious improvement, value stream mapping and other process analysis tools.  Government exists to serve the people through services and infrastructure coordination and that includes the employees who provide the service.
A recent article in the Public Administration Review * speaks to this dilema. The article "In Search of Prudence: The Hidden Problem of Managerial Reform"  by John Kane and Haig Patapan of Griffith University in Austrailia,  touches on the accountability and related prudence reform that began in the Reagan years, continued through the Clinton Administration. These authors call this the New Public Management and basically contrast Aristotle’s phronesis (practical wisdom) with Weber’s analysis of government bureaucracy as being best managed as a rational-legal structure with measurable standards that can be objectively evaluated.  Lean thinking adds a new dimension to Webers view and includes customer service and the personal transformation that occurs when worker get more work done with the same or less effort.  Lean thinking, I would propose, is a metamorphosis of this movement. Lean Thinking has clearer goals and better implementation strategies, but it appears management may be in danger of making some of the same mistakes that are outlined in this article.  The article concludes: 

"An administration that endorses prudence requires the reconstruction of an ethos in which the public sector is honored as a distinctive realm that is dedicated to the very best public service and in which public servants are honored for their role in providing such service." (Kane, Patapan PAR 2006)*
In the Maine Department of Labor a lean initiative has been ongoing for over two years. More on this is available in one of my previous blogs. One of the great sayings from my home state that I am proud to introduce here is this "As Maine goes, so goes the Nation." At the MDOL employees are honored each year with a employee recognition event.  This event counters the potential sinking emotional ship that can occur with any organizational development effort. This years event the planners brought in a wonderful combination of motivational speaker, comedian and juggler, Randy Judkins.  The attendees laughed so hard and enjoyed the unique presentation so much, that for a moment at least, nirvana had arrived. I understand that it is not always possible to arrange for this kind of healthy comic release, but the point of this article is that without some strategy for recognizing that organizational change can take its toll on employees ultimately the initiative may fail. Finding a balance between individual creative effort and measured production in conjunction with a strategy for recognizing the human need for recognition and support is the key to successful lean transformation in government. 
* Public Administration Review (PAR) Volume 66, Number 5, September/October 2006, American Society for Public Administration, ISSN 0033-3352, Blackwell Publishing 2006  http://www.aspanet.org/scriptcontent/index_PAR.cfm]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Stephen C. Crate]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[History&nbsp;,&nbsp;Lean&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Mon, 16 Oct 2006 12:26:00 -0800</pubDate>
		</item>

		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: IT Looking to LEAN for Programming]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/it_looking_to_lean_for_programming.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[October 2, 2006 - Eweek published an interesting article by Peter Coffee titled "What it means to be Lean".  He correlates computer programming with lean thinking and describes a new book related to lean software.

"I just received a new book with a copyright date of 2007, "Implementing Lean Software Development: From Concept to Cash," by Mary and Tom Poppendieck (Addison-Wesley Professional).   Wonderful, I thought. I’ve only just finished teaching my editors that developers use "agile" (short for "agile methods") as a noun. I’ll bet that "lean" is next. Whether or not the term catches on, the book is usefully concise and densely packed with convincing stories about good practices that have transformed projects—often despite initial skepticism from developer teams."
He goes on and references the Seven Wastes of Manufacturing and mentions that programmers and their teams can learn alot using these theories when writing and creating software packages.  
We all have experienced the glitches in BETA version of new software. This is great news to all of us who rely on functional software for our daily work. Increasing awareness of First pass yield in software development will save time and money! Great article Peter.
The full article can be accessed at http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2024364,00.asp. 
Quotes here are used with permission.]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Stephen C. Crate]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Lean]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Wed, 11 Oct 2006 11:14:03 -0800</pubDate>
		</item>

		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Historical Perspective of Lean]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/historical_perspective_of_lean.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[This note from Jim Womack at the Lean Institute provides an excellent historical perspective of lean manufacturing. It is reprinted here with permission.
 
