In this article I discuss the topic of Gaming the Metrics. I will be on Quality Digest TV to discuss the subject live with Quality Digest’s hosts. Join the fun at 11AM Pacific/2PM Eastern time by clicking here. If you miss the broadcast, you can find the recording here. (Tom’s segment appears about 12 minutes into the episode.)
Kum & Go convenience stores knows that the convenience store market is highly competitive. CSP Daily news reports that the retailer has taken to using Lean Six Sigma to help them compete. Kum & Go LC has practiced Six Sigma for several years, considering it a way to not only deliver a great retail experience to customers, but also to differentiate the West Des Moines, Iowa-based chain of more than 400 locations in 11 states.
“We provide safe and clean stores along with first-to-market products and exceptional customer experiences,” Dennis Folden, COO, told CSP Daily News. “That’s why we are able to ensure continued loyalty from our customers. Specifically, Six Sigma, continuous process improvement and a ‘passion for excellence’ are not easily replicated.”
Margins in the retail industry are extremely tight, so every penny counts. Lean Six Sigma is a way to identify opportunities to eliminate waste, unwanted variation, and errors in retail business processes, all of which cost money, add no value for customers, and don’t contribute to the bottom line.
Although Lean Six Sigma’s roots may be in manufacturing, it has been applied in a wide variety of other industries and businesses. If there is a repetitive process involved, the approach can be used to improve it. A retail chain serving millions of customers from hundreds of stores has many such processes. Lean Six Sigma helps first by getting people to understand their business from a process perspective. Most managers who are trained in traditional business schools are taught to view the business as a set of functions, such as marketing, purchasing, human resources, etc.. But customer value is created by processes, not functions. When processes are examined with Lean Six Sigma opportunities for improvement often jump out from the analysis. For example, process maps may reveal a great deal of duplication of effort, or important tasks for which no one has clear responsibility, or confusing lines of authority. Lean Six Sigma’s super-effective DMAIC project execution framework provides a way to pursue these opportunities.
The United States Army’s Office of Business Transformation is pursuing a 3 year program to improve its operations, and Lean Six Sigma is a big part of it. According to its web page on Lean Six Sigma, the Army has an award-winning, world-class Lean Six Sigma program that it applies as a core capability in its business transformation. The Army is reviewing core business processes to better support its forces, to reduce waste and to improve quality. The ultimate goal is to free human and financial resources for more compelling operational needs. The Army believes the fusion of Lean and Six Sigma improvement methods is required because:
The Army’s deployment is one of the largest anywhere. The Army’s Lean Six Sigma program has trained more than 1,450 senior leaders. As of the date of the report on their web site, the Lean Six Sigma community has completed nearly 5,200 projects, and more than 1,900 projects are currently in progress. Completed projects have yielded significant financial and operational benefits at organizations across the Army.
The Army’s use of Lean Six Sigma is part of its effort to transform the Army through the establishment of the Institutional Army Transformation Commission in August 2011. The Secretary of the Army, John M. McHugh, established the Commission in a Memorandumon 15 August 2011. According to the Secretary, “reforming and restructuring the Institutional Army – the Generating Force – is critical to building the Army of the future and supporting the forces of today. It must be as nimble, agile and adaptive as our Operating Force – driven by ideas, innovation and a determination to bring the best services and equipment, training and leaders, medical care and support to our Soldiers, civilians, and their family members.”
I think its safe to say that creating an organization that is nimble, agile, adaptive, driven by ideas, innovation, and a determination to bring the best are all goals that any leader can embrace. I believe that the Army is correct in believing that Lean Six Sigma can help them achieve these goals.
