Reactive Lean Six Sigma vs. Proactive Lean Six Sigma

An ounce of prevention...

We have been around for a while.  We have been in various industries for over 27 years.  We have broad expertise in all business processes and a wide variety of manufacturing processes.  This includes Supply Chain, Logistics, Manufacturing, HR, Accounting, Finance, Marketing, Operations, Project Management and Strategy.

Strategic Initiatives/Objectives rarely have one project and are timebound.  Usually, they involve many projects that are divided up and pursued by untrained/inexperienced company professionals.  While these professionals may be the best in the world in their particular job function, a very large percentage of time, they are not trained/proficient in Lean Six Sigma, or its methodologies.

We think: It’s… Time to Talk…

Unfortunately, within this last 15 years, companies/corporations rely solely on Lean Six Sigma for what we call Reactive Lean Six Sigma.

Reactive Lean Six Sigma:

More often than not, when projects/initiatives are tackled by one or more people trained in one particular function/profession, the results are not only less than optimal, but they take an excessive amount of time and are very costly.  Not only in productivity, but it can also lead to customer satisfaction issues as well.

If Lean Six Sigma Professionals are brought in, the damage has usually already been done, and it is a recovery effort at this point.  Yes, the Lean Six Sigma Professionals certainly know what to do and how to do it, but it is very costly and usually takes significantly less time to resolve.

Quite frankly, your Lean Six Sigma Professionals are used to this, and are very prepared for success if the executive team/company is willing to give them the resources and authority they need, the issues can be resolved expeditiously.  If they have not been given these needs, it will likely extend the effort by a significant amount of time.  Y=f(x).  Your output is a function of your input.

We like to think of it this way, the triage that you are experiencing, is relatable to performing quadruple bypass heart surgery with a rusty, dull knife.  Time is critical.  The Lean Six Sigma Professional uses the most effective/efficient tools/methodology needed to get you and your company back to business in the least amount of time, at the least expense possible.

Proactive Lean Six Sigma on the other hand, is your most effective and most cost-effective option.  With Proactive Lean Six Sigma, at the very least, a Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt should be on the executive team to work in tandem with the executives in all portions/phases of the strategic initiatives/objectives and the many projects that come from those.

When the Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt is lockstep with the executives and empowered to execute, he/she can plan, execute, maintain, and ensure that the gains the executive team is seeking to initiate not only meet the minimum requirement of the strategic initiatives/objectives, but can exceed them as well.

The Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt should have the authority to hire, make decisions, and be held accountable for the success of the efforts.  They should have broad authority to call meetings, gather resources, assign work, and prioritize others work.  Even if the workers do not fall under the direct supervision of the Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt.

This is not saying that they answer to no one.  To the contrary, they answer to the executive team and should be in constant communication with the executive team to inform them of progress, pitfalls, and needs.  Keep in mind, that all this should be done prior to any planning/execution, and a corporate email from the executive team indicating to the employees that the Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt has been given this authority and that the employees should be willing to work with the Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt and prioritize his/her requests as if it is coming directly from the executive team itself.

There are several methodologies that can be used in Lean Six Sigma.  IDOV, PDCA< DMAIC, DMADD DMADV, DMADOV and more.  The Lean Eix Sigma Master Black Belt will know what to use, and when to use it.

Once the Strategic Initiatives/Objectives have been refined and documented, the hiring/planning/documenting/data collection can begin.  With the data, the Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt and his/her team can start to document both historical statistical data and current statistical data.  On a regular basis the Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt should be presenting this statistical data to the executive team and should always leave time for broader discussion by the executive team.  Once approved by the executive team, the data should be shared with the employees as well via a broad corporate/company communication email.

Now, the question becomes, do you hire an army of “outside” Lean Six Sigma Professionals, or do you identify “Top Performers” within your corporation/company and train them internally?

While brining in “outside” Lean Six Sigma Professionals may be tempting as it gives you broader experiences with either a competing or different industry, it is and will be our recommendation that you train internally by establishing a Lean Six Sigma Academy and promote from within.

The reason for this is simply:  Your corporation/company has its own way of doing business, doing work and its own corporate ethics, core values and philosophy.  Every company is different and has its own way of doing things.  If you train and promote from within, you can ensure that these ethics, values and philosophy are encouraged, promoted and organically grown.

The Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt can and should incorporate examples from within your own company into the curriculum.  This is not only valuable to the corporation/company, but it is also valuable and beneficial to the employees that will be trained as well.  You may say that a company you wish to hire a Lean Six Sigma Professional from is strategically outperforming your company, and you want to replicate that success in your own business. 

We must ask you this:  Do you want to perform “as good” as your competitors, or do you want to outperform your competitors and set the standard and become the industry leader, with which your competition is hiring Lean Six Sigma Professionals to try to keep up and match your performance?

Your Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt will help you achieve this standard.  Not only that, but he/she will always be seeking “Continuous Improvement” by which you and your company will always be setting the bar higher and have your competition continually seeking to match your performance while you are differentiating your company on a regular basis and maintain the pinnacle of your industry.

The executive team will set the bar; The Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt will ensure that it is either met or exceeded.  It is a symbiotic relationship between the executive team and the Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt.  As an executive, you have the education, knowledge and experience to propel your company, increase your share price and delight your shareholders, customers and employees.  The Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt is your partner.  They have the experience, the knowledge and education to ensure that your ideas come to fruition.

Once your projects are underway, the Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt should be updating the executive team on the progress, performance and the success of not only the projects, but the training as well.

There will be another article on Lean Six Sigma Training, but as the projects complete, the Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt and the team they trained/hired will have direct statistical insights as to performance, cost, and success of the projects.  This is important.  The proactive Lean Six Sigma will allow your company to ensure that should something go wrong, it is seen before it becomes costly or exactly when it happens.

The data will be there to back up any assertions and the Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt will be the partner that you will be able to rely on to ensure that $50 error, doesn’t turn into a $500,000+ Reactive Lean Six Sigma Project.

Once the projects are done, it should be one of the higher objectives of the Lean Six Sigma Team to monitor, track and ensure that not only if changes need to be made, but how critical they are, what those changes will entail and how much they will cost as part of a cost/benefit analysis.  With the data being gathered, statistical analysis can be performed on even an hourly basis.  The analysis can be performed to match the frequency of the gathering of the data.  Better yet, have statistical tools provide a real-time look at the statistics.

We must ask:  Would you rather prevent costly projects, or hire more and more people and Lean Six Sigma Professionals to fix those costly projects?  Would you rather have your company personnel working and exceeding their expectations within their job function or would you rather they devote their time and efforts to everything but that?

Preventative Lean Six Sigma is more effective, far less expensive and allows your company to focus its energies into exceeding the market performance.

Your share price, your profit margins, your customer satisfaction, your employee satisfaction all depend on the way you want to work and do business.

Y=f(x).

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