Six Sigma Tools

« Older Entries

Another form of muda – An Article review

Monday, August 9th, 2010

August 6th, 2010

Number Nine[1]

I have written several articles on the seven types of waste that have been read by a lot of folks. Well now I’d like to expand those seven to nine. As you will see in this article in Six Sigma we are continuously trying to improve even Six Sigma’s tools and techniques. Here a user finds a need to define another type of waste. Why? Because, as Mr. Navetta puts it, categorizing another form of  muda/ waste can help you eliminate it.

So my articles talked of seven and Mr. Navetta now has create number nine. What happen to eight? Well eight is a Toyota developed one called unused employee resources that I included in a category I called Inventories and/or other resources.

Number Nine is: “Material underutilization” Mr. Navetta describes it as leftover material once the material has been used. His example is the “skeletons” from a stamping machine which an excellence example. He says you may not know if it is truly a waste but tag it and find out. He mentions that the spacing could be due to closer would cause stress within the part. But I am with him, ask the question. It maybe that with a re-layout of the die one could get more pieces from the sheet.

But stamping is not the only place. Think about forms where we have multiple copies that are sent out. Many times processes get changed where fewer copies are needed and the number of copies is not changed. It is material that is under utilized and a waste.  We will tend to throw the extra copy away rather than get the form changed.

Can you think of other situations that fit into this category of waste? Leaving a comment below, emailing me, call me, or leaving a comment on my website.

Great article kudos to Mr. Navetta

As always if, you have questions or comments please feel free to contact me by leaving a comment below, emailing me, calling me, or leaving a comment on my website.


Bersbach Consulting
Peter Bersbach
Six Sigma Master Black Belt
http://sixsigmatrainingconsulting.com
peter@bersbach.com
1.520.829.0090


[1] Jim Navetta, “Number Nine – Categorizing another form of muda can help you eliminate it,” Quality Progress, Vol. 43, No.8, August 2010, pp. 64,

http://www.asq.org/qualityprogress/departments-columns-current/i,ndex.html?ssUserText=&column=15&mode=nav&lst=hp

Note: The website above is on the American Society for Quality website and to access it you need to be a member. But there are way to purchase the article from ASQ.


Tags:
Posted in Introduction to Six Sigma, Six Sigma Tools | 2 Comments »

Elevate the Constraint

Monday, July 12th, 2010

elevate

To elevate a constraint is to make it the number one priority and work on increasing its capacity. Although we have talked bits and pieces of this step in several of the other steps, here we focus on just the constraint. So here are a few ways to elevate the constraint.

  • Add capacity to the constraint. This means adding people and/or equipment. The equipment you add does not have to be new or the same equipment you are currently using, it just has to do the same job even if it runs at a slower rate. This added equipment or personnel  increases capacity.
  • Adjust flow to match constraint. We have mentioned this before and restate it now. What this does is decrease inventory and confusion all over the area. It also makes everyone up and down stream from the constraint aware of the constraints rate (beat of process) and thus the importance of keeping it running.
  • Decouple operations if data verifies this can be done. Some things can be done on products that do not go through the constraint. Other things can be done at the same time (in parallel)  and later coupled up with items going through the constraint.
  • Implement a flexible work cell. A flexible work cell is an work area that can be easily changed or adapted to do several tasks. This goes along with the decoupling. While an operation is waiting on the constraint (one of the seven types of waste),  have it quickly change and do a different task that needs to be done that is not part of the constraints process flow line.
  • Eliminate any non-value added tasks being performed at the constraint. Create a process flow map of the steps that are performed just at the constraint and identify the value added steps and the non value added steps. Totally eliminate the non value added steps or at least remove those tasks from the person working the constraint. Think of the surgeon again, with all the help in the room the surgeon is doing all the value added task while all the help is doing what is considered non value added tasks. These task are now being done in parallel (Decoupled from the flow).
  • Reduce parts handling. Look at the constraint and try to do as much as you can at one holding of an item. Take an item, do what is needed without releasing it and pass it on. If you have to keep turning it over or reloading the item it just adds time and opportunities to create a defect in it.
  • Reduce waiting or storage. Here we want to insure that at the constraint is NEVER waiting for anything. Plus nothing is waiting at the constraint to be used. Now that is near impossible but we want to reduce both of those as much as possible.
  • Reduce or eliminate the process variation. One easy way to do this is by implementing error proofing. Error proofing is a way that when putting two things together there is only one way it can be done. On a form, check boxes are a way of error proofing.
  • Reduce setup at the constraint. Setup is a non value added task and if you can eliminate, reduce or decouple setup you should. Sometimes setup can be done at a step in the process while the step is working. Again look at a surgery room. While the doctor is removing the patients heart, we should be preparing the transplant heart (setup) to be ready for immediate installation. In the pit at the race track, the pit crew does not wait until the car comes in to get the materials that are needed. They have everything laid out ready for the car as soon as it comes in. All this setup is done done while the process (car) is running (still on the track).
  • Reduce Waste – There are seven basic types of wastes that I have talked about in another article. They are: Corrections, Overproduction, Movement of material or information, Motion of employees, Waiting, Inventory, and Processes.  One of the best tools to reducing these wastes is the 5S’s: Sort, Simplify, Sweep, Standardize, and Sustain. Reducing these can save you time and money.

