Posts Tagged ‘DMAIC’

Picking the Right Solution

Tuesday, February 8th, 2011

In Six Sigma we use a five step process (DMAIC) based on facts and data focused on our customer value to grow the business. The idea is to improve the process; make things better; make step function improvements. But as I say that I have seen perfectly run projects get to the end of analyze and are killed when they start to make the improvements. Killed by management. What has happened? To understand that let’s look at the objectives of the Analyze step and the Improve step.

Analyze: Analyze the current state data and determine the Root Causes (opportunities to improve).

Improve: Develop and implement the best plan for improvement of the opportunities (Root Causes) identified in the Analyze Step.

The problem I have found is that teams focus is on one root cause and what they perceive as the best solution to that root cause. That does meet the objectives but the team is made up  of experts and others involved in the process at hand. They do not see the bigger picture from the total company or corporation view point. What usually kills the project is the solution is not acceptable to upper management and it is upper management that are the experts of the top level company/ corporate view of things. The L1 (level 1) Map of an organization. The team is usually working (and are the experts) at a L3 or 4 of the company. So how do you solve this problem. By doing two things.

1.) Make sure that your top level management sponsor is constantly up-to-date on all the teams activities. That they are PART of the team where they will see these problems coming. They are part of that management expertise that can see issues that will cause a solution, that looks obvious, to not work for the company as a whole. This is one reason why in Define you want a top level manager that has “scheduled” their time to work with the team. They have to be committed not just supportive of the team.

2.) Every problem I have seen has had more that on Root Cause. Each root cause also has more than one solution. Make sure you have multiple ways (options) to solve your problem. Yes, one of the causes will be the biggest and to solve it there will be one way that gives you the best return on investment, but you need to propose several ways to solve the problem, some better than others but all make an improvement.

Now when you pitch your solution to management you give them several options that your top level manager/sponsor has seen and supports. Management can look at what you propose and select the best way from their expert view point. Yes, I would push the teams solution but management should be able to tell you why they would not go with that one and as such your can propose a alternative that you have already developed that avoids the issue they see.

When a team does this they never seem to fail at this point in the project and they tend to go on to success.

Well there you have my thoughts on picking the right solution. It more like picking the right solutions. I hope this help you with your project and brings you to success. 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


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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


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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

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The Fifth Step of DMAIC – Control

Monday, November 30th, 2009

DMAIC's Control


ControlControl is the fifth step of the Six Sigma five step process DMAIC. The objective of Control is to Develop and implement the best controls to maintain the gains and to celebrate, share & reward your successes.

This is the step that is most forgotten because we think we do not need controls. But if we do not perform this step then the gains we achieved in improve will be lost very quickly. Lost because when ever you change a process it takes time to make it part of everyone way of doing things. Think about this with yourself. You have just decided to change the way you do something. How easy is it to forget your new plan without something to help you remember that you changed? An example of this is if you say that from now on I will not snack after dinner. How long will it take before you forget that change and you do snack unless you place some controls (maybe locks on the snack cabinet) to remind you not to. So with any new process you will want to have controls in it to insure that those working the process don’t forget the new method.

The second thing in the objectives is to celebrate your success. I am afraid that in most companies, just like the news, good news or success stories are NOT mention much and it is extremely important that success is shared with all. This is how six sigma becomes a culture rather than a one shot application. Celebration, recognition and reward can be very simple and are always greatly accepted by all. So share your story. If you have a good one send it to me and I will post it on my website.

Here are a series of questions that you will want to answer before calling your project complete and moving on to the next one:

  • Does your results link back to your objectives, deliverables, and exit criteria?
  • Will the controls implemented sustain the gains?
  • How will you recognize and celebrate the success of your team?
  • Have attitudes changed about using Six Sigma?
  • Have you addressed and closed all parking lot issues?
  • What do you need to grow?

It is very important that you get all of these answered. Some that stand out are “Will the controls implemented sustain the gains” and “Have you addressed and closed all parking lot issues”.  Make sure that the controls you implement help to sustain the gains. Remember that controls are non value added to the customer but important to delivering what the customer wants, so minimize them but make sure they work. Something that may be unknown to you but very familiar to me is what I call a “Parking Lot”. On every project, I have a parking lot. I use it to put concerns, thoughts, and ideas that come up during the project that, at the time, pulled the team off its focused objective at the moment. Usually these are later addressed in the project but sometimes they have nothing to do with the project and don’t get address during the project. You must hand this off to someone to make sure they are address and not just dropped. They could be another project that will be worked. Forgetting them is like discarding a twenty dollar bill and it has a negative impact on spreading the Six Sigma culture in a company thus impacting further projects.

