Building your House on Solid Ground (#19)

The Lean Six Sigma Foundation is more important than the outcome of your project. When you decide to build a house, the first thing you have to look for is the location. Knowing where you are going to build will help you prepare for a solid foundation; which is the most important of the house. A Lean Six Sigma foundation, to allow for something sustainable, needs to be solid, and exceptionally structured just like a house. If a Lean Six Sigma project has a feeble foundation, the methodology will not survive.

We get called into several companies who have tried to instill Lean/Six Sigma methodologies without success. Most of the time these failed projects pushed them back to their old processes. When they fail, they blame the Lean and Six Sigma methodology. These failures happened because the company did not build a solid structure that would help Lean and Six Sigma thrive.

How do we structure a solid foundation for Lean Six Sigma?
Educating yourself about Lean and Six Sigma is the number one rule to building a successful infrastructure. Trying to enforce a Lean Six Sigma implementation without teaching every person who works within the scope about the methodology and the purpose of the implementation will lead to disaster. The first people in the organization who should be educated about the Lean/Six Sigma implantation should be the company’s decision makers. Those employees will be the ones who get everyone else excited about the implementation. If they are not excited, or do not think it will work, the entire implementation will be a bust.

An executive workshop will help align all levels of staff within the deployment. An executive team and a selected few deployment Champions should be in attendance. Usually, this workshop takes one business day and its deliverables are as follows:
  • KPI’s (Key Performance Indicators) using Lean/Six Sigma Metrics
  • Deployment Champion selection
  • Lean/Six Sigma Marketing Plan (Make changes if necessary)
  • Initial Belt Selection and Training
  • Value Stream Map of Key Products/Services
  • Initial Project Selection (Must be related to KPI’s)

Deployment Champions are selected to be the “Bulldozers” of the deployment. They are trained with Executive staff members to ensure project alignment and they remove roadblocks that may get in the way of the Change Agents. Deployment Champions are also considered the “Cheerleaders” of the implementation, rooting for the cause and encouraging fellow employees to be excited and motivated towards the change.

Deployment Champions attend a two-day training; a training in which they learn:
  • Lean and Six Sigma Project Selection Criteria
  • How to Develop a Project Charter
  • How to Manage the Change Agents

After the Executives and Champions have been properly trained, all other employees within the project scope must be educated. If they are not trained to understand why all of these changes are happening, then they will think that these changes will lead to massive job cuts. That kind of thinking will tank the deployment before it even begins. Without them knowing a clear purpose of the implementation, they will think the worst and share their thoughts with other employees. A complete disaster! The best training for these employees is called “White Belt” training. SSDSI offers a four hour training session either virtually through an LVC or as an onsite or classroom training.

The SSDSI’s Lean/Six Sigma White Belt training covers:
  • The definition of Lean
  • The definition of Six Sigma
  • How Lean and Six Sigma function together
  • Lean Key Principles
  • 8 Deadly Wastes
  • Lean Methods and Tools
  • TAKT Time and Process Flow
  • Pull and Kanban
  • 5S Visual Management

The last piece to the Lean/Six Sigma foundation is the Change Agents training. Change Agents are trained as Lean Agents, Green Belts, and Black Belts. These agents will use the Lean/Six Sigma methodology tool box to add value back into the company’s process.

A weak foundation will lead the Change Agent’s efforts to fail and the entire project to plummet.


About Six Sigma Development Solutions, Inc.
We are Certified as an Accredited Training Organization with the International Association of Six Sigma Certification (IASSC)
“The IASSC Accredited Training Organization (ATO) designation validates Six Sigma Development Solutions, Inc. has demonstrated adequate management systems, courseware with a high degree of correlation to the subject matter contained in the IASSC Bodies of Knowledge, delivery schema consistent with such content and highly qualified instructors.”
We Provide Public Lean Six Sigma Green Belt and Lean Six Sigma Black Belt Certification Training Courses in 34 Cities across the globe.
Our Training Centers are located in: Albuquerque, New Mexico | Anchorage, Alaska | Atlanta, Georgia | Austin, Texas | Boston, Massachusetts | Calgary, Canada | Charlotte, North Carolina | Chicago, Illinois | Cincinnati, Ohio | Cleveland, Ohio | Columbus, Ohio | Dallas, Texas | Denver, Colorado | Detroit, Michigan | Dubai, UAE | El Paso, Texas | Fort Smith, Arkansas | Honolulu, Hawaii | Houston, Texas | Indianapolis, Indiana | Jacksonville, Florida | Kansas City, Missouri | Las Vegas, Nevada | London, England | Los Angeles, California | Louisville, Kentucky | Memphis, Tennessee | Mexico City, Mexico | Milwaukee, Wisconsin | Minneapolis, Minnesota | Montreal, Canada | Nashville, Tennessee | New Orleans, Louisiana | New York City, New York | Northwest Arkansas | Orlando, Florida | Philadelphia, Pennsylvania | Phoenix, Arizona | Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania | Portland, Oregon | Raleigh, North Carolina | Salt Lake City, Utah | San Diego, California | Seattle, Washington | St. Louis, Missouri | Tampa, Florida | Toronto, Canada | Vancouver, Canada | Washington, DC