Well there you have how to elevate a constraint in your process. The last of the five steps in constraint management is to go back to step one; Identify the constraint. The reason you start again at step one is that if you have improved the constraint it probably is no longer a constraint and some other step has become the constraint. You continue to do this until the process has no constraints. In other words until the rate of the process exceeds the demand placed on it. You may, in fact, have a slow step but if you still meet demands it is just that; a slow step and not the constraint. If, you have questions or comments please feel free to contact me by leaving a comment below, emailing me, calling me, or leaving a comment on my website.


Bersbach Consulting
Peter Bersbach
Six Sigma Master Black Belt
http://sixsigmatrainingconsulting.com
peter@bersbach.com
1.520.829.0090

Tags: , ,
Posted in Leading Six Sigma, Six Sigma Tools | 1 Comment »

3rd Step – Subordinate all other Tasks to the Constraint

Thursday, June 24th, 2010

surgeon

In constraint management after you have identified and exploited the constraint, you must subordinate all other tasks to the constraint. If you do not do this all you will have is people wasting time and materials creating parts of a completed product that no one wants. Then you have to spend money keeping track of all the excess inventory until you can use it. It is better to move those resources to helping the constraint task complete its works as quickly as possible. Think of your constraint as the surgeon of the process. All other tasks being performed in the operating room are subordinated to the surgeons work. Materials and tasks are brought in for use right when the surgeon needs them. Here are some helpful hint about subordination.

  1. You can decrease the output of all the rest of the tasks in the constraints process. Tasks before the constraint, will just build up inventory that cost you money. Money tied up in materials and labor to create the inventory that is sitting waiting for processing at the constraint. While it seats you have to keep track of it and store it until you use it. This also happens at tasks after the constraint. Here processes build inventory that sits waiting for the constraints task to be completed before they can complete their task.
  2. Since the capacity of the other tasks is larger than the constraint you can cut back on the utilization of the resources at those task and even move them to help the constraint. Sometimes these resources may not be as efficient as what is at the constraint but every little bit of output at the constraint helps.
  3. Increase the time that the constraint is being run. If the constraint task is only being done Monday through Friday from 8 – 5, then add the weekends or shifts for the constraint, This will increase the overall output of the process.
  4. Make sure that everyone know what the constraint is and what is needed at the constraint to keep it working. Put the information in every tasks written procedures. This way everyone will know the importance of keeping the constraint running and will make it their job to see it is working full time.
  5. Put in place a way to monitor the constraint so everyone know how it is doing at all times. Monitor Constraints throughput and/ or buffer sizes. Information is a great thing when everyone know what is happening and what is important.


Well there you have how to subordinate all the other tasks to the constraint in your processes. Next time I will address how we elevate a constraint. The forth of five steps in constraint management. As always if, you have questions or comments please feel free to contact me by leaving a comment below, emailing me, calling me, or leaving a comment on my website.


Bersbach Consulting
Peter Bersbach
Six Sigma Master Black Belt
http://sixsigmatrainingconsulting.com
peter@bersbach.com
1.520.829.0090


Tags: , , ,
Posted in Leading Six Sigma, Six Sigma Tools | No Comments »

Exploiting the Process Constraint

Thursday, June 3rd, 2010

Exploit ConstraintOnce you have identified your constraints, the next step in constraint management is to exploit them. This mean to utilize them to their maximum extent. To exploit the constraint we have to take a look at a few things first.

  1. We need to look at the existing work in process (WIP) and throughput levels and compare them to the goals or proposed levels or TAKT time for the constraint.
  2. We need to look at the line flow requirements and compare it to the constraint capacity.

These two will give you a feel for how bad things are. Look closely at these comparisons and them do the following things:

  1. Develop a layout depicting buffer locations and sizes. Remember that buffers are one of the Seven Types of Wastes so try to maintain them as low as possible, but never let the constraint run out of raw materials to perform its tasks.
  2. Determine equipment needs. Here we look at if we can find other equipment to help the constraint move product faster. This may include buying more of the same equipment and creating another parallel operation to increase product flow to meet the demand.
  3. Once you have the first two done then adjust the process flow rate to match the capacity of the constraint. This will reduce materials from piling up at the constraint and making thing confusing.
  4. Rebalance operations. Not all products you produce require all operations in the process so something may bypass the constraint or can have other thing performed on it before it needs to go through the constraint. Ignore local efficiencies. Building more products at other operations just to keep people busy does not increase sales it only increases expenses.
  5. Ensure that an operator is always at the constraint working the product through it. Do this by staggering lunches and breaks, and cross training to ensure multiple people can work the constraint. Treat the person working the constraint like a heart surgeon. Everything is always there ready for them to do their job. They don’t have to go looking or wait for anything!!
  6. Establish procedures to ensure the constraint “NEVER RUNS DRY”. This includes material flow management, buffers, inventories, early deliveries, and expediting material so that they are always there at the constraint, ready for use.
  7. Every constraint needs to be a planned maintenance #1 priority so when maintenance is preformed it take the minimum amount of time away from running product on the operation. Notice I said a planned maintenance NOT no maintenance. I do not remember how many times I have heard that “we could not afford to stop for maintenance” but they ended up having to stop for repairs caused by no maintenance. Those repairs took, on average, 10 times longer to do. Maintenance is cheap and can be done off hours on constraint equipment.

Well there you have how to exploit a constraint in your processes. Next week I will address subordination of a constraint the third of five steps in constraint management. As always if, you have questions or comments please feel free to contact me by leaving a comment below, emailing me, calling me, or leaving a comment on my website.


Bersbach Consulting
Peter Bersbach
Six Sigma Master Black Belt
http://sixsigmatrainingconsulting.com
peter@bersbach.com
1.520.829.0090

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Leading Six Sigma, Six Sigma Tools | 1 Comment »

Identifying your Process Constraints

Thursday, May 27th, 2010

constraint management

Some times the hardiest thing is to find your process constraint. Remember, a constraint is any resource with less throughput than the demand placed on it. They regulate the output of your whole process. First, you need to understand “demand”. Demand is not what the supervisor wants, although many times it feels like it if the supervisor does not understand constraint management. Demand is the rate at which you need to run the process to meet customer needs or demands. If you are not making it for a customer then it is not a demand you really need to meet.

Where do we look for possible candidates as possible constraints? We go walk the process and look for:

  • Areas where a lot of WIP (Work in Process) or material is waiting for processing. This is one of the Seven Types of Wastes.
  • Areas that work a lot of overtime. This is not just paid overtime but also unpaid. If your company is good, employees many times will work extra hours just to make things happen sooner, this counts as overtime also.

At those operations that you see the above happening review the following:

  • Spaghetti Charts (Physical Process Flow Chart) of these operations. Is there a lot of movement?
  • Line balance at these operations. Is the product balance uneven?
  • Constraint Capacity. Is capacity below the demand?
  • The demand on the operation. Are the demands real?

If the answer to any of these four questions is yes this step is a possible constraint.

To validate these steps as a constraint we need to use TAKT time to understand the constraint need. TAKT time is the time which should be taken to produce a product based on customer demand. With that said if every step or operation of a process is working at or above that rate then the whole process is meeting the customer demand. It only takes one step of the process to be below that TAKT time to make the whole process fail to meet the demand placed upon it. Once we have the TAKT time, we can compare it to the actual throughput and validate the step as a constraint or not. TAKT time is the total net operating time per shift or day, divided by the total customer(s) requirements needed per shift or day. Net operating time is the total time minus breaks and lunch (if things are not running during that time). For example lets say your customer demands are 1000 (parts, transactions, assemblies) per shift and a shift is 8 hours or 480 minutes. Now lets say that we have two 20 minute breaks during the shift and no lunch breaks (employees do take lunch but the operation is still running). That means our net operating time is 440 minutes (480- 20- 20= 440). So TAKT time is 440/1000 = .44 minutes or (.44min * 60 seconds) 26.4 seconds per item. That means that in this process every step has to complete their tasks in 26.4 seconds.

Once you have the TAKT time for each of the process step that you had identified above then you can list all those steps by TAKT time and actual time. Those that exceed the TAKT time are constraints; those that do not exceed the TAKT time are not constraints.

Well there you have how to identify a constraint in your processes. Next week I will address exploiting the constraint the second of five steps in constraint management. As always if, you have questions or comments please feel free to contact me by leaving a comment below, emailing me, calling me, or leaving a comment on my website.


Bersbach Consulting
Peter Bersbach
Six Sigma Master Black Belt
http://sixsigmatrainingconsulting.com
peter@bersbach.com
1.520.829.0090



Tags: , , ,
Posted in Leading Six Sigma, Six Sigma Tools | 1 Comment »

Where Oh Where have my Profits Gone? A Discussion on Constraint Management

Monday, May 17th, 2010

In today’s world we are always looking for ways to improve what we do. But many time we have improved a step of one of our business processes to find no real gains. Yes that step is more efficient but over all we did not improve the bottom line. Why does this happen? Because we have been improving areas that are not the over all bottlenecks of your company. The bottleneck or constraint paces the whole process and if you are improving any other step but the constraint you will find not improvement in the overall process. You need to work the constraint. A constraint is any resource with less throughput than the demand placed on it. The constraint usually regulate the output of the process. It is the “Beat” of the process.

What we need to do is manage our constraints. If we manage them then we will be making improvements to the critical parts of our processes and thus we will see improvement in the output. Constraint Management helps recognize and manage constraints that are impacting our performance. It provides:

  • Increased capacity without needing to make capital investments.
  • Flexibility to changing customer demands
  • Reduce or eliminate need for buffers/ Work in process (WIP)
  • Reduces cost through increased output and improved global efficiency.
  • Reduces throughput variability
  • It creates global optimization , not local sub-optimization.

There are five basic steps to Constraint Management. They are:

  1. Identify the constraint – Look at every step of the process and evaluate it’s capacity and throughput in regards to the demand or Takt Time. Look around at the steps of your process, do you see  a lot of inventory or a large stack in an inbox, people charging a lot of over time, working late or long hours, taking work home to get it done. This usually indicate a constraint.
  2. Exploit  the constraint – Looking at the required throughput (Demand or Takt Time) adjust buffers (in baskets) and equipment at the constraint to allow maximum throughput. Then rebalance the process to feed just what the constraint needs no more no less.
  3. Subordinate the constraint – This means reduce production so that all operations only produce the quantity that the constraint can handle. This reduction many times frees up equipment and personnel that can help work the constraint step of the process. Make sure everyone know what the constraint is and what that step can handle.
  4. Elevate the constraint -  Here we do everything possible to keep the constraint step working.  This is like making sure the step is running 24 hours a day 7 days a week. Adjust employees breaks and lunch to insure this step is always running. Remove or have someone else do tasks that do not create value but need to be done at this step. Treat the employee at this step like a heart surgeon; everything is close by easy to get and ready for use.. No delays.
  5. Go back to 1. – You need to go back to step one because if you did you job right on the constraint then you now have a new one to work..

You keep doing this until you have no constraints in the process. How can that be? We can reach that point when the (customer) demand is less than the throughput. You will still have steps that are the slowest but as long as you meet the demand you are ok. By the way those steps still set the pace of the whole process. If you remember that you will help keep cost ( of storing inventory) down. One way to do that is with a “Pull System” which is a good topic for another article.


As always if you have questions or comments please feel free to contact me by leaving a comment below, emailing me, calling me, or leaving a comment on my website.


Bersbach Consulting
Peter Bersbach
Six Sigma Master Black Belt
http://sixsigmatrainingconsulting.com
peter@bersbach.com
1.520.829.0090

Posted in Leading Six Sigma, Six Sigma Tools | No Comments »

A Proper Pareto Chart

Friday, May 14th, 2010

A Pareto Chart is one of the simplest and most powerful tool to guiding you to the root cause of a issue you have.  Many people create Bar charts and call them Pareto, but a proper Pareto shows the 80%/20% Pareto Principle extremely well. That principle being that 80% of the effects come from only 20% of the causes. Below is a video by Thomas Pyzdek showing you how to create a proper Pareto in Microsoft Excel 2007.

If the above is not linked to the video here is the URL:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1AlJvmW98k

If you have any questions you can comment below or contact me on my website or phone below.

Bersbach Consulting
Peter Bersbach
Six Sigma Master Black Belt
http://sixsigmatrainingconsulting.com
peter@bersbach.com
1.520.829.0090

Tags: , ,
Posted in Six Sigma Tools | No Comments »

The Project Charter – A forgotten but an extremely important tool of Define

Wednesday, May 12th, 2010

Why create a charter it seems just like busy work? I mean the boss wants this done NOW why waste the time on creating a charter? Good questions, but I can guarantee you a charter is NOT a waste of your time, nor the bosses time either. Do you remember the school yard game where you would line up and tell the person next to you something and have them pass it on. What was said at the end of the line? Was it ever the same thing? I’d say NO. Why is that? Because as much as we think we state things clearly the receiver never gets it exactly like what we said. I see this all the time in training and working in teams. We are such a diverse group of people that our individual picture of what is said gets mixed with what we know and that changes the thought.

So we write a charter to capture the “true” reason we are doing the project. It is the best way to capture and pass on what you are doing. With out it your team may get lost very quickly as the direct at the beginning is slightly different in everyone’s mind.

The charter is more than a simple statement of the project objective. It hold a lot of information so everyone gets the same “picture” of what we are doing. Some things in a charter may seem redundant but they are not. They are stating the approach to the issue in a slightly different way so other will get the complete picture of what is happening. You will find that you will come back to the charter time and again to bring the team back on task for what they were brought together to accomplish. So lets look at what should be in your charter.

The Header Block

  • Project Name or Title
  • Who will be the project Lead and their phone number
  • Who will be the project Sponsor and their phone number

Note: A sponsor is ALWAYS needed. The Sponsor will be the manager that the project will impact and help the most . The Sponsor will also help remove road blocks as the team encounters them. Last the Sponsor will be the main conduit to top management that will need to support this project as well.

  • The Project Start and Target End Date. Management will not support a project that we do not have some time frame to complete.

The Problem Statement – Here we need to describe the problem as briefly as we can but with enough detail that everyone understands it. Plus here we need to include a business case statement. This statement is what ties this problem to the company goals and objective and defines why we need to do it NOW. In other words it is the “burning platform or need” to do it now.

A Vision Statement – Many call this the objective but I like to call this a vision of the future state of the process. Many times this makes it easier for others to “picture” what it will look like when the project is complete.

The Metrics – This may seem hard to define right now but believe me when I say management when they saw this problem it was not a touchy feely thing it had hard number associated to it. Numbers they want to see changes in. It could be dollars, volume, time, or number of customers but there are numbers that are the metrics YOU need to improve. Sometimes even management does not quite know what they are but it is your job to ask why they think they see this as an issue and find the metric!

The Benefits – Now we take the metrics and align them to stakeholder benefits. Stakeholders are Customers, Stockholders, and Employees. So here we take the metrics and show how they impact our stakeholders.

Deliverables – Here is one a lot of folks miss but don’t you be one of them. This will define when you know the project is done. These will be the results of the project. They can be minimum changes in the metrics with stretch goals included. But everyone needs to know not only the date the project will be complete but also what will result from it. Yes, it is hard to know the exact solution at the start of a project but you can set some reasonable goals to accomplish. It does seem scary but in the end you will find that you had been very conservative with these.