To answer the questions above it may take several tools and techniques to insure you have control.

  • Non Statistical Controls
    • Standardized Procedures – These are detailed written series of actions which have to be executed in the same manner in order to always obtain the same result. Verbal never is good enough. It needs to be written down so that everyone does it the same way.
    • Run Rules – These are like standardized procedures but are only one page long and are used as a reference or guide by those that have been doing a job along time. Detailed procedures are usually not looked at after one has learned and done the job for some time, but there are things in the procedure that need to be available to even the expert worker. These are kept on what I call Run Rules. Must do for all.
    • Visual Controls – You may have heard the saying “a Picture is worth a 1000 words” it is true. Visual Controls are basically pictures that help control a process. Think of a handicap sign in a parking lot; it is a visual control to help hold parking spots for those that need to park closer to the store. And every driver knows what they mean. The old take a number is another visual control where it insures the customer that has been waiting the longest gets help first.
    • Contingency Plan – These are plans that you need to develop for when something goes wrong with the new process. It lets everyone one know that if they run into a problem (and believe me someone will) this is what you do to continue with the new process.
    • Preventative Maintenance – Is the same thing as oil changes with your car or your annual physical; it keeps everything working at an optimum level. It is proactive rather than reactive so you can schedule it during off hours. It is heavily into preventative,
      predictive, and scheduling. As a scheduled activity it needs to be coordinated with all involved working as a team.

  • Statistical Controls
    • Control Charts - Control charts are not always the best method of controlling a given process element. In fact, control charts are seldom the method of choice. When process elements are important we would prefer that they not vary at all! Only when this cannot be accomplished economically should we resort to the use of control charts to monitor the element’s variation.

______________________________

The above are six tools I have not talked about before, other useful Control tools that I have talked about are:

Brainstorming, LCS, Affinity Diagramming, Multi-voting and 5 Whys from my article The First step of DMAIC – Define.

Well there you have it, a little more understanding of the Control step of the Six Sigma 5 step DMAIC process. I hope that this gives you a better understanding of what questions to answer and what tools to uses to get those answers in Control.

Peter Bersbach
Six Sigma Master Black Belt
Bersbach Consulting
From Process to Profits
1.520.829.0090

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The Fourth Step of DMAIC – Improve

Monday, November 23rd, 2009

DMAIC's Improve

ImproveImprove is the fourth step of the Six Sigma five step process DMAIC. The objective of Improve is to develop and implement the best plan for improvement of the opportunities (Root Causes) identified in the analyze step. It is not to develop only one plan because to get the “best” you need to have several approaches to work through with your sponsor to find the best mix of solutions that is acceptable to all. I often tell my black belts to develop several options and pick one to really sell to management and the sponsor. If you do not do this then management (your project sponsor) only have the ability to accept what you have or reject the team efforts and shut down the project.  You have to understand that the team is focused on improving the process. Management is focus on the whole business and the plan you really want may have a bigger negative impact some where else. That can happen and you need other options that will. Here are a series of questions that you will want to answer before moving on to control:

n      What options do you have?

n      What options will we go ahead and do?

n      What is the plan to implement the new process (options)?

n      What additional resources are needed?

n      How does your new process work?

n      Are you sub-optimizing?

n      What are your measures that show improvement?

n      What went different than planned?

n      Does this solution support company’s goals?

It is very important that you get all of these answered. Some that stand out are “Are you sub-optimizing” and “Does this solution support company Goals?”  Sub-optimization is when you make improvements in your process only to have a negative impact further down stream in the company or organization. This is best address as I mentioned earlier buy making sure you understand all the options to improve. Once you have a plan make sure again that you are making an impact on your company goals. Some times we get to this stage and do not make sure that the options we want to implement really do impact the company goals.

To answer the question above it may take several tools and techniques to collect the “facts and data.” So here in Improve, there are several good tool and techniques that can help get you that data.

  • Constraint Management - A Constraint (bottleneck) is any resource with fewer throughputs than the demand placed on it. Usually constraints regulate the output of the process so you need to use techniques that optimize the constraint and keep it running/ working all the time.
  • Pull Systems – These are method of controlling the flow and quantity of resources by only replacing what has been consumed. It is a system of signals to refill/ replenish right when you take the last item to work.

