Lean Six Sigma and Productivity

Lean Six Sigma is all about improving quality and minimizing errors. It can help to speed up manufacturing and most any other business process. This is mostly because it creates an infrastructure of people in an organization that are experts at their given level of Six Sigma knowledge. They have a specific job, know how to carry it out and will help reduce cost and increase profit. This is their main mission. Since 1986, this method has been working. There are six steps to the process that have to be carried out exactly for it to work properly. These steps concentrate on getting more out of less work and eliminating the defects that exist in product development. It basically accelerates the decision making process within the company. In today's economy, that is priceless. Most companies these days could use more production with less pay. With big companies like Toyota adopting this philosophy, its success is easy to recognize. By identifying waste, transportation issues, inventory issues and equipment failures, companies can significantly cut costs and speed up production. Many times it can cut costs by 50%. In this economy, that is amazing. It can actually help to eliminate layoffs. Employees find that adopting this methodology a much better solution to declining sales, especially when they get to keep their jobs. Since Lean Six Sigma focuses on management, it works. The employees will not only accept the changes but will be less frustrated in the end. They will be able to do their job and do it much easier. In fact, using the Six Sigma process will end up creating stronger communication between management and the employees. When tensions are very high, this can really be a blessing. No company really likes to have problems with communication between management and employees. The strategies are simple. They include defining, measuring, analyzing, improving and controlling for process improvement. This is otherwise known as the DMAIC method. When these elements are attended to, they can be powerful tools for identifying and eliminating waste in process and productivity. This method minimizes inputs and wasteful outputs, and will result in overwhelming inventory at lower cost. When productivity is low and stagnate, a new way of management needs to be developed. That is just the way manufacturing works. Changing things up can accomplish a lot and sometimes be so vital that the future of the company may be in jeopardy without it. Having the proper training and implementing a new process can take time and money, but in the end it is very much worth it.