Scope of the Project – The best way I can describe this is when looking at the process you are trying to improve. What steps of that process will be looked at in this project. This will help you keep the project focus and not have what I call scope creep due to not know what areas of the company this project will cover. It also should be noted that you need to make sure the scope is not to big ( you can not solve world hungry, you may be able to only solve hungry in your neighborhood).

Project Team – list here the member of the project team, what roles they will play and how you can contact them (phone).

DMAIC Est. Completion Times – I know you have the project Start and estimated completion dates above, but you will need an estimated completion time for each of the five step of DMAIC. These will be milestones to you and management on how well the project is moving. It is better to make adjustment as you go then to find you are way behind and over budget near the end of the project.


Well there you have the basic components of a six sigma project charter. At least from my prospective. If you have questions or comments please feel free to leave them below or you can contact me on my website.


Bersbach Consulting
Peter Bersbach
Six Sigma Master Black Belt
http://sixsigmatrainingconsulting.com
peter@bersbach.com
1.520.829.0090


Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Leading Six Sigma, Six Sigma Tools | No Comments »

Is DMAIC needed in Lean Six Sigma

Tuesday, May 4th, 2010

In an earlier article I wrote about DMAIC as the roadmap to a successful Six Sigma projects[i]. I implied that DMAIC was “the” method for Six Sigma, but it is not and does not have to be. Over the years I have seen adaptation of the DMAIC process to fit a companies culture. But a good proven method or approach is needed to be successful. In “6 Sigma’s Five Key Elements to Success”[ii] I talked about to have success you need an established method.

“An Established Method to improve. Many time people are told to go fix something and sometimes that works, but when the solution is not obvious you need a method to develop and implement a workable solution. In our case Six Sigma IS that method. A five step method (process) based on facts and data focused on your customer’s value to solve the need and grow your business. What happens if you don’t have a method?  You will have false starts. Put another way, have you ever been in a meeting where once again an issue comes up that was suppose to be solved last week, last month or last year? Those are fixes that were done with no method to the solution. When you see this during your project step back and look at your six sigma methodology and see if you have to refocus the team. An Example of this is trying to fix the problem from what was learned during or at the end of the Measure step. This leads to skipping analysis were we do a “Deep Dive” for the real root cause of what we see.”

Thomas Pyzdek said it this way, Six Sigma‘s …”focus is on doing. But how do we know what we are doing is correct?”[iii] He goes on to say that we know from gaining the knowledge through learning. DMAIC is one good method for learning and if you do not have one it is an excellent starting point. Remember that Six Sigma is focused on continuous process improvement. In a company I worked for they took the DMAIC process and expanded it to six steps instead of five. They did this to put more emphasis on some steps and less on others. Why change it? Because their culture understood how to do some of the steps of DMAIC very well but they felt that some steps needed extra attention to insure everyone did it right the first time.

By the way DMAIC was not the first learning approach used in the quality arena were Six Sigma roots are from. I believe Shewhart  came up with what is know as PDCA or Plan, Do, Check, Act. Deming refers to PDCA as the PDSA or Plan, Do, Study, Act. I believe that DMAIC’s root come from these. Can you see the progression?

DMAIC comparisonVCPCIA is another companies adaptation of DMAIC. In the Design arena we have DMADV or Define, Measure, Analyze, Design, and Verify.

Well there you have it. DMAIC is not cast in stone but it is a good starting point. Don’t leave anything out but adjust and clarify to make it work for you and then follow it! If you have comments or questions you can post them here or contact me.

Bersbach Consulting
Peter Bersbach
Six Sigma Master Black Belt
http://sixsigmatrainingconsulting.com
peter@bersbach.com
1.520.829.0090

________________________________________________________________

[i] The Roadmap to a Successful 6 Sigma Project, By Peter Bersbach, Oct. 8th 2009, http://www.sixsigmatrainingconsulting.com/uncategorized/the-roadmap-to-a-successful-six-sigma-project/

[ii] 6 Sigma Five Key elements to success, by Peter Bersbach, May 14th 2009, http://www.sixsigmatrainingconsulting.com/leading-six-sigma/6-sigma-five-key-elements-to-project-success/

[iii] Thomas Pyzdek, The Six Sigma Handbook (New York 2003), pg241

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Leading Six Sigma, Six Sigma Tools | No Comments »

