Page 206 - Lean six sigma demystified

184 Lean Six Sigma DemystifieD

The 4-50 Rule

I keep hammering this point: 4% of any business (1 step out of 25) is causing
50% of the waste, rework, and delay. As you can see from these examples, by
slicing and dicing the data horizontally and vertically, we can find two or three
key problem areas that could benefit from root cause analysis.

1. Start with the total columns and rows. Draw Pareto charts with the QI
Macros.
2. Then use this information to narrow your attention to one key row and
column within the table. Draw the lower-level Pareto charts from this
data.

3. Use the big bars from the lower-level Pareto charts to create problem state-
ments that serve as the head of your fishbone diagram.

Start using the QI Macros to slice and dice your tables (no matter how large).
You’ll find it easy to find the 4-50 and start making breakthrough
improvements.

Six Sigma Tar Pits

Recently, I facilitated a team that had been in existence for 6 months. All they
had to show for their time was a flowchart of a process that was mainly rework.
I’d been calling for weeks nagging the team for data about how the process
performs. I got part of the data the night before the meeting and the rest of the
data by lunch. But after a morning of trying to sort through the issues surround-
ing the process, the team had fallen into “storming” about the whole process.

They were frustrated, and so was I.
Pitfall 1. Brainstorming. Brainstorming is supposed to improve creativity,
broaden associations, spark insights, and generate lots of creative ideas. When I
first learned TQM, the instructors taught us to brainstorm problems to work
on. The difficulty was that we had no idea what a good problem looked like.
And it’s hard to tell a team to brainstorm a problem to solve and then tell them
that their problem is stupid. Lots of teams were started; few succeeded.
This highlights the main problem with brainstorming: if you don’t know
what you’re looking for, you won’t get useful ideas.
In the book Made to Stick, the Heath brothers reference a study of brain-
storming. Groups were supposed to create the marketing ideas for a
product.