Less waste. Fewer defects. And the proof to go with it.
Lean Management takes out of your processes whatever creates no value. Six Sigma proves with data that the improvement actually happened. "We think it runs better" turns into a number you can check.
What this means for your business
If the terms mean nothing to you: you do not need to know them. What they are about, you know from everyday work.
Lean
Lean asks one single question of every step in the work: does it give the customer something? Everything else is effort that somebody pays for. Duplicate approvals, waiting for replies, searching, rework, interim storage. Lean makes those places visible and clears them away.
Six Sigma
Six Sigma deals with what still goes wrong. Instead of guessing at the cause, it measures. Where do defects arise, how often, and what is actually behind them? Only then is something changed, and afterwards it is measured again.
Together
Together that means: your processes get faster and cheaper, and at the end you can prove by how much. That is exactly the difference from an improvement that feels good and is gone again after three months.
Lean removes the waste. Six Sigma proves the result.
They come from different traditions and together they cover both sides of process improvement: doing less of what achieves nothing, and knowing for certain what works.
Leaving out what creates no value
Lean began in manufacturing at Toyota with one question: does this step help the customer? Whatever does not is challenged. Applied properly, it makes processes faster and cheaper without cutting corners on quality.
- The eight kinds of wasteOverproduction, waiting time, transport, over-processing, inventory, unnecessary movement, defects and unused employee potential. Systematically recorded and removed.
- Value stream mappingA clear picture of how the work actually flows, so it becomes visible where it stalls.
- 5SSort, set in order, shine, standardize, sustain. A method that keeps physical and digital workplaces in order for good.
- KaizenContinuous improvement in small steps, built into the daily work rather than run as a project that peters out after six months.
Reducing variation, proving the effect
Six Sigma treats quality as a measurement problem. Instead of assuming a process works, it establishes statistically where defects and variation come from. What gets fixed is the cause, not the symptom.
- Data instead of opinionEvery decision rests on measurements from the real process, not on assumptions about how it ought to run.
- Root cause analysisStatistical tools trace a defect back to its actual source, so that the fix holds.
- The belt systemThe training levels from Yellow through Green to Black Belt build statistical rigour into problem solving and make competence comparable.
- Built-in controlOnce a process is in order, ongoing monitoring makes sure it does not quietly slip back.
What it costs to work without Lean and Six Sigma
Hardly any business deliberately chooses erratic, laborious processes. It happens step by step, one stopgap after another, until nobody can say any more why a case takes so long.
Without Lean and Six Sigma
- โImprovements based on gut feel rather than measured data
- โThe same defect resurfacing every few months
- โNobody can say exactly where the waste is hiding
- โA fix that lasts a week, then quietly slips back
- โDecisions defended with opinion, not evidence
With Lean and Six Sigma
- โEvery improvement backed by real process data
- โRoot causes removed, not symptoms papered over
- โA value stream map showing exactly where work stalls
- โControl plans that keep an improvement from drifting back
- โDecisions your team can actually defend with numbers
What Lean and Six Sigma actually deliver
Not a redrawn flow chart, but a measurable change in how the work moves through your business.
The analysis finds the cause rather than the symptom. That is why a problem once fixed stays fixed and does not reappear next quarter.
Every process step justifies its place or goes. What remains gives the customer something.
Without waiting time and detours an order runs through faster, and deadlines become plannable instead of tight.
The result depends less on who happens to take the task on and how much experience that person brings.
When rework and searching fall away, working time is freed up that nobody previously counted as a cost.
Kaizen and control plans anchor the new standard in everyday work, instead of leaving it to depend on the attention of individuals.
DMAIC, the five phases
The structured approach behind every Six Sigma project we run.
Define
Set out the problem, the customer requirement and the target state, and do it in numbers.
Measure
Record how the process actually runs today. Where system data exists we evaluate it with process mining, instead of measuring by hand for months.
Analyze
Find the real cause of defects and variation, statistically rather than by guesswork.
Improve
Design changes that address the cause, and check whether they work.
Control
Set up monitoring so the improvement holds and does not disappear after three months.
The Measure phase decides the whole project and is at the same time the most expensive one. How to judge whether a company's data is good enough for a data-based analysis at all is the subject of one of our publications.
What a sigma level actually means
Six Sigma takes its name from a statistical scale. Each step up means roughly a tenth as many defects.
| Sigma level | Defects per million opportunities (DPMO) | What that means in practice |
|---|---|---|
| 2ฯ | around 308,537 | Roughly every third case is defective |
| 3ฯ | around 66,807 | About every 15th case, typical of a process that is not under control |
| 4ฯ | around 6,210 | About every 160th case, a solid, well-run process |
| 5ฯ | around 233 | About every 4,300th case, leading in the industry |
| 6ฯ | around 3.4 | About every 300,000th case, virtually defect-free |
The jump from one level to the next is easiest to achieve at the start and has the strongest effect there. Where your process stands today is what the Measure phase shows.
The person behind your improvement projects
Every DMAIC project with us is led by Andreas Erhard. He records the processes himself, evaluates the data himself and stands in the workshop himself.
Andreas Erhard, BA, MSc, MBA
Managing director and process manager
Over his career he has recorded, documented and assessed more than 1,500 processes. The Green Belt runs improvement projects to DMAIC independently and works with the statistical tools behind it.
And when the improvement needs automation
Many of the controls and evaluations that come out of a DMAIC project cannot be kept up on paper for long. We build them straight into your Odoo system instead of putting another tool next to it. The metric you want to watch in the Control phase then arises exactly where the work is booked anyway.
What we are asked almost every time
The way in is the process analysis
Lean and Six Sigma are the methodology. They are applied in a project, and that starts with us looking at how your processes run today. In the intro call we work out in 30 minutes whether it is worth it for you.