Can consultants REALLY help to implement six-sigma or lean?

Me – I still care about quality!

The use of “Black Belts” or a Lean Sensei as itinerant change agent has fostered a cottage industry of training and certification. Critics argue there is overselling of Six Sigma or Lean by too great a number of consulting firms, many of which claim expertise in Six Sigma or Lean when they only have a rudimentary understanding of the tools and techniques involved.

So what should be the role of consultants in helping a company to implement six-sigma or lean?

Here’s a range of opinions:

Dan Perreault: Director, Quality

The customer must CHOOSE the role it wants in the consultant.

1) Content expert/teacher: This is a common one and the easiest for the consultant to create a value proposition for. They create a stock content which they adjust to varying degrees for a client and sell a package of education to the customer. The company has to create it’s own internal leverage for implementation. This is a common reason why the Six Sigma 1 week per month with a several stage project model is used. It neatly creates some basis for implementation because people in the class have actually done something, not just learned it.

2) Program Manager: Common, but has to be handled with care. It can be mixed with the content expert, but the challenge here is clean deliverables. Since this is an organization or, dread the word, culture being built, it is challenging to define when it is “done”. Further, it often is not clear the degree of actual “work” the consultant is going to do vs. what the company is going to do. However, this can be extremely powerful for a customer because generally any of these techniques are relatively easy to learn at a content level. What can be challenging is getting executives to drive the right sort of data driven decision making questions. That takes someone with experience, talent and the respect of those executives in driving them to change behavior.

3) Professional Problem solver: This has always been a fringe element to the profession, but retains a value. Many companies don’t really want to have people on staff who are true experts in these techniques. They tend to be expensive and often you can’t give them enough scope to be happy in an organization. So, there is a “rent an expert” market for people to come in and solve specific problems. Set up a lean line, apply six sigma tools to a critical product development and launch, etc. Again, used correctly this can be powerful, because with careful selection you can find people who are very, very skilled at solving the problems who will not be trying to change every aspect of your corporate culture.

So, how do you know what you want? Well, unless you have a specific problem you want to solve – leading to option 3, I recommend learning enough about the tools to know what they can and cannot do before choosing the role the consultant will fill. This may mean finding a program around option #1 as a start.

Second, your organization should take a hard look at what you are trying to accomplish. Can you Robert as a Group QA Manager have your department become the sustaining technical resource for the company and provide the process/product improvement skill set as a service to the company? You may not need more than education. However, if you are talking about a serious culture change then you need to look deeper.

Finally, and I apologize for the long answer – you have correctly identified that in many cases “consultants” of Six Sigma and Lean have moved far away from the actual tools. Perhaps at one point they could set up the 2^x DOE and performed the analysis or given you strong education in network flow optimization but no more and are focused on the “soft” side of implementation.

Perhaps it is a bias, but most organizations I know who are interested in this already have internal experts on “soft side” issues of inclusion, acceptance, etc. around other programs that have been driven through a company. Most of the time what’s lacking is a real thorough grounding in the tools. So, that means needing someone who has the skills to evaluate whether the consultant really “knows their stuff”. This used to be harder. However, now, it is perfectly reasonable to get questions to ask consultants on forums like this, or even float claims and issues as a way of backstopping your own knowledge of the field.

Dale Mitchell | Strategic Leader-Change Agent: Director of Operations at Scioto Ridge Job Networking Group

Even if they have not been educated on Six Sigma or Lean, most managers and leaders, as well as many of their employees, know what needs to be done to improve their operations. They simply do not have the time, do not know how to create the time, or have not been given the authority. Many managers are focused on the wrong things, thereby taking them away from other important aspects of the business…like reducing cost or improving customer service. Even if they start focusing on the right things, they wear many hats and may not have time to really focus on the improvement efforts.

This is where a good consultant comes in. I am not talking about a consultant that assembles a binder of tasks the manager needs to do, although there are applications for this type of consultant. I am talking about a consultant that understands Lean tools, quickly determines when and how to apply them in the operation, and then is actively involved in their implementation. This behavior demonstrates involvement with the employees and helps build rapport. It also affords the consultant the opportunity to make sure that change happens at the Value level, not just the Behavior or Attitude level. The consultant needs to be a partner with the employees, not just Sr. Management.

Arkadiusz (Arek) Kieres: Programme Director / Process Improvement at Orange-TP Group

Lean or Six Sigma is NOT about training nor certification. The role of good consultant is to support managers and people on the grass root levels to PROVE the results of REAL initiatives that have the IMPACT.

Do not spend too much time only on vague culture and mindset buzzwords. I know every six sigma pundit will tell you that “mindset” is the most important. Of course you can focus only on this but then you will spend 100 years to deliver any changes.

