I think of Lean and Six Sigma as having many similarities and differences. If you see waste happening, you can eliminate it. A lean visual factory helps us to remove obvious waste.  Takt times help us to balance lines, while standard work, total preventive maintenance, and 5S help us reduce variation.

Lean is more than a set of tools, however: it’s about culture, the work environment, and a way of thinking.  Lean works well at the beginning of any quality program, where you want to sensitize the company to waste and teach continual improvement.  Lean is fast, agile, and prepares people for change.

If you are blessed with a high transaction environment and can easily recognize defect data and trends, you can eliminate the defects.  Statistical process control helps us to remove obvious control limit violations, detect instability, and monitor process drift.  DMAIC, DOE, and DFSS help us to filter out noise and methodically remove less obvious waste.

Six Sigma presents a different way of looking at issues and can help your employees get over intractable problems.  Six Sigma works well in the middle of any quality program, where you want to move the company to higher (i.e., world-class) levels of performance.  Six Sigma is sophisticated, technical, and removes performance obstacles.

Both Lean and Six Sigma require discipline, time, and a subject matter expert to deploy and manage. Neither requires a lot of money relative to the cost of poor quality they reduce. Each can eliminate obvious waste and reduce variation, though what is considered obvious or a variation may differ in each program.

Lean and Six Sigma by themselves can play a valuable role in any continuous improvement program, but it’s when they’re used in combination that companies will see the biggest, longest lasting payoffs.

Simplifying procedures is a great way to save money and at the same time prepare for growth. By simplifying your procedures, you can cut waste with confidence that you are not cutting essential value-added services customers want to buy. Simplifying procedures prepares your company for growth because it streamlines your operations, documents them, and thus makes it much easier to replicate your operations at another location.

A new operation based on proven procedures is easier to manage because you can evaluate its performance against known metrics. And should the metrics indicate a need for adjustments-typical when rolling out a new location-staff will have procedures in place to affect needed changes. This significantly reduces the risk of opening a new location.

If you want to learn more about how you can save money and prepare for growth, check out our consulting pages. We can help you simplify procedures faster and more efficiently than you can do it yourself because we are continuously writing, publishing, deploying and updating policies and procedures. Our latest procedures represent lessons learned by our thousands of world-wide customers. Developed according to international ISO standards, Bizmanualz procedures move you further, faster. Save time. Why reinvent the wheel?

Check out our consulting pages. Or call me right now. Bizmanualz can help you save money and grow today. Contact: Dan Davison, Vice President Sales & Marketing, Bizmanualz, Inc. tel. (314) 863-5079 x23, Dan@Bizmanualz.com.

What’s in most organizations’ quality tool boxes?  Ask a quality manager and they will cite you a host of examples, such as:

• Affinity diagrams
• The balanced scorecard
• Control charts
• Ishikawa, or fishbone, diagrams
• Flowcharts
• Regression analysis
• Workflow diagrams
• House of Quality

If you ask 100 quality managers, “Which tool is most important?”, you’re liable to get considerably more than 100 answers.  A sizable percentage will probably say, “It depends”, and if you were to limit the discussion to quality tools like the ones above, that might be true.  How many quality managers do you suppose would cite “the ability to communicate” as the single most important tool?

“What we got here is…failure to communicate.”
(Captain, Road Prison 36, “Cool Hand Luke”)

Think about it.  When projects don’t work, everyone has his or her theories and opinions, most of them outwardly directed.  “They did this”, or “they didn’t do that”, or “somebody dropped the ball.”

However, if they all got together to conduct a root cause analysis, they might come to the realization that theirs was a collective failure.  Maybe they didn’t speak up, and maybe they spoke too much.  They definitely didn’t listen — 98% of communicating is listening.

They didn’t take the time to verify that everyone understood everyone else, that they were all in agreement, and that the project couldn’t go forward if they weren’t.  Effective communication is an integral part of any project’s fabric.  Of all the tools you could use to plan, develop, test, and implement a project, communication is the one tool you have to have in your toolbox, and you don’t want to keep it in the box.  You have to have it out, and you have to be using it constantly.  Other tools have their place in a project but communication’s place is every place and every moment.