We Provide Onsite Lean Six Sigma Certification Training. Some of the training's we provide are: Lean Six Sigma Black Belt, Lean Six Sigma Green Belt, Lean Six Sigma Yellow Belt, Lean Six Sigma Champions Training and Lean Certifications for Healthcare, Finance, I.T, Manufacturing, Processing, Logistics, Retail Sales and Government.
SSDSI will come to your site to train for your choice of the Lean Six Sigma Certification Levels. Onsite training is more cost effective than open enrollment training when training larger groups of team members.
Benefits of Onsite Training:
The Training is focused on Your Opportunities
SSDSI uses your opportunities in class (vs. generic examples)
You will get the experience of a seasoned Lean and Six Sigma Master Black Belt who will help mentor you while completing your Lean and Six Sigma Project
You can train up to 20 employees for one fixed cost (this cost includes course ware and the instructors travel & lodging)
Our courses are full of games, simulations, and active learning to help the adult learner
SSDSI can customize the training to meet your company’s particular training needs
Call Kevin Clay at 214-731-3176 or email at kclay@sixsigmadsi.com for more information

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

McDonald's and the an example of a Lean Pull process...

When I was 18 we (my family and I) had just returned on an accompanied tour with my father (a U.S. Marine) in London, England. We were in Jacksonville, NC for around two weeks when he received orders to ship off to the middle east to be a part of "Desert Storm". I was preparing to go to college in Greenville, NC which was about three hours from Jacksonville. I changed my plans when we got the news that my father was to be deployed again. I decided to go to the local community college so that I could watch after my mom and two sisters.  My first order of business once I was registered for school was to find a job. The only employment I found that would work around my schedule was McDonalds. I was hired as a night shift cook. I have always had the mind to be frugal with money. Like teaching, you don't enlist in the Marine Corps to get rich. I say this because I immediately saw waste at the McDonalds though At the time I did not know the concepts of Lean nor Six Sigma. ...
Read more

We Invest  in process improvement like we invest in our health...

I'm sure most of you have seen thousands of infomercials over the years of "get fit quick" gimmicks. The man on the TV that I call "the Circus Barker" that excitedly tells you of a way to lose weight and get fit in seven days. We fall for these gimmicks time after time with the same result ... a new contraption that sits in a closet or in the middle of the room as a clothes hanger. Why does this happen? Because we want the quick fix with minimal investment.  Let's correlate the above example with an organizations investment in process improvement. When I am asked by people "Kevin, what do you do?"... I answer "I am like a fitness trainer for your organization except that I focus on the health of  your processes not necessarily the people." Organizations investing in process improvement are investing in the health of their company. For those of you that have significantly improved your health and sustained that improvement know that t...
Read more

Myth Busters (#77)

Image
Myth Busters! I love watching the show Myth Busters! It’s entertaining and enlightening; hopefully you think these blogs are too!  😊 The Lean Six Sigma Methodology is full of myths. One of these being that it is the CI’s role to improve processes. Saying it louder for those in the back: It is a Myth that the CI’s role is to Improve Processes. Confused? Let me explain. A myth is a false idea or belief that is widely recognized. Most people believe that it is the CI’s responsibility to improve processes. Why wouldn’t you believe that? Their title literally means Continuous Improvement. Let’s take a look at this example of how the majority of companies practice process improvement. Charlie is a Continuous Improvement Engineer for the Operating Expense Dept in his organization. Their team consists of three people out of a staff of 900. Leadership has asked the team to speed up the order entry process; a request made by corporate because they believe that the order entry...
Read more