Stephen
 
 ----------------------------------------------------------------
 
I’ve been reflecting on today’s remarkable headlines about the latest retreat by the Ford Motor Company as part of its “Way Forward” campaign. While reflecting, I have found it useful to think about the history of lean thinking at Ford, going back nearly 100 years. I believe it offers many useful lessons for our current-day lean journey and Ford’s immediate choices.
The historical record is clear. Henry Ford was the world’s first systematic lean thinker. His mind naturally focused on the value creation process rather than assets or organizations. And he was the first to see in his mind’s eye the flow of value from start to finish, from concept to launch and from raw material to customer. In addition, Ford was history’s most ferocious enemy of waste. (Except, possibly, Taiichi Ohno at Toyota who claimed that he learned what to do from reading Henry Ford’s books.)
Ford relentlessly emphasized the need to analyze every step in every process to see if it created value before finding a way to do it better. Otherwise the step should be eliminated. (This was Ford’s greatest criticism of Fredrick Taylor and Scientific Management. Why, asked Ford, was Taylor obsessed with getting people to work harder and more efficiently to do things that actually didn’t need to be done if the work was organized in the right sequence and location?) Then, when the wasteful steps had been eliminated, it was time to put the rest in continuous flow.
By 1914 at his Highland Park plant Ford had located most of the manufacturing steps for his product – the Model T – in one building and had created very nearly continuous flow in many parts of the operation, using single-piece-flow fabrication cells for components in addition to the moving final assembly line. He had even devised a very primitive pull system by using “shortage chasers” on timed routes along the assembly line to check inventories at every assembly point and convey the information back to the fabrication areas. This speeded up upstream processes that had fallen behind and slowed down those that were getting ahead.
Equally remarkable, Ford had designed his Model T in only three months in one large room with a small group of engineers under his direct oversight. This surely was a high point in lean practice for decades to come.
Then it gradually fell apart. Ford’s span of management control at Highland Park had been remarkably broad because he could easily take a walk to see the condition of every process, in design, assembly, and fabrication. And he could train a cohort of managers to see what he was seeing and remove more waste. No abstract measures of performance were needed.
However, as the company grew Ford’s personal management method became impractical. But what to replace it with? Ford himself seems not to have had an answer except to link every step by conveyors – as he attempted to do at the massive Rouge complex completed in the late 1920s. By the 1930s the whole Ford Motor Company was in a sense one linked process. (Ohno, of course, realized that lengthy conveyors governed by a central schedule are a push not a pull system, but this was much later.) Did this mean that in the founder’s mind that the company needed only one manager -- Ford himself -- even as it became the world’s largest industrial enterprise?
In any case, the system came crashing down in the 1930s as Ford tried to produce multiple products with multiple options in wildly gyrating markets. Only the staggering cash reserves from retained profits during the Model T era kept the company going until Henry Ford II was able to take over in 1945.
But what management system should he impose on the chaos? Henry Ford II read Peter Drucker’s 1946 classic, The Concept of the Corporation, praising the General Motors management system and quickly remade Ford in the image of GM.
What a different system it was! Henry Ford had managed by going to the gemba to inspect the value creation process. General Motors executives managed by analyzing financial abstractions. For example, asset utilization (normalized for sales volume), days of inventory, cost of scrap, etc. in the factory. Available engineering hours utilized in product design. Managers were then rewarded for making numerical targets using methods developed by staff experts that managers rarely understood. A good way to make many of these numbers was to make products in large batches in order to achieve high asset utilization and low cost per individual step. The total value creation process from end to end -- which had been so clear to Henry Ford -- was gradually lost from view.
Soon Ford executives using the financial measures developed by finance czar J. Edward Lundy were even more rigorous in analyzing the performance of their area of control than GM executives. Robert McNamara and the Whiz Kids were the exemplars. And Ford did regain competitiveness as a GM clone, claiming a stable second place in the auto industry.
In addition, by the late 1940s Ford was one of three U.S. auto companies using the same management system in the same town with the same union. With high investment barriers to entry, a remarkable era of stability was put place, lasting nearly forty years until the transplant Japanese factories succeeded in the U.S. in the later 1980s.
When it suddenly became apparent at that point that the leading Japanese companies -- Toyota followed by Honda -- were using a different management system, it was very hard for Ford to respond.
In the late 1980s, as Dan Jones, Dan Roos, and I wrote The Machine That Changed the World, we were able to document that Ford had applied a number of lean techniques in its assembly operations and was making dramatic progress in manufacturing productivity. We took this to mean that at least one American company was applying lean principles and with good results.
What we couldn’t report, because we had no way to measure it, was the status of the management system. And this was largely unchanged. Ford managers were still manipulating abstractions because the gemba consciousness of the early Ford Motor Company had been lost. Even worse, in the product development and supplier management processes, no change had occurred at all.
But Ford could still be successful in its home market for another 20 years by developing large pickups and SUVs. These were essentially America-only vehicles, suited to wide roads and low energy prices. They could only be challenged by Toyota and its Japanese emulators if they were willing to design vehicles specifically for the U.S. market and to locate production in  North America.
In 1997 I got a call from Jac Nasser, who had just taken over Ford’s North American Automotive Operations on his way to becoming CEO of Ford. He matter-of-factly told me that Ford’s Explorer and F100 pickup series were the only Ford products that made serious money and that he calculated that he had four years to become as efficient and effective as Toyota. Otherwise, the large pickups and SUVs would be copied by foreign firms at lower cost with higher quality and Ford would be in terminal decline. “So,” he asked, “how can Ford become Toyota in four years?”
We sat down to talk over just what this would mean -- dramatically changing the supplier management system, dramatically changing the product development system, dramatically changing the production management system, dramatically changing what managers do -- and he quickly concluded that it was just too hard. So he changed the management metrics, purged the poorest managers according to the metrics, and experimented with selling cars on the web! I was not asked back and had no desire to go back.
Ford actually survived for five years beyond Nasser’s projected meltdown date – although Nasser didn’t as CEO -- to arrive at its current crisis. But my prescription for new Ford CEO Alan Mulally is the same: Fundamentally rethink the supplier management system. Fundamentally rethink the product development system. And fundamentally rethink the production system from order to raw materials and from raw materials to delivery, with special attention to the information management system. (Much can still be learned from Ford’s Mazda subsidiary, which became an able pupil of Toyota after a crisis in 1973.) Above all, fundamentally rethink what mangers do and how they do it in order to regain the gemba consciousness that originally took Ford to world dominance. In brief, Ford needs to remake itself once more, this time in the image of the company that copied Ford’s original system: Toyota.
In addition, finish rethinking the social contract as Ford becomes a normal company (not an oligopolist) in a normal town (where labor doesn’t come from one supplier) that must live in a global market. Finally, rethink brand strategy to get rid of hopeless makes that can never make money – Mercury, Jaguar, Lincoln too? -- while refocusing the remaining brands on what customers really want -- sophisticated, hassle-free transportation in every price range. (A hint: Rethink the vast gap between the company and the customer to provide hassle-free mobility on a continuing basis to user-partners rather than selling cars to strangers in one-time transactions.)
Who knows whether this is doable in the time still available but it is the lean way forward. It will be tragic if the originator of lean thinking is crushed in the end by failing to learn lean lessons from its most earnest pupil.
 
 
 
 ]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Stephen C. Crate]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[History&nbsp;,&nbsp;Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Lean&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Mon, 18 Sep 2006 07:43:05 -0800</pubDate>
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