  • Setup Reduction – Setup is the time required for the process or activity to changeover from producing the last good piece of the prior item (part) to the first good piece of the next item. Setup Reduction is a set of techniques used to reduce that time.
  • Lot Size Reduction – Lot Size is defined as “The amount of a particular item that is ordered from the plant or a supplier or issued as a standard quantity to the production process – (APICS). Lot sizes larger than 1 adds wait time to every piece in the lot. Waiting is considered a waste[1]. So in Lot Size Reduction we try to decrease the lot size to one.
  • 5 S’s – The 5 S’s are a waste elimination process that is applied to any process. There are a lot of methods to doing this and worksheets to help but in short the 5S’s stand for:
    • Sort through and Sort out
    • Set everything in order
    • Shine everything
    • Standardize processes
    • Sustain the gains

  • Design of Experiments – This is simply when you design an experiment to determine when you change something how a process reacts to that change. Many times we do this by hold all input variables constant except one and  observe the response as you vary the single input. This is called OFAT (one factor at time) which is not the best way to do a designed experiment. Problems with this approach are:
  1. It usually isn’t possible to hold all other variables constant.
  2. There is no way to account for the effect of joint variation of independent variables, such as interaction.
  3. There is no way to account for experimental error, including measurement variation.

Most that do Design of Experiments (DOE) vary two or more variables simultaneously and make multiple measurements under the same experimental conditions. This eliminates all three of the above problems. This is the best way to run an experiment to get the most for your efforts.

  • Simple Business Analysis – This analysis takes all the approaches to improvement and evaluates them on at least in these three areas; effectiveness, costs to do and time it will take to implement. Below is a simple chart I use to do this analysis.

Business Process Analysis____________________________________________________________________________________________

The above are seven tools I have not talked about before, other useful Improve tools that I have talked about are:

Brainstorming, LCS, Affinity Diagramming, Multi-voting and 5 Whys from my article The First step of DMAIC – Define.

Plus  DE & UDE, Gauge R&R, Basic Summary Stats and Pareto Charts from my article The Second step of DMAIC – Measure.

Cause & Effect Diagrams,  The Third step of DMAIC - Analyze.

Well there you have it, a little more understanding of the Improve step of the Six Sigma 5 step DMAIC process. I hope that this gives you a better understanding of what questions to answer and what tools to uses to get those answers in Improve.

Peter Bersbach
Six Sigma Master Black Belt
Bersbach Consulting
From Process to Profits

1.520.829.0090

[1] The Seven Types of Waste a Summary

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The Third Step of DMAIC – Analyze

Monday, November 16th, 2009

DMAIC's Analyze

Analyze is the third step of the Six Sigma five step process DMAIC. The objective of Analyze is to analyze the current state data and determine the root causes, the opportunities, to improve. Here we take a more in-depth look at the data collected in measure and try to determine the root causes of the issues that the data shows us. Many times, we have to go back out and take more data from the process in what I call a “Deep Dive” to determine the real root cause of what we see in measure. Remember that as you get opinions of what is causing thing to happen go collect the data to back up (validate) that opinion. Here are a series of questions that you will want to answer before moving on to improve:

  1. What are the perceived causes of the process variability and which can we control?
  2. What is of value to the customer?
  3. What are the detail steps of the process?
  4. Have you validated the “As-Is” causes?

It is very important that you get all of these answered. Some that stand out are what is of value to the customer and have you validated the “As-Is” causes. Make sure that the root causes that you find really do impact something that the customer really cares about; something that is of value to them. If you are not working causes that impact customer value then they will never return value back to the company and you will be spending time fixing something that the customer really does not care about. If you find this is true the solution maybe to totally eliminate this step since the customer finds it not of value. If you think that you can not eliminate it, then ask yourself what customer does find it important to do. We always are creating value for someone even if it is you. If you are not then you are just wasting your time.

The second thing I mentioned was to validate the “As-Is” causes. You may have had a group meeting and come up with some causes of effects you saw in measure that your customer really cares about, but until you go collect data on those causes and validate the opinions that they cause what you saw in measure you should not move forward to improve. Remember we are all about facts and data that support what we are doing.

To answer the question above it may take several tools and techniques to collect the “facts and data.” So here in Analyze, there are several good tool and techniques that can help get you that data.