When projects work, it is because communication is effective, and communication is effective when it is in continuous use.  Communication is unlike any other business tool — it won’t wear out with use.  It only gets better!  And, by communicating effectively — and continuously — you will find your projects will get better, too.

We have heard from several customers about the need for implementing ISO in their unique organizational settings.  Based on this feedback, we are currently developing an ISO QMS implementation guide with tools applicable in different business settings, including service organizations. It will augment our existing ISO 9001 QMS Procedures Manual, and will help answer questions like  ‘How do I get started?’ and ‘How do I roll out ISO in my company?’

As a publisher and professional services firm (not a manufacturer), we have seen benefits from implementing quality methods. We have clear metrics that we measure regularly and are always looking to improve our measurements or come up with better metrics. It is our belief that an implementation guide will provide practical implementation steps to organizations that want to work on their own with little or no help from consultants.

The initial release of the implementation guide, scheduled to be released in the first quarter of 2010, will include the planning, design and implementation tools we have used for our clients–and for ourselves–to become ISO-certified. We are also adding some additional tools and explanatory materials prepared specially for the implementation kit. The tool sets incorporate knowledge amassed over almost ten years of research, use, deployment at client sites, and publication of quality policies and procedures. Check out our recent article & blog series on process maps and current series on project management for more insights into what will be included in the implementation kit.

More companies will benefit from continuous improvement

ISO has helped Bizmanualz cultivate the belief and practice of continuous improvement. By using the “Plan – Do – Check – Act” methods on which most quality systems are built, we have focused on improving underlying processes and avoiding problems in the future. Our process orientation reinforces teamwork: we’re all in this together to improve the process that will create ever-better, sustainable results not only for our customers. By releasing the tools that we ourselves use  internally and for clients, we aim to help other organizations implement quality systems with equal structural support.

The ISO implementation kit will be as easy-to-use and self-explanatory as possible. To support this goal, we are developing a test program in which we will work with selected companies to test and use our implementation kit. If your organization has immediate plans to implement or improve its ISO or related quality system, please contact us through the Bizmanualz website or by commenting below this post. We will provide the implementation product at no charge for test customers in exchange for regular phone reports and occasional access to your facility so that we can learn from your use of the product.

For now I can recommend our ISO 9001 QMS Manual. While it is written from a manufacturing perspective, the principles, as well as many of the specific policies, procedures and forms, can be generalized for a service business. And it has been recently updated to conform with the ISO 9001:2008 standard.

Are you implementing a quality program at your organization? What will be your first step? How will you get started? What do you think should be in our implementation guide? Would you like to try the guide and let us know how to make it better? Leave a comment below or contact me directly at  dan@bizmanualz.com .

Many prominent figures have emerged within the quality field, but some have stood out as key figures of quality.  Most have passed away, but their memory still lives on in the ideas, concepts, and methods that permeate our quality thinking today.  In no particular order, they are:

