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What are the pros and cons of both lean and six sigma?

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Sarmad Azhar

What are the pros and cons of both lean and six sigma?

Posted: Oct 11, 2022 1:02 AM

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Sergio Luis Conte Helping to create solutions for everyone| Worldwide based Organizations Buenos Aires, Argentina

There are not pros and cons. Just to put this in the context of PMI, the key role to work with implementing approaches into an organization is the business analyst (BA). The first thing to do is an activity called "Needs Assessment" where the BA takes the current situation and the future desire situation to achieve and based on enteprise architecture helps to define the solution. In this case, the solution could be to implement lean, six sigma or both. All this based on the organizations are open and adaptable systems. Then, pros and cons must be analized in the context of using it as solutions to business problems.

Posted: Oct 12, 2022 6:22 AM

Kiron Bondale Retired | Mentor| Retired Welland, Ontario, Canada

Sarmad -

The advantage is that both take a customer-centric approach to improving the value delivered.

There are really no disadvantages with lean - the issues are with how leadership teams have chosen to adopt it. If they just "do" lean without fundamentally changing their philosophy about quality and continuous improvement, they won't reap the benefits.

Six Sigma is very helpful when you have processes which are expected to be in control and where there is a decent amount of data to enable the use of its tools. When processes are out of control or there is high variation or when you have extremely limited data, it is less useful.

Kiron

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1 reply by Keith Novak

Apr 12, 2023 8:13 PM

Keith Novak

...

I must disagree somewhat regarding the efficacy of Six Sigma. 6S control charts allow identification of when a process is not in control, so that you can understand why and bring it back into control. High variance is a time when 6S may be very useful to understand the source of variance, and to confirm whether the actions taken in the Implement step of DMAIC improve it.

Since 6S is all about managing the means and the variances, lack of data does leave you with nothing to work with that provides statistical validity. Another pitfall is that if you have lots of different random issues driving the variance rather repeatable ones, you don't get much ROI because each fix does little to affect the overall metrics. You're simply shortening the "tails" on very broad flat distributions of problem sources.

Posted: Oct 12, 2022 9:04 AM

Stéphane Parent Self Employed / Semi-retired| Leader Maker Prince Edward Island, Canada

The drawbacks are not intrinsic to lean or six sigma. A new approach will cost you time and money to implement. Part of the cost is the revenue/profit loss of not doing something else with that time and money. (Any new approach will create a negative cash flow until it has been integrated into the company culture.)

Posted: Oct 13, 2022 7:36 AM

Latha Thamma reddi Sr Product and Portfolio Management (Automation Innovation)| DXC Technology Mckinney, Tx, United States

This is really Good question and reply's

Posted: Apr 12, 2023 4:55 PM

Keith Novak Tukwila, Wa, United States

Oct 12, 2022 9:04 AM

Replying to Kiron Bondale

...

Sarmad -

The advantage is that both take a customer-centric approach to improving the value delivered.

There are really no disadvantages with lean - the issues are with how leadership teams have chosen to adopt it. If they just "do" lean without fundamentally changing their philosophy about quality and continuous improvement, they won't reap the benefits.

Six Sigma is very helpful when you have processes which are expected to be in control and where there is a decent amount of data to enable the use of its tools. When processes are out of control or there is high variation or when you have extremely limited data, it is less useful.

Kiron

I must disagree somewhat regarding the efficacy of Six Sigma. 6S control charts allow identification of when a process is not in control, so that you can understand why and bring it back into control. High variance is a time when 6S may be very useful to understand the source of variance, and to confirm whether the actions taken in the Implement step of DMAIC improve it.

Since 6S is all about managing the means and the variances, lack of data does leave you with nothing to work with that provides statistical validity. Another pitfall is that if you have lots of different random issues driving the variance rather repeatable ones, you don't get much ROI because each fix does little to affect the overall metrics. You're simply shortening the "tails" on very broad flat distributions of problem sources.

Posted: Apr 12, 2023 8:13 PM

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