Page 281 - Lean six sigma demystified

Chapter 8 Su S taining i mpr ovement 259

delivery of that product or service to reduce the excessive costs of defects,
delay, waste, and rework, then your company will be in trouble when the
bubble bursts or the fad fades.
It’s easy to be seduced by easy success, but it takes clarity of focus to sustain
that success. The U.S. economy is recovering, but peaks lead to troughs. Lean
Six Sigma methods and tools can help you find the lost profits in your business.
Will your company be ready when the tide turns?
Lately I’ve become concerned about how people learn statistical process control.
Most trainers teach participants how to do all of the calculations manually and then
show them how to do it using a tool like the QI Macros for Excel SPC Spftware.
I don’t think people should have to learn how to do things manually. It’s like
teaching a farmer how to plow a field with a plowshare when there’s a brand
new tractor that can plow eight rows at a time sitting right on the edge of the
field. It’s like teaching a person everything there is to know about the genera-
tion and distribution of electricity before you let him or her turn on a light bulb.
It’s a waste of time.
It used to be important to do it manually because you had to if you wanted
to get results (which meant that few people ever did it). Many people feel
compelled to teach it that way, because that’s how they were taught, but it no
longer adds value from my point of view. It’s just a way to fill up the class time.
It’s a way to turn a 1-day class into a 5-day class.
I’m biased about this because I spent 5 days in a control chart class doing
calculations manually, but only 2 hours discussing what the charts are telling us,
which was the only truly important part of the class. I came away knowing enough
about the calculations to know that they were too complex to do manually and
not knowing anything about reading the charts and using them.

Employees are too busy to waste time learning more than they need to know.
We no longer have the luxury of learning everything there is to know before we
do anything. We only have time for the essence.
The 4-50 rule: 4% of the knowledge about any subject will give you half the
benefit. The more you teach beyond this point, the more diffused, esoteric, and
seemingly complex the knowledge becomes. If you teach someone everything,
he, or she, will have no idea what’s important and what isn’t. He knows it all,
but he knows nothing. He has too many choices to take action effectively.
Let software do the hard work accurately; this will free you up to do the
important work of analyzing the charts and making improvements. Stop major-
ing in minor things. Juran said it well: “The vital few versus the trivial many.” This
applies to knowledge as well as improvements.