Page 17 - Lean six sigma demystified

xvi LEAN SIX SIGMA DeMYSTiFieD

and quality that translate into cost savings or more sales because of improved
performance.
Sadly, every employee wants to be certified as a Green or Black Belt because
it looks good on his or her resumé, but that person just wants to go to class and
get a certificate at the end. Training is just the beginning. Improvement projects
are where the rubber hits the road. Can you find and fix the causes of delay,
defects, and deviation? Can you become an indispensable Money Belt?
Unfortunately, people lose 90% of what they’ve learned in less than 3 days
if they don’t apply it. What does that mean? It means that if you spend 5 days
in a Green Belt class, you’ve forgotten most of what you learned on Monday by
Thursday. And after a weekend, you’ve lost most of what you learned during
the whole week. Fortunately, I’ve found some ways to change the learning pro-
cess to integrate learning with project experience that will enable you to learn
and apply Lean Six Sigma more quickly and effectively. I’ll discuss those meth-
ods in the implementation part of this book.
One of the real problems I see with the extensive education requirements of
most Six Sigma belt programs is the volume of information. The American Society
for Quality put together a body of knowledge for a Black Belt that you can down-
load from www.asq.org/certification/docs/sixsigma_bok.pdf. Most of this informa-
tion is overkill. I recently saw a debate between H. James Harrington and Peter
Pande (two Six Sigma gurus) at the Quality Expo in Detroit. The one thing they
could agree on was that most Black Belts would never use even a fraction of what
is taught in these classes. Maybe you’ve noticed this in other situations—a handful
of tools do most of the work. Go into any hardware store and you’ll see hundreds
of tools, but at home most of your needs will be met by a hammer, pliers, a saw, and
a screwdriver. The same is true of Lean Six Sigma; a handful of tools will solve 90%

of the problems. So, in this book, I’ll focus on the key methods and tools first, and
the less frequently used tools second.

Culture and Implementation

The mindset, methods, and tools of Lean Six Sigma are simple and easy to
learn. Getting your corporate culture to adopt these methods, tools, and mind-
sets is the challenge. If your employees are like most employees, they’ve expe-
rienced too many panaceas and programs of the month. It’s hard to keep Lean
Six Sigma from ending up in the junkyard of failed culture changes.
Most Lean Six Sigma books and programs dive into the top-down, endless
training required to make Lean Six Sigma fly. I call this wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling