Page 300 - Lean six sigma demystified

278 Lean Six Sigma DemystifieD

Lean Six Sigma has some excellent tools to help refine your improvement
focus. Most people aren’t ready to use these strategic tools until they’ve started
to understand the basic methods and tools.
I’ve also noticed that Lean and Six Sigma started out as separate meth-
ods and tools, but have been on a collision course for the last few years.
There is a trend in the press toward something called process innovation.
Just as Six Sigma eclipsed TQM, I suspect that process innovation will
become the new catch phrase that encompasses Lean Six Sigma. Regard-
less of what you name it, the improvement efforts can benefit from more
rigorous focus.

Focusing the Improvement Effort

The focusing process was originally called hoshin planning. I call it laser focus.
In this chapter, you will learn how to use the key tools required to laser-focus
your process innovation.

• Use the Voice of the Customer (VOC) to define customer requirements.
• Develop Critical to Quality (CTQ) measures to link the VOC to your
business processes.
• Create a Balanced Scorecard to focus and align the organization’s mission
to both the long- and short-term improvement objectives.
• Select and graph indicators to measure your customer’s requirements and
the progress of the improvement effort.

The planning process feeds directly into problem solving to increase speed,
quality, and cost by reducing cycle time, defects, waste, and rework.

Voice of the Customer

If I had asked my customers what they wanted, they’d have asked for a faster horse.
—Henry Ford

The VOC helps the business focus the improvement effort in ways that will
achieve breakthrough improvements in speed, quality, and cost that serve the
customer. Using the voice of the customer (VOC), business (VOB), and