Can you learn about lean six sigma via Twitter? Yes, but it’s not easy without the right tool.

Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows its users to send and read other users’ updates (otherwise known as tweets), which are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length.

Updates are displayed on the user’s profile page and delivered to other users who have signed up to receive them. Senders can restrict delivery to those in their circle of friends (delivery to everyone being the default). Users can receive updates via the Twitter website, SMS, RSS, or email, or through an application such as Tweetie, Twinkle, TwitterFox, Twitterrific, Feedalizr, and Facebook. Four gateway numbers are currently available for SMS: short codes for the United States, Canada, and India, and a United Kingdom-based number for international use. Several third parties offer posting and receiving updates via email. Twitter had by one measure over 3 million accounts and, by another, well over 5 million visitors in September 2008, a fivefold increase in a month.

There seems to be trend for Lean Six Sigma bloggers to join Twitter:

• Lean Six Sigma Academy
• http://twitter.com/lssacademy

• Improve With Me
• http://twitter.com/brianbuck

• Got Boondoogle
• http://twitter.com/GotBoondoggle

• Shmula
• http://twitter.com/shmula

• Evolving Excellence
• http://twitter.com/superfactory

• Lean Blog
• http://twitter.com/leanblog

• Gemba Panta Rei
  
• http://twitter.com/GembaPantaRei

The only way I can make sense of the flood of information on Twitter is by using TweetDeck.

TweetDeck is an Adobe Air desktop application that is currently in public beta. It aims to evolve the existing functionality of Twitter by taking an abundance of information i.e twitter feeds, and breaking it down into more manageable bite sized pieces.

How does it do that?

TweetDeck enables users to split their main feed (All Tweets) into topic or group specific columns allowing a broader overview of tweets. The default columns can contain All Tweets from your timeline, @replies directed to you and direct messages. The GROUP, SEARCH and REPLIES buttons then allow the user to make up additional columns populated from the live tweet information. Once created these additional columns will automatically update allowing the user to keep track of a twitter threads far easier.

Additional Features

• - Catch up with overnight global twitterings as TweetDeck stores all updates whilst running
• - Continual status updates of TweetDeck and Twitter
• - Resize TweetDeck as either an unobtrusive column, full screen or anything in between
• - Especially useful running full screen on a separate monitor
• - Filter tweets using the tweet text, username, source or timeframe
• - Auto updates from the Twitter API

What do you think? Please leave your comments below:

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There’s a lot of Japanese terms used in Lean … why?

Typically, these terms are used (and misused) in order to convey broad concepts with iconic (representative) terminology. Once properly explained, the term KANBAN can be more descriptive than THOSE LITTLE CARDS WHICH HELP US CONTROL PRODUCT MOVES. However, use of these terms can have a negative effect, especially if the culture of a particular organization is predisposed against all things non-American. Choose carefully the training methods (and terms) you use when conveying lean tools and methods, and you will have a much easier time during your lean implementation.

Well now you can add some more!

[link]

I like:

• kuki ga yomenai: can’t read between the lines or can’t sense the atmosphere
• shouganai: it couldn’t be helped
• kyousei: symbiosis
• do gen ka sen to ikan: something needs to be done
• kawaigari: to cherish or take under one’s wing
• kokumin o kitai ni kotaeraremashita: I lived up to the people’s expectations
• sonna no kankei nee: It doesn’t matter!

Six-sigma sure uses some strange language to describe the roles of personnel involved in its implementation and development. So what are they and what do they do:

1. Sponsor: Senior executive who sponsors the overall Six Sigma Initiative.
2. Leader: Senior-level executive who is responsible for implementing Six Sigma within the business.
3. Champion: Middle- or senior-level executive who sponsors a specific Six Sigma project, ensuring that resources are available and cross-functional issues are resolved.
4. Black Belt: Full-time professional who acts as a team leader on Six Sigma projects. Typically has four to five weeks of classroom training in methods, statistical tools, and (sometimes) team skills.
5. Master Black Belt: Highly experienced and successful Black Belt who has managed several projects and is an expert in Six Sigma methods/tools. Responsible for coaching/mentoring/training Black Belts and for helping the Six Sigma leader and Champions keep the initiative on track.
6. Green Belt: Part-time professional who participates on a Black Belt project team or leads smaller projects. Typically has two weeks of classroom training in methods and basic statistical tools.
7. Team Member: Professional who has general awareness of Six Sigma (through no formal training) and who brings relevant experience or expertise to a particular project.
8. Process Owner: Professional responsible for the business process that is the target of a Six Sigma project.

