Page 301 - Lean six sigma demystified

Chapter 9 La S er-Fo C u S ed Pr o C e SS i nnovation 279

employee (VOE), you can develop a master improvement story that links and
aligns multiple teams and improvement efforts to achieve quantum leaps in
performance improvement.
Michael George speaks of understanding the heart of the customer, not just
the head. To understand the customers’ heart, he suggests that you will want to
(1) develop strong links to both the core and the fringes of your market,
(2) study the behavior of customers to gain insights into how they are using
your product or service, and (3) include customers and their knowledge
throughout the development process.
The VOC analysis gathers the customers’ needs and wants as a basis for
establishing objectives. Only customers can create jobs. So customer satisfac-
tion is a central theme of Lean Six Sigma. There are direct customers (e.g.,
actual buyers or retailers) and indirect customers (e.g., shareholders, govern-
ment regulatory agencies). Each customer has unique requirements, which can
be related to your business.
All improvements involve moving from a present way of satisfying cus-
tomers to a more desired method. Before we can set the improvement pro-
cesses in motion, however, we first have to define our direction of movement.
Where most companies and improvement teams fail is in getting properly
focused. To succeed, you will want to focus on your customers’ needs and
follow the data.
Once you’ve identified your key measurements for each of these goals, set
a Big Hairy Audacious Goal (BHAG) for improvement. Forget the 10%
improvement. Go for 50% reductions in cycle time, defects, costs, system
downtime, and so on. Go for 50% improvements in financial results and
customer satisfaction. I have found that when you go for 10% improvements,

you only get 10% ideas. When you go for 50% improvements, you get 50%
or bigger ideas, and you often get 70% to 80% improvements. Breakthroughs!
BHAGs also force you to narrow your focus to the 4% of the business that
will produce the biggest return on investment.

Developing the Voice of the Customer

Developing the VOC matrix (Fig. 9-1) is easy, but it forces some rigor into your
thinking. This is perhaps the power of Lean Six Sigma; all of the tools force
people to go beyond surface-level thinking into a deeper understanding of their
business.