• Dr. Walter Shewhart developed the Plan, Do, Check, Act (PDCA) cycle (known as “Plan-Do-Study-Act” in some circles, as well as theories of process control and the Shewart transformation process.
• Dr. W. Edwards Deming developed his complete philosophy of management, which he encapsulated into his “fourteen points” and the “seven deadly diseases of management”.  He advanced the state of quality, originally based on work done by Shewhart with his explanations of variation, use of control charts, and his theories on knowledge, psychology and variation.  Deming greatly helped to focus the responsibility of quality on management and popularized the PDCA cycle, which led to it being referred to as the “Deming Cycle”.
• Dr. Joseph M. Juran developed the quality trilogy – quality planning, quality improvement, and quality control.  Quality management plans quality improvements that raise the level of performance, which then must be controlled or sustained at that level in order to start the cycle again.
• Armand V. Feigenbaum developed the idea of total quality control based on three steps to quality consisting of quality leadership, modern quality technology, and an organizational commitment to quality.
• Dr. Kaoru Ishikawa developed the Ishikawa diagram and was known for popularizing the seven basic tools of quality and the philosophy of total quality.
• Dr. Genichi Taguchi developed the “Taguchi methodology” of robust design, also known as “designing in quality”, which focused on making the design less sensitive to variation in the manufacturing process instead of trying to control manufacturing variation.
• Shigeo Shingo developed lean concepts such as Single Minute Exchange of Die (SMED) or reduced set-up times instead of increased batch sizes as well as Poka-Yoke (mistake proofing) to eliminate obvious opportunities for mistakes.  He also worked with Taiichi Ohno to refine Just-In-Time (JIT) manufacturing into an integrated manufacturing strategy, which is widely used to define the lean manufacturing used in the Toyota production system (TPS).
• Philip B. Crosby developed the idea of “quality is free” which asserts that implementing quality improvement pays for itself through the savings from the improvement, increased revenue from greater customer satisfaction, and the improved competitive advantage that results. His popularized “zero defects” to define the goal of a quality program as the elimination of all defects and not the reduction of defects to an acceptable quality level.
• Dr. Eliyahu M. Goldratt developed the Theory of Constraints which focuses on a single element in a process chain as having the greatest leverage for improvement (i.e., “1% can have a 99% impact”). This compares to the Pareto principle which states that 20% of the factors have an 80% effect on the process.
• Taiichi Ohno developed the seven wastes (muda), which are used in lean to describe non-value-added activity. He developed various manufacturing improvements with Shigeo Shingo that evolved into the Toyota Production System.

Top Ten Quality Gurus

1. Dr. Walter Shewhart
2. Dr. W. Edwards Deming
3. Dr. Joseph M. Juran
4. Armand V. Feigenbaum
5. Dr. Kaoru Ishikawa
6. Dr. Genichi Taguchi
7. Shigeo Shingo
8. Philip B. Crosby
9. Dr. Eliyahu M. Goldratt
10. Taiichi Ohno

There are seven common Quality Tools you can use to understand and improve processes during a process improvement event.   Each tool helps you identify sources of variation and aids in the analysis, documentation, and organization of the information, which leads to process improvement. 

1. Flowcharts, or Process Maps, visually represent relationships among the activities and tasks that make up a process.   They are typically used at the beginning of a process improvement event; you describe process events, timing, and frequencies at the highest level and work downward.  At high levels, process maps help you understand process complexity.  At lower levels, they help you analyze and improve the process.
2. Ishikawa, Fishbone, or Cause & Effect Diagrams visually represent the causes of a problem – or effect – and help you determine the ultimate source of the problem — the root cause.  (This tool is called a “fishbone” diagram because of its appearance; Ishikawa was its inventor.)   The cause-and-effect diagram is used at the beginning of root cause analysis, to organize the causes of a problem (people, methods, equipment, materials, measurement, and environment) and prioritize them.
3. Data Checklists, check sheets, or recording tables are matrices designed to assist in the tallying, recording, and analysis of test results or event occurrences.  They are utilized in production to count defects and collect process data, which you analyze to identify opportunities for improvement.
4. The Pareto chart is named after Vilfredo Pareto, who came up with the Pareto Principle (or the “80/20 rule”), which says that 20% of the factors account for 80% of potential problems.  The Pareto chart ranks defects, causes, or data from the most significant to the least significant, in descending order.  Pareto charts help you separate the “vital few” from the “trivial many”.  They are typically used during process improvement analysis, to understand where to focus improvement for the greatest impact.
5. Histograms consist of vertical bars, side-by-side, that depict frequency distributions within tables of numbers and can help you understand data relationships over time (e.g., the familiar “bell curve”).  Histograms are generally used during process improvement analysis.
6. Scatter charts display relationships between dependent (predicted) and independent (prediction) variables.  They are used during hypothesis testing, to determine if there is a correlation between two variables and how strong the correlation is.  Less scattering indicates stronger correlation.
7. The control chart is a type of statistical process control tool.  Process performance is plotted over time against upper and lower control limits; this helps you readily identify process variations and enables determination of special cause and common cause variation.  Control charts are used during production, or after process improvement implementations, to ensure that processes are within control limits, or “in control”.