Does your company use all of these roles? If not why and has there been any affect on the outcome or selection of projects?

image credits: 1, 2, 3

I’ve often said before that its important to buy into the philosophy behind six-sigma, TQM, Lean, etc and not just focus on the tools. This focuses the organisation on only one level of the four suggested in The Toyota Way (see the image below). By doing this you’ll avoid the, “curse of the active banana“!!

Details on the “active banana” were reported by The Guardian via the Newcastle Journal:

£7 million were paid to consultants in a “Lean” initiative. Part of this process involved using black tape to let workers know where to place their keyboard and stapler. Workers complained that not only is it an enormous waste of money but incredibly demeaning. A union worker said in certain consulting session in Scotland employees were asked if the banana on their desk was active or inactive - and if it was inactive it had to be removed!

These guys should have read: How To Prevent Lean Implementation Failures

Reason #1: Lack of Top Down Management Support
Reason #2: Lack of Communication
Reason #3: Lack of Middle Management/Supervisor Buy-In
Reason #4: Not Understanding That This Is About Your People
Reason #5: Lack of Customer Focus
Reason #6: Lack of Improvement Measures
Reason #7: Lack of Lean Leadership
Reason #8: People Measures Not Aligned With Lean Goals
Reason #9: Using Kaizen Events As The Sole Improvement Measurement
Reason #10: Bonus Pay Systems Where The Only Measure Is Company Profitability

More here and here.

[link]

ISO 9001 review is currently being undertaken by ISO/TC176, the umbrella ISO committee for quality management and assurance. The committee draft will be issued in anytime now with drafts for comment published in the second half of 2007 with publication of the revised standard planned for late 2008. The key messages coming out of the process to date are that:

• the current scope and purpose of the standard, the title and the field of application shall remain unchanged from ISO 9001:2000
• given that the current standard was a step change from its predecessor and caused considerable changes to businesses, changes will be limited in this review
• it will remain generic so that it can be applied to all types and sizes of organisation. This one-size-fits-all approach will see the continued growth of sector-specific requirements and schemes
• any changes introduced must provide clear benefits to users
• the quality management principles (as contained in ISO 9000) shall be applied unchanged
• the process model, as shown in ISO 9001:2000 figure 1 below, shall remain unchanged

I’m led to believe that some of the changes are:

• clause 1.2 - clarify the intent of this clause in relation to when exclusions can be made in clause 7 specifically for service organisations
• clause 5 - consider clarification of application of the process approach to top management
• clause 5.4.2 - consider the clarification of quality management system planning in order to meet the quality objectives
• clause 8.2.1 - clarify the requirement for client perception (monitoring versus measurement)
• clause 8.3 - clarify this clause in relation to service organisations
• clause 8.5 - clarify the differences in concepts between corrective action and preventive action

There has been global growth in certification of 18 per cent across 161 countries.

The top five countries for ISO 9001 certification are:

1. China (143,823)
2. Italy (98,028)
3. Japan (53,771)
4. Spain (47,445)
5. UK (45,612)

with India seeing the largest growth of over 12,000 a year.

Here’s a controversial post, but not deliberately so.

Once an economic powerhouse, could Japan become a footnote in history?

Its population of 127 million is shrinking by a million a year, and by 2050 will be down to 90 million - an unheard-of decline for a rich country in peacetime. Many Japanese are delighted: crammed on to their small island, they think more space will give them a better quality of life. They are living in a fool’s paradise: there won’t be nearly enough people in work to pay for their retirement, and within two decades the economy will face collapse.

The only way Japan will survive is by facing up to its “taboos”.

One is feminism, which this patriarchal society has steadfastly refused to embrace. Although women can and do work, no allowance is made for their family commitments. As a result, the national childbearing average is 1.3, well below the level needed to keep the population stable.

