Lean Six Sigma tools seek to eliminate processes that aren’t valuable. Lean tools are utilized across many industries—from manufacturing to engineering to finance— and organizations often leverage them together with Six Sigma methods. Though there are some differences between the two frameworks, the underlying philosophies behind Lean and Six Sigma complement each other exceptionally well: Lean tools are designed to eliminate invaluable processes, while Six Sigma focuses on lessening variation within a process. When used together, the two are referred to as Lean Six Sigma, a process that reduces and manages different types of waste in organizations. Though there are several different types of Lean tools, this article will focus on seven of them, and how they can be applied.

Lean Tools           Summary

Bottleneck Analysis         Structured way of looking at workflows

Just-in-Time (JIT)             On-demand system of production

Value Stream Mapping  Analyzing and optimizing a process

Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE)  Measure of productive time

Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA)          Method to manage change

Error Proofing    Analysis tool based on prevention

Root Cause Analysis (RCA)           Method to get the foundation of an issue

Lean Tools and Their Applications

• Bottleneck Analysis

How many times have your Project management courses online gotten stuck somewhere between development and delivery? Bottleneck analysis is a structured way of looking at the processes and workflows for developing a product or service. Bottleneck analysis is also used to address both present and future issues, by identifying and addressing operational and process challenges.

Applications

Utilizing Lean practices to spot and rectify a bottleneck saves companies time, energy and money. Depending on the type of bottleneck, there are several things you can do to address it. For example, bottlenecks caused by inefficient processes can be fixed through streamlining and improving those processes; if it is instead caused by a lack of resources, you may need to hire more people or purchase technology to make your existing resources go further.

• Just-in-Time (JIT)

Just-in-time manufacturing is an on-demand system that allows manufacturers to go into production only after the customer has requested a product. This means that companies do not have to stock up on unnecessary inventory, lowering the risk of some components or products being overstocked or damaged while being stored.

Applications

Professionals who use Lean principles should consider JIT if their business is capable of working on-demand and can minimize the risk of only carrying inventory as needed. JIT can be an effective framework for managing inventory, but it can also make it more difficult to meet customer demand if there is a breakdown in the supply chain. Organizations in sectors like manufacturing should carefully evaluate their supply chains and minimize the potential for disruption when implementing JIT. If a critical supplier has to suspend operations, for example, it’s important to have a backup plan to ensure that the final product can still be developed.

• Value Stream Mapping

Value stream mapping is a technique developed from Lean manufacturing. Organizations use it to create a visual guide of all the components necessary to deliver a product or service with the goal of analyzing and optimizing the entire process. Value stream mapping is used in a variety of industries, including manufacturing, finance and healthcare. This principle takes all the people, processes, information and inventory necessary, and displays them in a flow chart in order to get an overview of the business.

Applications

Value stream mapping can be applied to your organization by methods such as:

• Encouraging continuous improvement in processes
• Enabling culture change within an organization
• Facilitating clear collaboration and communication

• Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE)

Overall equipment effectiveness (or OEE) measures how much planned productive time is actually productive. For example, imagine you’re planning to work on a project for an hour, but then spending 20 minutes of that time answering a client call, meaning your OEE would be about 67% (40 minutes of actual production time, divided by 60 minutes of planned production time).In terms of manufacturing, OEE takes into account the percentage of “good parts” produced (“good parts” being the parts that meet the quality standards of that particular company). In the example above, if your project has parts that are poorly constructed, those would not count towards the “good parts” or overall OEE score.According to oee.com, overall equipment effectiveness can be calculated by multiplying the following three factors:

• Availability
• Performance
• Quality

These three factors are defined as follows:

• Availability = Run Time Divided by Total Planned Production Time
• Performance = (Ideal Cycle Time Multiplied by Total Count) Divided By Run Time
• Quality = Good Count Divided by Total Count

Applications

Companies apply OEE in order to increase production effectiveness and perform effectively and efficiently by establishing accurate baselines of performance—while still maintaining quality standards. This efficiency saves companies money and time.

• Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA)

Plan-Do-Check-Act is a scientific method used to manage change, and is also known as the Deming Cycle. It was developed by Dr. W Edwards Deming in the 1950s. The PDCA cycle involves four parts:

• Plan – Recognize an opportunity or process that needs improvement.
• Do – Create a small test.
• Check – Analyze the results of the test.
• Act – Move forward based on those results.

Applications

Lockheed Martin used PDCA to create a more efficient process in material management. One of its award-winning achievements was its ability to reduce the time to move parts from the receiving department to the stock department. Initially, this process took 30 days, but the entire process was shortened to four hours.

• Error Proofing

Error proofing—also known as poka-yoke—is a common process analysis tool that is based on the idea of prevention. As stated by BusinessMap, a Project management course and certification software company, poka-yoke focuses on making sure that the right conditions exist before any process is put in place. This step lessens the chance of defects and human error happening.

Applications

There are a few steps companies can take to successfully implement root cause analysis:

• Recognize the issue you are trying to solve.
• Learn details about how long the problem has been going on, and how it is specifically affecting your process/business.
• Collect data about the problem, and try to identify as many potential causes as possible.
• Once you have data, decide what the source of the problem is.
• Decide how to lessen the chances of the problem happening again.