Synerflex Consulting

Lean & Six Sigma program is a continuous improvement management strategy to improve the performance of an organization. It is a combination of both Lean Management and Six Sigma programs. Lean principles come from the Japanese manufacturing industry, especially Toyota in particular. In Toyota, it is normally called Toyota Production System (TPS). While, Six Sigma is a business management strategy originally developed by Motorola, USA. The term six sigma came from statistical terminology. A six-sigma process means that 99.99966% of the products manufactured are statistically expected to be free of defects (3.4 defects per million).

Lean Management, which is promoted by Toyota, in which the focus is upon improving the “flow” of all the business processes and eliminating the wastes that exist within these processes. Some of the Lean Tools include Kanban pull system, 5 S, Total Productive Maintenance, production load leveling, error proofing (poka-yoke), Jidoka, Heijunka and many more.

On the other hand, Six Sigma objective is  to improve the quality of process outputs by identifying and removing the causes of defects and minimizing variability in the business processes. It uses a set of quality management methods, especially statistical tools. It also creates a special infrastructure of people within the organization (“Black Belts”, “Green Belts”, etc.) who are experts in these methods. Each Six Sigma project carried out within an organization follows a defined sequence of steps and has quantified financial targets (cost reduction or profit increase).

Therefore, Lean & Six Sigma is a hybrid of both the Lean and Six Sigma program utilizing the tools that exist in both of the program according to the needs of each individual organization. However, we must always remember that you don’t have to use all the tools that exists in both the Lean and Six Sigma program in order to be successful. Ultimately, Lean & Six Sigma program is to help your organization to be better.

Gemba is a very important word that we learn in Lean Management. Gemba means the workplace or the place where the actions are.

Why do we always emphasized on Gemba in lean management?

When problem occurs in our workplace, what is the first thing that you normally do? Most of the time, the people who is involved, would call a meeting and they would invite all parties involved into a meeting room and have a meeting. And the worst thing is that the meeting would take up a long time and sometimes there’s no decision makes so the team will have to come back again the next day or the day after again. They’ll spend a lot of time having meeting after meeting and meetings. That is why today a lot people hate meetings.

In Gemba management, when we have problems in the workplace or Gemba, the worker will immediately highlight the issues through some Andon or signal devices.  And, the supervisors or the leaders will immediately go down to the Gemba to observe or listen to the workers who are involve in the problem or issues. Therfore, they are able to resolve immediately the issues within a short period of time. If not, this problem would immediately escalate to the next level of management. Now this system basically creates an urgency for the people to solve the issues

Gemba Coaching

We have put in place a learning program to help your managers and leaders to understand how you can systematically put in place this type of Gemba Management practice through creating your own internal Gemba Coaches. This program is a hands-on workshop that will help your coaches set up the Gemba Management system within days so that your organization can start benefit from your Gemba Coaches.

Click this HERE to know more about our Gemba Coach Program.