Page 30 - Lean six sigma demystified

Chapter 1 What iS Lean Six Sigm a ? 9

Since Lean Six Sigma can clearly help you become more efficient opera-
tionally and Design for Lean Six Sigma can help you be more innovative,
you’re going to need the tools of Lean Six Sigma. It may not become your
best-known feature, but it will be key to continued leadership and
profitability.

Manufacturing versus Service

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard people ask about Lean Six Sigma
Isn’t that just for manufacturing?
The short answer is No, Lean Six Sigma is good for any business process—IT,
customer service, administrative, and so on. Why? Because every business
suffers from the three profit demons: delay, defects, and deviation.
If you look closely at U.S. industry, more and more manufacturing jobs are
moving offshore. Only one-third of the Fortune 100 make a physical product.
Two-thirds thrive on services. In manufacturing companies, only 20 employees
out of every 100 actually work on the assembly line; the rest work in support
functions. More than half of the gross national product comes from information
and service industries like Microsoft and McDonald’s. But these industries are
lagging behind manufacturing in the quest for quality.
That’s why there’s so much opportunity for the business that decides to use
Lean Six Sigma to break through to new levels of productivity and profitability—
because no one else is doing it.
When I first started working with improvement processes in the telephone
company, many people said it wouldn’t work because it only works for manu-

facturing, not services. Nothing could be further from the truth. This is just a
convenient way for crafty employees to dodge learning these powerful improve-
ment strategies.

What Is Manufacturing?

Manufacturing involves the development and production of tangible products.
Other terms used to describe these are plant floor, production, engineering, and
product development. Driven by the marketplace, most manufacturing functions
have had to embrace improvement methodologies and statistical process con-
trol (SPC) just to survive. And, to lower overhead, most manufacturers have
moved to Asia. The computer and laptop this book was written on were made
in China, not the United States.