  • Value Flow Analysis – This analysis take the process observation log[1] that one usually creates in measure and reviews each step listed and the time it takes to do that step, to determine if it is of value or not. Usually you will sum up all the times of the value added and non value added steps. In this way, you can see how much time you spend creating value for your customers and where there are steps that need to be reduced or eliminated because they do not create any value for your customer.

process observation log

  • Cause & Effect Diagrams – This diagram organizes group knowledge about causes of a problem and displays the information graphically. It was invented by Dr. Kaoru Ishikawa and is sometimes called a called Ishikawa Diagrams. Some see this diagram and think it resembles a fish skeleton and that is why it is sometimes called a Fishbone Diagram. In the Cause and Effect Diagram, you start by drawing a box on the right or left hand side and in the box you put the effect that you saw in measure. Next, you brainstorm[2] causes of that effect and add them to the “branches.” Sometimes you also combine it with the five whys[3] tool to get the detail branches and the true “root” cause or causes of the effect.

c&e diagram

  • Scatter Plots – This plot is used to visualize the relationship between two variables. In the plot below, we are looking to see if there is a relationship between weight and days. If there was no relationship, the points on the chart would be scatter randomly all over the chart. In this chart, there is a relationship that shows as the number of day’s increase the weight also increases.

scatter plot

  • Confidence Intervals – These are statistically created to give you an area that you will feel confident that the real value will be found in. Say you make 12 inch rules and you like to be very confident (99% sure) that all your rules are 12 inches. Well you first have to understand that everything varies and so do your rulers but how accurate are they? You would take a sample of them and calculate the confidence interval for their length. You might find that you can be 99% sure that any rule you make is within 11 7/8 inch to 12 1/8 inch or 12 inches plus or minus 1/8 of an inch.
  • T Tests – This is also called the “Student’s t test”. This is statistically created when we want to compare two group averages and determine if they are the same or different. Many times, we want to know if a process has changed or shifted from what it was doing before. This test would tell you if it did.
  • F Test – This is statistically created when we want to compare two groups variations or variability. Let me try to explain this thing called variation. Everywhere you look, you see variation. In the people, the traffic at an intersection, or even pencils in a box. Let’s say you are buying pencils and there are two boxes of them on the shelf made from different companies. Both make pencils 10 inches long but you want to know if one company’s are more consistently 10” long. You would use this test to see if the variation in pencil length in one box versus the other is different or the same.
  • Chi Square Test – Not every thing is “measurable” sometime all we have is count data. The Chi square Test is statistically recreated to see if two group proportions (percentage of a count) are the same or different. Say, you run a grocery store and the current shipment of eggs seem to have a lot that are cracked, and you want to know if the next shipment that just arrived is any better. Here you could take a sample of what is on the shelf and a sample from the new shipment and find out if the two shipments have the same number of cracked eggs or not.

n      The above are tools that I have not talked about before, other useful Analyze tools that I have talked about that are; Brainstorming, LCS, Affinity Diagramming and 5 Whys from my article The First step of DMAIC – Define. Plus  DE & UDE, Gauge R&R, Basic Summary Stats and Pareto Charts from my article The Second step of DMAIC – Measure

Well there you have it, a little more understanding of the Analyze step of the Six Sigma 5 step DMAIC process. I hope that this gives you a better understanding of what to questions to answer and what tools to uses to get those answers in Analyze.


Peter Bersbach

Six Sigma Master Black Belt

Bersbach Consulting

From Process to Profits

1.520.829.0090




[1] Process observation Log was talked about in the article “The Second step of DMAIC – Measure”

[2] Brainstorming was talked about in the article “The First step of DMAIC – Define”

[3] The Five Whys was talked about in the article “The Second step of DMAIC – Measure”


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The Second step of DMAIC – Measure

Thursday, November 5th, 2009

Measure is the second step of the Six Sigma five step process DMAIC. The objectives of Measure are two fold. First is, using GEMBA, factually understand the existing process. For those that have not heard of GEMBA it means “go see” and in Six Sigma we use the term to imply that you need to get up and go out to the process that you are going to improve and actually “see” what is really happening.  You can NOT do this is a conference room or at your desk alone. The process may in fact be all done at your desk but you need to have other with you looking at what is done to collect the actual way things are done. Second, you then compile that data into a characterization of the current state. Many times you will hear this called the process Baseline.

