Page 83 - Design for Six Sigma a Roadmap for Product Development

58 Chapter Three

A good example of appropriate application of Six Sigma and lean Six
Sigma into a product development process is the Samsung Group. Many
reputable publications, including Fortune magazine (Lewis 2005, Yun
and Chua 2002), described that Samsung developed a very effective
Design for Six Sigma approach that has greatly improved Samsung’s
capabilities in innovation, efficiency, and quality in its research and
development and product development processes. An important tool in
DFSS, Theory of Inventive Problem Solving (TRIZ), is a tool of choice for
Samsung to greatly improve its innovation capability.
The appropriate implementation of Six Sigma and lean Six Sigma
approaches into the product development process is possible and can
be extremely rewarding. A good Design for Six Sigma approach is the
right way of implementation of Six Sigma into the product develop-
ment process. It is our belief that this Design for Six Sigma approach
should have a strong innovation arm that can greatly enhance, not
stifle, the innovation capability of the companies that employ them.
The DFSS methodology described in this book is very strong in inno-
vation enhancement.
Besides Six Sigma, how do we implement lean operation principles in
the product development process in order to greatly improve the speed
of product development and efficiency of the process? Again, rigidly
plugging in a generic lean approach in the product development process
is also not appropriate. The lean product development approach is
a right approach for it. The lean product development process is a
customer value-driven product development process that is able to
develop products with maximum customer value with minimum wastes
in resources and high speed. The lean product development approach
discussed in this book comes from many sources, including the Toyota
product development system (Morgan and Liker 2006, Kennedy 2003),
Don Reinertsen’s work (Reinertsen 1997), and Yang’s work (Yang 2008).
In summary, Design for Six Sigma is Six Sigma going upstream, and
DFSS can greatly enhance the product development process in terms of
innovation, product design quality, future products’ value in market-
place, quality, and reliability. Lean product development will make the
product development process faster and more effective and will con-
sume less resources and cost. Similar to the relationship between Six
Sigma and lean Six Sigma, DFSS and lean product development also
complement each other and do not create contradictions and conflicts.
This book is about Design for Six Sigma, we will use overwhelming
portion of this book to go through the details of DFSS. However,
because DFSS is primarily applied in the product development
process, it is also important for DFSS practitioners to know the impor-
tant features of the product development process and lean product
development approach.