To achieve the best results, start by (1) drawing up a process map, so you understand the process flow.  Next, (2) analyze the process flows for the primary causes of problems and develop your cause-effect diagram.  Then, (3) collect data using check sheets and (4) plot your data using a Pareto chart and/or (5) a histogram.  Next, (6) determine the relationship of various variables in your cause-effect chain using a scatter chart.  Once you have solved your problem, (7) use a control chart to ensure that the process is staying within process control limits — demonstrate process control.

The Seven Quality Tools

To summarize, using these seven quality tools:

1. Flowcharts or Process Maps;
2. Ishikawa, Fishbone, or Cause & Effect Diagrams;
3. Data Checklists, check sheets, or recording tables;
4. Pareto Charts;
5. Histograms;
6. Scatter plots; and
7. Control Charts (SPC)…

…especially in combination, will help you improve your processes and achieve your objectives.

At Bizmanualz, process improvement — internal and external — is one of our main objectives.

Many of us in the USA and elsewhere are aware of the need for significant improvement in many aspects of the health care process — providing and insuring, for example.  In a recent blog post about the US Healthcare Problem, we presented a case for using the ISO 9001 standard to drive health care process improvement.  Now, we’ll look at ”lean” and how it pertains health care.

The concept of “lean” was developed for production environments (see the Toyota Production System) but with a few modifications, it applies to services as well.  In either case, Lean considers the use of resources for goals other than “creating value for the customer” to be waste and such wastes should be eliminated.

From the customer’s perspective, value describes an item or a service they’re willing to pay for.  Lean is sometimes said to be about “creating more value with less work”; in reality, it’s about “maximizing value while minimizing waste”.  And though people can’t seem to agree on much of anything in the health care “debate”, one thing we should all be able to agree on is that there’s plenty of inefficiency throughout the health care system.

Bicheno and Holweg (in their book, “Lean Toolbox”), describe seven service wastes:

1. Delay – customers waiting for a service;
2. Duplication — having to reenter data, repeat details on forms, copy information across, or answer queries from several sources within the same organization;
3. Unnecessary Movement — having to get in line several times, lack of a “one-stop” service encounter, etc.;
4. Unclear Communication – wastes of seeking clarification, confusion over product or service use, wasting time finding a location that may result in misuse or duplication;
5. Incorrect inventory — being out-of-stock, unable to get exactly what was required, substitute products or services, or not having the right provider available;
6. Opportunity lost to retain or win customers – failure to establish rapport, ignoring customers, unfriendliness, and rudeness; and
7. Errors in the service transaction — product defects in the product-service bundle, lost or damaged goods (famously, the airman who was supposed to have his gallbladder removed but had his lower limbs amputated).

As providers and as customers, we’ve seen these wastes…far too many times.  We need to remove as many of these wastes as possible and improve the process.  That’s where Lean can help, and many health care providers are already implementing Lean and other process improvement tools and techniques.

We need to take Lean, ISO 9001, and other tools deeper into the entire process of providing health care — more providers and insurers — if we’re going to make things better and make the improvements last.  The answer is certainly not going to be found in new legislation (see #4, above).

Now, shall we – at long last — begin?

In ‘Top Ten Reasons’, we looked at why policies and procedures don’t work.  In this post, I’ll share a little about what we do when companies ask us to help improve their policies and procedures.

“Too long”, “unclear”, and “complicated” generally top the list of “Reasons Why Procedures Don’t Work”.  We often find that clients have complex flow charts, swim lane diagrams, and subway maps, usually with no clear starting or ending point or communications objective.  When workers look at these diagrams, they don’t know how to read them — they don’t know what the author is trying to tell them.

Get Organized, Then Consider Your Communications Objectives

While capturing everything you learned while studying your process may help you, you don’t need to show that around.  Think of your spaghetti diagram as homework, but think of your procedures as having a job to do. Your procedures are responsible for communicating know-how to someone who may have an alternate view of how a task should be done.

Think of your procedures as stories, with a beginning, middle, and end.  After discerning your intent, we look in our library for something we have composed already that tells a similar story. But our procedure communicates flow, or how raw materials, information and labor come together to create value for customers. By organizing the story around flow, we can simplify your procedures, not to mention the underlying processes. Flow should be a theme in all your procedures.