In measure it is important that you capture exactly what is really happening and do not take for granted that everything is being done exactly to procedure. It usually is not. If more than one person is doing this process check them all as you will find they all are doing it slightly different. Different is not necessarily bad but that difference IS the variation in your process.  So to help me (and you) capture the current state I have a series of questions that if you address them will help insure you complete this step. Here they are:


  1. 1. How does it work now?
  2. 2. What are the Key metrics for this process? Are they valid?
  3. 3. What is the Current Sigma level of the process?
  4. 4. What are the Detail steps of the process?
  5. 5. What is good about the process you want to keep?
  6. 6. What are the problems and their causes?


It is very important that you get all of these answered. Some that stand out are identifying key metrics  and identifying what is good about the process. You need to always look and find out how the process is currently being measured. How does any one know that things are going good or bad with this process? They have to have some “measure” they take to get that idea. Yes sometimes it is a gut feel but you will have to back it up with data so if they say it takes to long; time it and see how long it takes. The second key question that many forget is what works well in the process. This is key because you want to make sure that when you improve the bad you have not made things worse in the good areas. Those you do not want to touch.


To answer the question above it may take several tools and techniques to collect the “facts and data” to answer these questions. We like opinions, they help guide us, but we need data that validates the opinions. So in answering these questions many times you will get opinions but you still need to gather the data to show the opinion is true (or false). So here in Measure, there are several good tool and techniques that can help get you that data.

  • Descriptive Statistics –These are generally calculated from a sample of  information (data) off your process. They tend to be in three areas of interest about your data group (distribution). They are location, it’s spread and it’s shape.

Location _______Spread ________Shape

Location _______Spread ________Shape

  • Location or Central Tendencies – These are the mean (average), Median (or middle value) and the Mode (the most frequent value).
  • Spread or Dispersion – The most popular are Range (The difference or spread between the highest value and the lowest value) or the Standard Deviation a calculated measure of variation around the Mean or Average.
  • Shape – Two things determine shape. One is it Skewed to one side or the other (you can calculate this) and two is it flat or peaked (again you can calculate this [kurtosis])
  • Dot Plots – Are just that a plot of every data point on a chart.

Dot Plot

  • Histograms – These are a pictorial of the data. They are created by grouping the data into what is called bins or cells.

Histogram

  • Run Charts – Similar to the dot chart, the run chart plot the data over time, in time sequence.

run chart

  • Control Charts – Like the Run Charts, Control Charts plot data over time. Unlike Run Charts they have control limits plotted on the chart as well. Although you can plot individual data points like the one below, a control chart many time plots Summary data over time.

Control Chart x

  • Gauge R&R (Repeatability & Reproducibility) – These studies are important to understanding how much of the variation that you see is due to the process and how much is do to the measurement system (the way the measurements are taken). Many times this is overlooked but you have to understand that everything varies including the way you measure (collect) your data.
  • Pareto Charts – This is a special type of Histogram that arranges the Bins or Cells (categories) into an order of highest frequency to the lowest. This is done so one can see what the major categories are.

Pareto

  • Process Observation Log – This is just a log sheet that you list the process steps in order, how long they take and what the yield is at each step. Sometimes people include a column that identifies the step as value added or Non value added.
  • Process Flow Diagramming – This is a  diagram draw to show the sequence of steps from the process observation log. People draw these because it is easier to understand and see what is happening in the diagram then the log list.

Flow Chart

  • DE & UDE – DE (Desired Effect and Undesired Effect) is just a list of those things that are desirable (things you want to keep) and undesirable (things you do not want). This seems simple, and it is, but we forget to write these things down so that when we get into the heat of things we can not remember them unless they are written down.

Plus here are two more that I talked about in Define: Brainstorming and the 5 Whys.

Well there you have it. A little more understanding of the Measure step of the Six Sigma 5 step DMAIC process.