Creating Customer Value or should I say Removing Non Value

Monday, April 12th, 2010

I have seen many companies trying so hard to get their employees to work harder creating more value for their customers. Trying constantly to keep a competitive edge over the competition. And yet when they really look around their employees are working already so hard. In fact, I’d say, people are busy 99% of the time trying to do a good job. So how does a company today meet this challenge, it is in the things the people do. The process! It is not the “people” that creates the value, but the activity (process) they do that creates it. You can actually see this but looking at the “things” (paper or product) in the process evolving into customer needs. If you focus on the “things” in the process and NOT the people you will see that those “things sit there not doing a thing 99% of the time. So to increase value to your customers you need to take the time wasted by the things in the process  just sitting doing nothing and remove it.

How do you do that? Simple, buy looking at the entire process. Look at things people are working on. If you see things that no one is working on then you can bet there is no value being added. Those steps/activities should be eliminated thus removing wasted time from the process. This concept is applied using what is called a Value Added Flow Analysis and I am going to quickly give you the “How To” perform one.

Value Added Flow Analysis

  1. Capture all the steps in the entire activity/process from beginning to end.
    1. To do this you follow one of those “things” (paper or product) from the receiving dock to the customers hands.
    2. Record EVERTHING that happens and how long it takes. I mean everything! Including, for example, the “step” of the thing (order) sitting is a briefcase or notebook as it is transported back to the office to be entered into your system. Or the “step” of the thing (your lunch order at a restaurant) sitting on the note pad as it travels to the kitchen. EVERYTHING! This list will be long both in time and steps.
  2. Next you will take this list and look at each of those step and determine if it is value added or not. So how do you  determine if it is value added? Value added steps can be identified by answering three questions about each step. All three questions have to be answered YES! If any are answered no then they are “non value added steps” and need to be put on the list to be elimination or improvement. Here are the three questions:
  1. Does the thing in the process change? If the “thing” is paper was some information recorded on it? If the “thing” is a product was something added to it?
  2. Does the customer care about the change? In other word are they willing to pay for the change that happened to the thing in the process.
  3. Was it done right the first time? Remember that you, as a customer, do not what to pay for mistake or redo’s and you surely do not want to wait for the error to be corrected. This is of no value to you.
  1. Once you have identified all the value added step then you need to eliminate or significantly improve all of the others. In a simple world you would just eliminate all of the non-value added steps. But our world that is not so easy to do, but I do feel you can eliminate about 75% of them.

Non Value Added Step Eliminating:

How can I be so sure that you can eliminate 75% of these steps; experience. Over the years I find over and over again that you can eliminate about 75% of the non value added steps. Look at one of your processes. When you first developed this “process” it was done a certain way. If lucky that way was written down as a procedure. But as time changed so have customer needs and to meet those needs you have adjusted your process. Over time with all the “adjustments” you now have a process that has several steps that are not needed any more to meet old needs that are no longer there. Another example maybe that the “process” has been handed down from employee to employee (no documentation) and each has done it slightly different. So in time the process has shifted from a originally good one to one that is different during which time the customer needs have changed as well. In either case steps have been left that create no value for your customer and need to be eliminated.

Non Value Added Step Improvement:

OK not everything can be eliminated. Why? Because many time we have more than one customer set of values and we have to prioritize, not eliminate, what we are doing. Be careful you are not micro managing something for you own interest and NOT your customers. A good example of a non value added step that can not be eliminated is Taxes. The “Paying Customer” does not care whether you pay them or not. But to stay in business you have to. Some look at the IRS as another customer (although not a paying one). So in these cases you have to look at ways of completing those steps as quickly and correctly as possible.

Well there you have it. How to create value without something new, but by eliminating waste. That is of value to the customer in that it reduces cost without reducing quality and they receive it sooner than expected. If you like this article I have written several others on my blog http://www.sixsigmatrainingconsulting.com/knowledgebase/ . As always, if you have any questions feel free to contact me.

Bersbach Consulting
Peter Bersbach
Six Sigma Master Black Belt
http://sixsigmatrainingconsulting.com
peter@bersbach.com
1.520.829.0090

Tags: , ,
Posted in Leading Six Sigma, Six Sigma Tools | No Comments »

« Older Entries