Lean Six Sigma can help healthcare organizations by taking a process view of the organization. For example, Mercy St. Vincent’s Medical Center in Toledo, Ohio, improved quality thorough its own care coordination model while incorporating Lean Six Sigma principles. Read more…
KANDAHAR AIRFIELD, Afghanistan –
Military logistics operations are centered on providing the best possible service to their customers. Ensuring the best possible service to soldiers downrange is the priority of every logistics leader. One deployed unit is providing their soldiers an opportunity to learn new ways to improve logistic capabilities. The Task Force Resolute command provides a Lean Six Sigma course at the U.S. Forces Afghanistan conference room on Kandahar Airfield, Afghanistan.
“Through Lean Six Sigma, soldiers and leaders will learn how to properly manage time and resources while delivering a top quality product the first time,” said Chief Warrant Officer Jackie Vuorinen, the TF-Resolute safety officer. “This is a program all soldiers can use to save Army resources while providing higher quality products.”
It’s only natural that the Task Force Resolute command use Lean Six Sigma. After all, providing military logistics is a complex process and, like any process, it can be improved. The current best practice for improving complex processes is Lean Six Sigma. Soldiers are being taught the Lean Six Sigma Green Belt body of knowledge. The most fundamental principal taught by the “Green Belt” course is to center the students thinking to several key concepts: define, measure, analyze, improve and control.
The soldier begins by defining a need within their organization centered around quality, cost or timing. The need must be clearly stated through a quantifiable unit such as units shipped, number of products delivered in a sub-standard state or the amount of time it takes to bring a product to the customer. soldiers measure all their statistics through historical data. The data is analyzed and the implications of faults within the organizations system are used to determine methods of improvement. These methods are implemented and used to create a steady improvement in service to the end customer.
Perhaps the effectiveness of the approach is why, according to the DVIDs website story, that students strongly recommend the course to all leaders and soldiers. In truth, this is the standard Lean Six Sigma approach applied in the context of military logistics. Let’s hope that the word spreads.
Mark Poloncarz, incoming Erie County Executive
According to an article in the Buffalo News Mark C. Poloncarz plans to drop Lean Six Sigma from Erie County government when he takes office as county executive in January. Poloncarz, who is currently county comptroller, has been critical of the Six Sigma program and told legislators last month during budget hearings that he had no plans to continue it. “Good government is good government. You can call it what you want,” Poloncarz told legislators. “We’re still going to be working to create better, more efficient government, but I do not see Six Sigma continuing in my administration.”
Perhaps an indication of what Poloncarz considers “good government” is the fact that he will not eliminate the money allocated for the salary of the Lean Six Sigma executive. The $116,000 salary for the director of the corporate efficiency program is still in next year’s budget. “Is there going to be a Six Sigma director at $116,000? No,” said Mark Cornell, a spokesman for Poloncarz. “However, no decisions have been made specifically as to how best to allocate those dollars.” The position of Six Sigma director is currently vacant. James E. Melton, who had filled that role since February, left the post in October.
Current county Executive Chris Collins has credited the Six Sigma program for helping to reduce the size of government by roughly 900 jobs during his four years in office and said Poloncarz will be the “beneficiary of all the efficiencies that we brought to government.”
“Those savings will be part of my legacy,” Collins said. “I’m just disappointed, very disappointed, that he won’t continue that journey.”
In a recent interview with ABC news I pointed out some of the many challenges facing the adoption of Lean Six Sigma in government. One of my observations was that without an initial transformation of the way government works any gains that are made through LSS could be erased with every election. It doesn’t take a crystal ball to see things like this coming. With Lean Six Sigma we focus on drilling down from outcomes to root causes. The inefficiency in government and the failure of governments to embrace the most successful approach known for improving efficiency is a matter of cause and effect. This won’t be resolved with leadership change, it will require transforming the system of government itself. I plan to provide a framework for doing just that in an upcoming book. In the meantime, don’t get your hopes up for Lean Six Sigma having a lasting impact in improving government efficiency.