When we review a client’s procedures, we compare them to stories (e.g. procedures) that we have already written. We simplify client procedures so that they communicate flow. And we add measure and balance information at transition points to keep the underlying processes running smoothly.

Procedures Should Help Work Flow

Think of work flow as the current in your favorite fishing or boating stream.  When the stream moves at a “normal” pace, the water stays within its banks.  However, if a larger-than-normal volume comes downstream, or if the normal volume encounters an obstacle (like a bunch of fallen trees), the stream rises.  Soon, the stream has nowhere to go but out of its banks. What a mess.

To maintain work flow in your company, you need to know the measure and balance that should be maintained at each transition point in your process. For example, how much raw material should Receiving hand off to Production every hour?  Every day?  Such concrete measure and balance information determines the tempo of your processes. Workers need to know the appropriate tempo to prevent production managers from being inundated with material, and prevent inventory from backing up.

Procedures communicate flow.  And other kinds of documents and communications tools have other jobs. Thinking about and achieving all the communications jobs needed to roll out a process and keep it humming along is what we call “implementation”.

After Developing Your Procedures, You Have to Tell the Story

When we review a client’s procedures, we compare them to procedures, or stories, that we’ve already written. We simplify client procedures so they communicate flow.  And we add measure and balance information at transition points to keep the underlying processes running smoothly, at the appropriate tempo.

That may end up being a lot of information — more than you would want to write in text form as a procedure — so we deploy communication tools: maps, job aids, visual work boards, training, videos, etc.  These tools get the right information to the right people at the right time, so they can do their work at the right tempo and stay in sync.  Deploying communications tools in this way is how we achieve implementation.

I’ll cover implementation in a future blog post.

Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) has been growing in popularity because of its universal suitability as a framework for managing information technology (IT) services, including the infrastructure, development, and operations of an IT department.

In its fullest implementation, ITIL is a perfect complement to – and is perfectly complemented by – Six Sigma and Lean to create more agile and higher quality IT operations.  Using Six Sigma techniques like the DMAIC process introduces a more structured engineering approach to ITIL’s framework.  Lean thinking promotes continuous improvement and waste reduction into ITIL’s best practices.

ITIL itself does not provide methods to identify and target waste, document value streams (as is usually done with Lean), or measure customer satisfaction.  Nor is ITIL itself a transformation method used for change management.  But ITIL does provide the vocabulary and framework we think of as the process approach advocated by Deming, which is where all process improvements start.

Implementing an ITIL framework is an excellent starting point for IT organizations looking to evolve toward a more process-oriented state.  Six Sigma and Lean can be added to the ITIL framework to help your IT organization achieve continuous improvement and organizational agility.

In the current issue of the local restaurant and cooking magazine, the featured article is about the important relationships some of our city’s best chefs have with local farmers and growers.  In the half-dozen relationships profiled, rarely does the topic touch on price (and when price is mentioned, it focuses on the great value).  The emphasis is on other features:  freshness, taste, quality, variety, shared attitudes.

These chefs also know their customers.  The chefs understand that people come to their restaurant because they want a great dining experience, not because they want to save a dollar or two on a meal.  The chefs know the importance of having great local suppliers in order to deliver that great dining experience.

Any business that uses suppliers can take a lesson from this.  Too often business focus heavily on unit price from their suppliers, and they forget to focus on total cost, relationships, and even more importantly, how choosing suppliers impacts their customers.

Are you really saving money if you select a supplier based on unit cost, but shipments are late, parts are defective, or they require constant hand-holding to understand specifications or other criteria?  The union shop across town may not be able to compete with a third-world supplier on a unit price basis, but it you account for the total cost (i.e. of testing and dealing with defective materials, extra inventory or production delays because shipments are traveling  halfway around the world, the personal relationship and convenience of dealing with a local supplier), you may be saving money in the long run if the local supplier consistently delivers quality parts on time with little or no oversight.

Plus, if supplier problems causes you to lose a customer, how much have you really saved?