Another no-no is immigration: at present only two million foreigners live in Japan, mostly South Koreans and a few Chinese. Perhaps the Japanese would rather use robots to do unskilled jobs than accommodate people from different cultures?

They now face a difficult choice: to change the way they think, or slide into penury and obscurity.

[youtube]o2hQGOOR5g0[/youtube]

(Talk about pointless analysis !!)

Hmm, I’m not sure I agree with this post:

given that Lean/Six Sigma/Concurrent Design are really just a bag of tools from which a skilled mechanic will draw out one that is appropriate

Or even understand this post (perhaps one of my readers can translate this into English).

But I will agree that of course there are tools which are used in lean and six sigma, but you have to get into the philosophy behind lean and six sigma. Pulling tools out of a bag is great and WILL cause improvements to happen but sustainable long-term change will not occur unless driven by top management, who are committed to culture change.

The other problem with just using tools is you tend to get stuck in the Analysis phase. Too much analysis is a bad thing, for example, “the Economic analysis of leaving the toilet seat down“:

the social norm of leaving the toilet seat down in inefficient in the sense that it does not minimize the total cost of toilet seat operations per household. However, both papers fail to address an important concern: If a female finds the toilet seat in a wrong position then she will most probably yell at the male involved. This yelling inflicts a cost on the male. Based on this omission, women may argue that the analysis in these papers is suspect.

So, follow these eight steps to making culture change a reality:

1. Capitalize on Propitious Moments (for example poor financial performance, making sure people actually perceive the need for change)
2. Combine Caution with Optimism (create an optimistic outlook on what the change effort will bring)
3. Understand Resistance to Culture Change (both at the individual level [fear of the unknown, self-interest, selective attention and retention, habit, dependence, need for security] and at the organizational or group level [threats to power and influence, lack of trust, different perceptions and goals, social disruption, resource limitations, fixed investments, interorganizational agreements]
4. Change Many Elements, But Maintain Some Continuity (for example identify the principles that will remain constant) -also consider reorganising the quality function
5. Recognize the Importance of Implementation (initial acceptance and enthusiasm are insufficient to carry change forward; a) adoption –> b) implementation –> c) institutionalization)
6. Select, Modify, and Create Appropriate Cultural Forms (employing symbols, rituals, languages, stories, myths, metaphors, rites, ceremonies)
7. Modify Socialization Tactics (because the primary way that people learn the corporate culture is through the socialization process at the beginning of their employment, if these socialization processes are changed, an organization’s culture will begin to change)
8. Find and Cultivate Innovative Leadership (members are unlikely to give up whatever security they derive from existing cultures and follow a leader in new directions unless that leader exudes self-confidence, has strong convictions, a dominant personality, and can preach the new vision with drama and eloquence)

Six Sigma … innovation … not compatible … blah, blah, blah

As I’ve wrote time and time again on this blog there is no reason why Six Sigma should stifle innovation. Obviously 3M would disagree: [3M Shelves Six Sigma in R&D]

Critics argue that excessive metrics, steps, measurements and Six Sigma’s intense focus on reducing variability water down the discovery process. Under Six Sigma, the free-wheeling nature of brainstorming and the serendipitous side of discovery is stifled.

Experts agree the blanket approach to Six Sigma is generally not a good idea

Which ones? Name a few ….

Okay, then: Michael Tushman, a professor at Harvard Business School, says:

These TQM (Total Quality Management) and class of methodologies that are anchored on reducing variability are inversely associated with what we call exploratory innovation. Methodologies help incremental innovation. The more you apply them in R&D, the less effective they are on exploratory innovation

At least Ron Atkinson (not Ron Atkinson the UK football pundit), board chairman of the American Society for Quality, understands how Design for Six Sigma can assist:

I usually find that once (companies) understand it, Six Sigma aligns very well with engineering methodology. Six Sigma makes sure projects relate right back to the strategic plan of the company,” says Atkinson. Is paralysis by analysis a concern? “(Project) champions can counteract that. They make sure you do not sit on the design phase forever. And there’s nothing to say you have to finish one step before you start the next.” He believes pure research does not lend itself to Six Sigma, but is more the stuff of universities and federally funded projects.