Good consultant understands that changing mindset must be BALANCED with delivering sustainable changes to the business (revenue generation, FTE and OPEX, CAPEX reduction, more happy employees who solved their daily frustrations by using lean).

Who needs certification when you have all of above?

Dean Stevens: Pragmatic Lean Business Process Engineer

One of my clients had been implementing Lean tools for several years with little benefit. They read the books and wanted the benefits of lower cost and shorter lead times.

After a year and several visits he made the following analogy. We were on this side of the river and could see the other side but did not know how to get there. You showed us how to build a bridge. I like that.

The consultant serves as a teacher. It is not Lean if they are not learning about their business viewed through a Lean lens. Results follow.

Perry Parendo: Owner, Perry’s Solutions, LLC

As with most things, it is important to know where you are at and where you want to go. A consultant could help you define what that next level could look like – what size step is practical. Could also help provide an honest view of where you are at. As others have said, if you want or need a massive shift, there are special skills to make that happen. A big thing here is to ensure management is asking questions to encourage use of these new skills.

Since training is typically a major component of these efforts, those skills and materials need to be assessed. I believe flexibility and options are important. Too often I see standard presentations (with standard examples), firm requirements (must use all of these tools on your project to be certified – regardless if the project needs it), and instructors who are out of touch or not capable. Tools should be provided that allow the group to move forward, but should stop short of overwhelming them. These issues all leads to certifications that are shallow or not relevant (have heard of highly decorated black belts who do not know what a t-test is).

I believe that they need to be capable of coaching a team through a project. Helping them solve problems. Not telling them what to do, or managing the project, but instead options or questions to get them down the path. This does not mean with general responses, but instead with specific assistance. If it is not implemented in a reasonable time frame, it is not helping. I have seen useless (or at least simple) projects extended for many months just to keep the consultant busy. Or worse, using Six Sigma as a method to resource pet projects.

Of course, some organizations need a critical project solved. Bringing in a hired gun can work to “make it go away”. This is not implementing anything, but is supplementing what the company is already doing.

Nick Westall: MTI

Educating the executive team in how and why Six Sigma, Lean and other approaches can work for their business, and then mentoring the executive team through the process of adapting and adopting the approaches for and within their business.

The use of such frameworks, tools and techniques should be a natural and value adding extension of how the business operates today. If they are not culturally embedded within the organisation they will lose relevance and legitmacy, and be abandoned. Culturally bedding-in takes a long time (years if not decades).

It needs to come from the top and be an integral part of doing business – this is where external resource should focus their efforts.

James Kirwan: at KIRWAN MANUFACTURING OPERATIONS CONSULTING

It is difficult to sort out a qualified consultant. It would probably be best to hire a successful quality control engineer. What I do know is that success can only come by level loading your annual production. This operating plan will not only give you the opportunity to attain the highest quality measures but in all manufacturing measures including cost of purchased goods.

Sanjeev Sadavarti: Head – Corporate Quality at Apollo Tyres Limited

My call here is bit different. It is on basic outsourcing principle. I will outsource those activities to consultants, which I do not want to develop as internal expertise / core competency of the organization. If you use this principle the activities of consultant will vary from organization to organization. Just few examples to site

1. I do not want to hire high cost trainers, I will outsource training to consultants (on other hand if you want to develop Six Sigma Training as an SBU in future, start hiring)
2. I would like to identify my own themes of strategic importance and develop capabilities to identify project (I will take help of consultants to develop these competencies in all my senior management team and in future when I promote anybody)

Consultant or internal role…..to me is therefore specific to organization.

Anand: Associate Vice President, HSBC India | Chartered Engineer | Certified Six-Sigma Black Belt

In my opinion complete honesty is first and foremost for a consultant of any kind. When helping a company to implement six-sigma or lean; I would first ask a question myself – do they really need this or something else can solve the problem ?

Thus consultants’ role is to be a guide – showing right direction / path, educator – educating the client on appropriate matters with right density and steward – taking equal responsibility of execution of advise / solutions.

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Comments

By robthompson on December 21st, 2009 at 8:26 am

Just published: Can consultants REALLY help to implement six-sigma or lean?:
Me – I still care about quality!
Th… http://bit.ly/8JC2Pw

This comment was originally posted on Twitter

By shaun sayers on December 21st, 2009 at 2:44 pm

I can certainly stand up for the consultant/educator. You have to learn specific techniques form somewhere and, whilst there may be a lot to be said for being "self-taught" it can be a lottery, and also slow. There is benefit from being able to learn from the mistakes of others rather than having to make them all again yourself

By qamanager on December 21st, 2009 at 7:38 pm

@shaun: I agree: however it's important to know the theory, which may be mostly self-taught, after all Deming said, "There is no knowledge without theory".

By Free Job Postings on December 22nd, 2009 at 12:06 pm

Amazing! What an excellent blog post and very informative. Great job.