This ABC News post discusses Newt Gingrich’s support for Lean Six Sigma in Government. I applaud Newt and I do believe that Lean Six Sigma can help take massive amounts of waste out of government. But, as Dr. W. Edwards Deming pointed out, the system itself must change. I don’t take the idea of transforming government lightly. But if we don’t do something about the reasons why the public sector has only tinkered with Lean Six Sigma for the past 25 years, while the private sector adopted the approach on a massive scale, then it’s doomed to have limited success. The limits will probably be in terms of both scope and longevity, perhaps both.
Specifically what needs to be done is a bit complicated. I have thought a great deal about it and I will present my ideas in my upcoming book, tentatively entitled “Common Sense Government: A Revolution in Efficiency.”
Due to popular demand we now offer monthly payment plans for all Six Sigma and Lean Six Sigma training. Plans start as low as $116.25 per payment. Our goal is to make top-notch training affordable for everyone.
The Pyzdek Institute has announced that it is giving away a complete Statistics course with registration for any of its Six Sigma or Lean Six Sigma Green Belt or Black Belt training courses. The statistics course, which includes 4 DVDs and two follow-along printed guides, consists of 24 lectures of 30 minutes each. Part 1 (12 lectures) covers all of the subjects commonly included with college introductory statistics course. Part 2 (12 lectures) explores a wide variety of applications of statistical methods.These challenging yet accessible lectures assume no background in mathematics beyond basic algebra. While most introductory college statistics courses stress technical problem solving and plugging data into formulae, this course focuses on the logical foundations and underlying strategies of statistical reasoning, illustrated with plenty of examples. Professor Michael Starbird walks you through the most important equations, but his emphasis is on the role of statistics in daily life, giving you a broad overview of how statistical tools are employed in risk assessment, college admissions, drug testing, fraud investigation, and a host of other applications.
This offer is good only while supplies last. Click here to register or to get additional details.
iSixSigma.com, once the leading online community and resource portal dedicated to Six Sigma, Lean and other operational excellence methodologies, is back under the ownership of the website’s creator, Michael Cyger. Plans are under way to “rebuild the functionality of iSixSigma.com from the ground up,” Cyger said, “taking advantage of the tens of thousands of articles, tools and resources already created.”
iSixSigma, as well as several other Internet properties, were sold to Schofield Media Group by Cyger in 2008. The site suffered along with other Schofield properties when financing difficulties arose in recent months. Now that he has reacquired the assets of the website, iSixSigma.com will become part of Web X.0 Media, an Internet publishing company Cyger launched in 2009.
iSixSigma.com began its life as one of the earliest Internet communities for Six Sigma professionals. In the finest tradition of the Internet, its active forums and abundant resources were made freely available to all. The site’s downhill slide began soon after its takeover by Schofield Media Group. The site was even hacked and shut down for an extended period of time. Although iSixSigma personnel tell me that the site recovered completely from the hack and shutdown, it didn’t seem that way to me. I found the site’s new look to be confusing and I personally spent much less time on the site than prior to its overhaul. However, it still had a lot to offer and I applaud the efforts to get it back up and running.
Mike Cyger will face challenges bringing the site back in the age of social networking. A lot has changed. Sites like LinkedIn, with its diverse operational excellence communities, make iSixSigma’s forum less relevant, perhaps even anachronistic. However, LinkedIn is one-dimensional and it doesn’t provide everything that a dedicated web site can offer. For example, instructional videos, regular contributions by experts, tools, etc.. I hope Mike and his staff go the extra mile in providing a new home for Lean, Six Sigma and other operational excellence communities.
Congratulations, Mike! This should keep you busy for a long time to come.
(0 votes, average: 0.00 out of 5, rated) (0 votes, average: 0.00 out of 5, rated) (0 votes, average: 0.00 out of 5, rated) (0 votes, average: 0.00 out of 5, rated) (0 votes, average: 0.00 out of 5, rated) (0 votes, average: 0.00 out of 5, rated) (0 votes, average: 0.00 out of 5, rated) (0 votes, average: 0.00 out of 5, rated) (0 votes, average: 0.00 out of 5, rated) (0 votes, average: 0.00 out of 5, rated)