I think Ron hits the nail on the head here DFSS is very powerful as it seeks to avoid manufacturing/service process problems by using systems engineering techniques to avoid process problems at the outset (i.e., fire prevention). These techniques include tools and processes to predict, model and simulate the product delivery system (the processes/tools, personnel and organization, training, facilities, and logistics to produce the product/service) as well as the analysis of the developing system life cycle itself to ensure customer satisfaction with the proposed system design solution.

In this way, DFSS is closely related to systems engineering, operations research (solving the Knapsack problem), systems architecting and concurrent engineering. DFSS is largely a design activity requiring specialized tools including: quality function deployment (QFD), axiomatic design, TRIZ, Design for X, design of experiments (DOE), Taguchi methods, tolerance design, Robustification and response surface methodology. While these tools are sometimes used in the classic DMAIC Six Sigma process, they are uniquely used by DFSS to analyze new and unprecedented systems/products.

A graphical flowchart of common DFSS tools can be seen at DFSS Roadmap.

Check out Johns comments

It’s interesting to see that Six Sigma is being applied more frequently in transactional environments:

Buffalo, NY (WBEN) - Throughout his successful campaign for County Executive, Republican Chris Collins spoke often of Six Sigma as one of the primary tools to get Erie County moving toward a more prosperous future.

Although this clearly upsets a few people:

I don’t like the idea of running government like a business but the six sigma sounds too much like someone out to make a profit whereas government is about providing services to taxpayers of which they pay taxes for.

And

The whole Six Sigma analysis process is time consuming, resource oriented and costly. There are probably thousands of human-driven operational processes resulting from services provided by the county. To improve them all would take several lifetimes.

As Michael Marx says:

Proclaiming the desire to be a Six Sigma county as candidate Collins has done, only implied that he’ll start looking at processes from a business improvement perspective, using Six Sigma tools to do it. No one becomes Six Sigma overnight. GE has hundreds of thousands of human driven processes, and that didn’t keep Jack Welch from his Six Sigma objectives.

To me this is just a case of becoming jaded by political rhetoric?

Transactional Six Sigma to me simply boils down to: All work is a process, all processes have variability and all processes create data that explains variability. Analyse the data to make improvements and sustain these!

Refer to this link for more information:

I’ve recently read two books by Nassim Nicholas Taleb who is an ex-trader. The first: Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets, looks at how and why we tend to assume the existence of patterns where there is only randomness, and assume skill where there is nothing but luck. The second is The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable. The Black Swan: which is a study of how we are regularly taken as fools by the unexpected. The chief characteristics of a Black Swan event (so-called because until Australia was discovered no-one dreamt there was any other variety than white) is that they lie outside the realm of regular expectations and have a huge impact when they hit. If a Black Swan was predictable it wouldn’t be a Black Swan, but the fact that we can see only white swans suggests that the shock - if it comes - could be profound.

A Black Swan event was the resignation of Lord Browne from BP, who demonstrated the pitfalls of the cult of leadership. By raising expectations far beyond the capacity of one human to fulfil, hero leaders often end up destroying themselves and wounding their companies. When leaders become celebrities, their firms’ performance starts to decline. Because of a tendency to believe their own press, they attribute success to their own brilliance, blame failure on others, and vastly overestimate their decision-making prowess.

Hierarchy doesn’t work, and no one put the reason for this better than General Electric’s Jack Welch, himself an iconic manager who pioneered the use of six sigma. Hierarchy, he said, defines an organisation in which people:

“have their face towards the CEO and their ass towards the customer”

So the more charismatic the executive, the worse the effect. Investors should take note - when a business leader makes the front cover of Fortune: sell like crazy.

Download this free pdf for more information on the Black Swan.

From April onwards due to the fact that Toyota sold more cars and trucks than General Motors (despite ongoing quality problems) all consultants gave a cheer and began to celebrate, throwing caution to the wind and splashing huge wads of money around the crap tables of Vegas. Why? Because they:

sell the no-waste business regimen known as lean manufacturing, a regimen that is popular due almost entirely to Toyota’s success.

Clearly we all know that lean is a just a crazy fad dreamed-up by these despicable consultants as:

a survey by management consulting firm Bain shows that just 19 percent of companies that have tried it are happy with the results

And these consultants just jump between industries in search for bigger and bigger pay-rises:

Those willing to jump from manufacturing companies to hospitals or banks are getting pay raises of 30 percent to 40 percent, compared with 20 percent raises moving from one manufacturing company to another.

