LEAN or Six Sigma? Which Should My Business Be Using?


By John Yealland


In all honesty, probably both! LEAN and Six Sigma are perfect partners and provide great synergy and complement each other nicely. Often I meet people who are unsure which approach to take and therefore delay in doing either. This means that they are losing valuable time in being able to make the changes to improve organisational performance. It is possible to start on one track and, along the way, find that your focus changes as you learn more about your processes and systems.

Looking at a process or system to decide which approach to use isn’t always black and white. A lot depends on the culture of the organisation and what type of data is available.

Organisations that are driven by objectivity and have many Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) will often find more comfort in the Six Sigma approach. This is a result of the perception that it is more “scientific” as it appears to be complex because of the statistical tools that can be applied. Those companies that are more subjective and intuitive feel more comfortable with the LEAN approach. To them, it seems less daunting as it does not rely on high order statistics in analyzing situations and tends to focus on team activities and employee engagement in solving problems.

Often people describe continuous improvement programs as a journey. If we consider the LEAN journey then I would say that Six Sigma can be used as a stop-over along the way. For instance, an organisation on the LEAN journey finds that it has a specific problem with yield in a particular department or a specific piece of equipment then area is a likely candidate for a Six Sigma project. This means that the organisation can still proceed under the LEAN umbrella but acknowledge that there is a specific activity that can benefit from the Six Sigma approach. To make things easier it may also be beneficial to engage an expert in Six Sigma for that activity so that the organisation maintains their LEAN focus.

Similarly, those undertaking a whole of business approach using Six Sigma as the process improvement vehicle can find that as part of the Improve phase there are opportunities to implement LEAN approaches. For instance, a manufacturing operation that uses Six Sigma finds that there is a high degree of variability in the setup and changeover times for equipment in various departments. Analysis shows that the cause of this variation is a result of a poorly organised workspace where valuable time is wasted in locating the appropriate tools and attachments. 5S and Quick Changeover techniques are used to improve this aspect of the operation or improve both the speed and variability of the set-ups.

Whichever approach is leadership is vital. It is crucial that senior management not only embrace the process, but seen as driving it. Senior management must be engaged and be able to provide the necessary leadership to maintain the momentum within the organisation. Active involvement in projects and in the monitoring and review process is essential so that improvement activities are seen to be integrated into the business.

In the end, it doesn’t really matter which approach you take. The important point to recognise is that you want to better in the future than you are today and there are powerful tools to help. LEAN and Six Sigma are not mutually exclusive and in fact make great partners to any business looking to leap forward in performance.

2006 © Unbound Business Solutions P/L. All rights reserved

John Yealland is a management consultant and Certified Six Sigma Champion and Black Belt. His skills span the areas of I.T, Training, Logistics, Manufacturing and Operations. John can be contacted at http://www.unboundbusiness.com.au.


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