Debunking Lean Six Sigma Myths
It's not true that lean production can't embrace creativity and still yield results.
By Doug Burgess -- Graphic Arts Online, November 1, 2009
Kermit the Frog says it's not easy being green, but as his friend Miss Piggy might have said, “It's not easy being lean, either.” A lean operation has its fair share of challenges. Processes drive how things are done across almost all departments, including sales, manufacturing, HR and communications. Lean Six Sigma helps evaluate those processes and identify ways for improvement. In short, improve the process to improve the results.
This may seem like an obvious approach to problem solving, but Lean Six Sigma has faced some criticism throughout the years. Companies who turn to Lean Six Sigma often find themselves defending against the opposition, internal or at competitors, who say Lean Six Sigma stifles creativity, turns people into robots or is just another way to get more work out of employees. Some even see Lean Six Sigma as a fad that ended in the 1980s with hot pink and spandex. These are all misconceptions, and we're proving naysayers wrong daily.
Our R&D labs are constantly working on new products that help printing firms improve productivity and grow business. Moving an idea from inception to a printing operation requires not just one well-designed method, but many well-designed processes that are continuously evaluated for improvements. This is where Lean Six Sigma methodology plays an integral role. The Xerox Lean Six Sigma team works alongside engineers to deliver a product that increases the efficiency of a printing operation in the most proficient and economical way possible.
Squashing solution jumping
Eight years after the launch of the iGen3 press, Xerox applied Six Sigma to take its digital printing offering to the next level with the launch of the iGen4 press. The Xerox iGen4 product team worked directly with customers to gather feedback, and engaged Lean Six Sigma methodologies to help better understand which direction to take press enhancements and identify the core challenges facing customers. Lean Six Sigma eliminated “solution jumping”—having an answer before fully understanding the problem—and focused on explicit requirements. As a result, the product team defined goals for engineers to address, allowing them to identify the right solutions for current and potential customers.
Lean Six Sigma techniques also helped Xerox engineers achieve rapid time to market (only nine months) for the Xerox DocuColor 8000AP, delivering a device at a popular price point that retains its rated speed on all stock. The team used Design for Lean Six Sigma tools for achieving the fastest rate of improvement in customer satisfaction, cost, quality, process speed and invested capital. It eliminated the need to try every possible combination of factors, so the team could run fewer physical tests.
Lean Six Sigma is a rigorous, data-driven, results-oriented approach to process improvement, and when properly used over time, a source of sustainable competitive advantage. It creates consistent and efficient ways of performing tasks, ridding processes of errors and redundancies. For us, Lean Six Sigma is not a fad or a creativity suppressor, but a way to help get solutions into the hands of printing organizations faster. What could be wrong with that?
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