Peter Bersbach

Six Sigma Master Black Belt

Bersbach Consulting

From Process to Profits

1.520.829.0090



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The First Step of DMAIC – Define

Tuesday, October 27th, 2009

DMAIC – Define

Define is the first step of the Six Sigma five step process DMAIC. The objectives of Define are two fold. First is to define the issue (problem) and the real need to improve it (The Burning Platform). Second is to then get alignment and commitment to solve this issue from the sponsor and project team (including their supervision).  Define is one of the critical steps of this five step process. Many times, we do not gather enough of the right information to properly define the issue we are trying to solve. So to help me (and you) I have a series of questions that if you address them will help insure you complete this critical step. Here they are:


  1. 1. What is the Burning Platform? Why do you need to do this NOW?
  2. 2. What company goal does this support and what is its priority?
  3. 3. What is the Top level process flow?
  4. 4. Who are its - Suppliers and their inputs & Customers and what outputs do they receive?
  5. 5. What is your vision of the future?
  6. 6. What are you trying to accomplish and the process needing improvement?
  7. 7. What benefits will the organization realize?
  8. 8. Whom & what do you need to accomplish this project?
  9. 9. What is the expected outcome of the project (quantified goals / objectives)?

10. How do you know you are done (exit criteria)?

11. Who are the committed/aligned team members?


It is very important that you get all of these answered. Some that stand out are alignment to company goals and having a good vision of the future. Goal alignment is critical if you want your team to stay together and finish the project.  If your project is not aligned you can bet team member supervisors will have other priorities that, in their mine, are higher than the ones for your project and will pull team members to work their priorities. Every project needs a good vision so the whole team will know where they are headed with the project. That increases the team alignment.


To answer the question above it may take several tools and techniques to collect the “facts and data” to answer these questions. Remember that in Six Sigma we like opinions, they help guide us, but we need data that validates the opinions. So in answering these questions many times you will get opinions but you still need to gather the data to show the opinion is true (or false). So here in define, there are several good tool and techniques that can help get you that data.


  • SIPOC – Stands for Supplier, Input, Process, Output, and Customer. It is a very top level process flow of the process you are trying to improve, but it includes more than just the process flow. It has inputs to the process and who supplies those inputs. Plus it also has the output of the process with who (customer) will receive the output.


  • GEMBA – Is just a Japanese term for “Go See” and here we use it to remind us to get out to the area where the process is working and really watch and see how it works. Nothing can be solved in a conference room or sitting at a desk.


  • Creative Thinking/ Brainstorming – This is just a method for coming up with as many ideas as one can conceive of. They can be wild and crazy ideas because in them, just like the ore in mines, we will find the golden nuggets.


  • LCS – Stands for Likes Concerns and Suggestions. This is one of the best and simple tools I have ever used. In any meeting (or even conversation), if all parties follow LCS you will eliminate divergence and create alignment in the discussion. Here how it works. There are three basic rules that anyone in the group must follow to comment on another person’s statement.
  • First, you must states something you like about what the person said. This tells them you understood what they said and gets alignment and agreement on what you liked.
  • Second (NOTE!!! you can only do this second step if you also have the third in mind otherwise you must stop on the fist step only!!!) Tell them you concerns about what they said.
  • Third, you must always follow your concerns with your own suggestions for correcting your concerns.


  • This really gets folks moving forward on issues they disagree on as we build ways around the disagreement through suggestions.


  • Affinity Diagramming – usually follows brainstorming where you have all those wild and crazy ideas. Now we take them all and group them into area of similarities. This helps see those nuggets I was talking about before. A lot of times, I use post it notes in brainstorming so I can easily move them around and place in groups that are similar. It helps and gets everyone on there feet moving around.


  • Multi-Voting – is a method of deciding or prioritizing ideas or tasks. The basic rule here is to give everyone an amount of votes (usually it is 20% of the number of ideas or tasks that you are trying to work) and let them vote on the ones they like best. Right away, you will see certain ones are more important than others to the group.


  • 5 Whys – This gets us back to our childhood a bit but to get at the true root of something many times we have to ask why several times. It is simple but true. If we don’t ask “why” enough times we may not get to the bottom of the issue. But you will know when it is too many when you get there. Usually it is about 5 times.


Well there you have it. A little more understanding of the define step of the Six Sigma 5 step DMAIC process.


Peter Bersbach

Six Sigma Master Black Belt

Bersbach Consulting

From Process to Profits

1.520.829.0090


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What is Six Sigma

Wednesday, May 27th, 2009

Bersbach Consulting LLC provides Six Sigma training, coaching and support across Arizona, including the Tucson, Phoenix, Scottsdale, and Glendale areas. At this time we would like to thank our friends and clients for their support. If you have landed here looking for our Six Sigma training, coaching or support services in Tucson, then please follow this Six Sigma Training link.