Just think if Toyota had created a new hybrid car as well - perhaps profits would have been even higher (see photo above - the coal fired car!). But at least one article eventually concludes what I knew all along, that six sigma and innovation can work together as six sigma is exploitative while innovation is explorative:

smart companies separate the more ambitious efforts at innovation from ongoing efforts at continuous improvement. That allows for different processes, structure, and cultures to emerge within the same company.

these were:

successful 90% of the time

The rules for success were:

1. Separate the efforts.
2. Appoint an ambidextrous senior manager to oversee both efforts.
3. Support both teams appropriately.

Hopefully, this is the start of moving away from the mindset which gives rise to comment like these:

The more you hard-wire a company on total quality management, [the more] it is going to hurt breakthrough innovation

Just remember to strike a balance between effort and documentation in six sigma projects though!

Lean manufacturing is great! It’s all about ping-pong, football tables, EBay and elephants. But God help you if you haven’t already implemented it, flateto analysis would show, especially if you live in Canada where the dollar is strong, that if you didn’t put it in place by 1995, don’t even bother , no matter what Nick Dieltsien says.

Of course, all of this is complete tosh (noun: Chiefly British Informal - nonsense; bosh). In fact, we are apparently:

… are moving from a world where demand can be forecast and resources “pushed” to the right place at the right time to a world where we need to flexibly “pull” resources wherever they reside when they are needed.

Read more about this here (From Push to Pull)

So in “pull world”, where more automation is sure to help, even maintenance activities will be lean and not include the following wastes

1. Unproductive work - Efficiently doing work that doesn’t need to be done!
2. Delays in motion - Waiting times, delays waiting for parts, machinery, people, etc.
3. Unnecessary motion - Unneeded travel, trips to tool stores or workshops, looking for items, moving mobile work stations around without good reason.
4. Poor management of inventory - Not able to have the right parts at the right time. A complex area that can cause many of the other areas of waste on this list.
5. Rework - Having to repeat tasks, or do additional tasks, as a result of poor workmanship.
6. Underutilization of people - Using people to the limits of their qualifications, not to the limits of their abilities!
7. Ineffective data management - Collecting data that is of no use, or failure to collect data which is vital.
8. Misapplication of machinery - Incorrect operation or deliberate operational strategies leading to maintenance work being done when it needn’t be.

Hmm, will we end-up in pull world? A kind of fourth dimension? I doubt it; but what do you think?

Ting! There goes the bell.

If you put Business Process Management (BPM) and six sigma in a boxing match, who would you place your money on? Well for a somewhat biased account (towards BPM), download a free pdf to read the full blow-by-blow report, but if you’re in a hurry (apparently):

BPM is about the management of process improvement and ensuring that it is made sustainable within the organisation. It is about the establishment of a business process architecture, process governance, organisational change management capability, sustainable process performance and increasing BPM maturity, to name but a few. Whereas, Six Sigma can be a useful intervention strategy for a business process improvement problem. Therefore, we would see Six Sigma as a potential useful adjunct to BPM.

Hmm, while I see BPM as being able to allow firms to fine tune their processes and possibly make a businesses’ internal processes function more productively I agree with this comment:

Typically it (BPM) refers to the identification of core business processes, assignment of process ownership and definition of measures (and perhaps benchmarks) that indicate the health of a particular process. These measures are often influential in selection of Six Sigma or Lean projects.

What do you think?

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As Kevin points out over at Evolving Excellence

It may just be me, but it appears that the number of companies citing lean manufacturing in their financial reports, news releases, and general news articles has been increasing. Of course many of them really have no idea what lean is really about, or perhaps they only understand the waste reduction pillar without even knowing about respect for people. Lean is apparently becoming a requirement, or even an analogy, for success.

Well it’s not just private companies who are adopting “lean”, even the military are using it as well! Perhaps all firms need to understand lean from a strategic perspective and not just focus on the tools involved? , is to answer the questions:

• What is good for ?
• What is a problem we can solve with our core skills?
• How can we make money doing this?
• How will we answer these questions 10, 20, 50 and 100 years from now?

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