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Six Sigma is a process improvement methodology that has been proven to make step function improvement in any business environment. I define Six Sigma as a 5 step process based on facts and data focused on your customer's values to grow your business.

It is not a one time project to fix a problem. It is not a topic that you can talk to your customers about without applying it to your business. It is not a "Flash in the Pan", "Flavor of the month" program that will go away. Six Sigma is a new way to approach your business issues. Let's look at the three major elements of the definition.


Business Growth:

Business growth is a shift from a business without Six Sigma to one that has made Six Sigma a part of their business culture.  If Six Sigma is embraced and implemented into one's culture you can achieve about a 20% margin improvement, 15% capacity improvement and/or a 20% capital reduction. Hard to believe?

  • The Motor Vehicle Department of the State of California reduced its check processing from 77 days to 23 days using Six Sigma methods. That means getting their money in the bank 54 days earlier than before[1].
  • Technimark Packaging, a company that packages other companies' products for retail, was taking 3 hours to change the tooling over from one customer to another. Applying Six Sigma they got the time down to 30 minutes. Remember every minute they are not packaging customer product is a loss.[2]
  • General Electric applied Six Sigma across their company in 1997 and it delivered more than $300 million dollars in savings that year.[3]


So How Does it Work?

It uses facts and data focused on customer value.


Customer Value:

Six Sigma defines customer value as a product or service that is received by a customer at the right:

  • Location
  • Cost
  • Point in Time
  • and Functions

All of these as defined by the customer, not you. Many time we see customer value as the "functions" part only -- that the product worked or the service did what is was suppose to do. But we forget that Customer value INCLUDES the delivery process that is made up of the other three items above; location, cost, and point in time.

Does the customer always know what they want? Many companies will say no but I believe that they do. An associate of mine felt that they do not know and used himself as an example. He stated that he needed to get his wife a birthday gift but had no idea what to get her. I asked him where he would go to look for this gift and he replied Target. I asked why Target and he replied because they carry a variety of things at a good cost and that his wife shops there a lot. HHHmmmm - so he had a vague idea. His basic need was a gift. But he did not know in detail what the gift should be. He also knew where she liked to shop.

Just like my associate, the customer may be not know in detail   what they want,  but they came to your company because they thought it could fill their basic need, that it had something of value that they wanted.   He walked in there vs.  a hardware store because he felt his success would be better there. If you were the Target employee you need to LISTEN to what he needs and help him find it by asking questions about his wife. You will  find out if you have something that will meet his need (customer value) or not. If you can not fill his need, you want to send him on his way and maybe help him to the right store that can fill it.

In the example above did you notice that we were talking mainly about function? But he was implying that he needed it NOW from this STORE and at a GOOD PRICE (the delivery process). What if you do not meet those other three? He's gone most likely. Below is a Customer Value Loyalty Grid that has on the left side the product or service "Functionality" and at the bottom the delivery process.

Customer Value Loyalty Grid


If you look at your business you want it to be in the green area otherwise you are at risk of loosing your customer.


So how do I define Customer Values? There are three criteria that define Customer value an everything that is performed that adds value to the customer meets all three of these criteria. The are:

  1. Does the customer care about it? (Is the customer willing to pay for it to be done)
  2. Does the activity physically change the item? (in a service environment it could be that a form is filled in)
  3. Is it done right the first time? Customers are not willing to pay for "redo's".



Based on Facts and Data

Six Sigma uses facts and data to understand, reduce and control variation in your business processes, variation that you now compensate for which cost you money. An Experienced employee, even you, can look at simple problems and solve them 80% of the time but when the problem gets to be complex your experience will only solve it about 20% of the time. In Six Sigma we say "GEMBA" (Go See) go out on the floor (office business, or production) and collect real data on how things are done. You will be amazed as to the difference between what you thought and what is really happening. There is variation everywhere. To reduce it or eliminate it your first have to understand it. Understanding and addressing variation helps you predict outcomes that you had to compensate for before; outcomes that impact your customer needs. In Six Sigma we collect these facts and data on the variation to come up with conclusions by seeing the patterns in the shifting (variability) of the process.


[1] 56th AQC - Ron Bane Leading Edge Quality Approaches in Service, Education, Shipping, Government Non Manufacturing Organizations


[2] 56th AQC - Ron Bane Leading Edge Quality Approaches in Service, Education, Shipping, Government Non Manufacturing Organizations


[3] General Electric 1997 Annual Report


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

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