What are the main application of Lean Six Sigma in manufacturing?

29-Apr-2021

The Lean six sigma methodology has been designed and created by a large group of experts who have a lot of experience in the manufacturing industry. They have worked in the manufacturing industry for many decades and thus have amassed an enormous amount of experience.

They can be said to be very experienced and seasoned professionals who have a wealth of subject matter expertise and practical professional experience from working in the manufacturing industry. There is no one better suited to design and create a methodology like the Lean six sigma methodology than them. One can learn more about them by getting Six Sigma Certifications.

They designed and created the lean six sigma methodology with some very specific goals in mind. Their first aim and objective was that the business processes in the manufacturing industry should become more efficient and more effective. To this end they designed the lean six sigma methodology and included several very useful and very helpful features in it.

This methodology is extremely useful and extremely helpful and many businesses and organizations in the corporate world have experienced this first hand. This is the reason why this methodology has become almost universally accepted and universally adopted. The Lean Six Sigma green belt certification discusses the popularity of the lean six sigma methodology.

Project managers and team leaders around the world have found the lean six sigma methodology to be like a panacea for all of their distresses and troubles and challenges which they face in the corporate world. The lean six sigma methodology is helping to solve all the problems which they face on a daily basis.

What are the lean six sigma tools?

The lean six sigma tools are a set of tools which have been created by the designers of the lean six sigma methodology. These tools serve as a set of standardized techniques and strategies with the help of which team leaders and project managers can manage and execute their projects in a much better way. The various lean six sigma tools are discussed in the Lean Six Sigma certification.

These tools have been developed as a set of guidelines, principles, processes, and protocols, following which the team leaders and project managers can solve the problems which they face in project management systematically, methodically, and in an organized way.

These tools can be applied to any business process, any manufacturing unit, and any corporate project without any hesitation. They are perfectly suited to the kind of problems which arise in these three things - business processes, manufacturing units, and corporate projects.

Let us proceed to see what these tools really are and how do they function.

Lean six sigma tools and their applications -

1. Bottleneck analysis -

Bottleneck analysis is a very important tool which comes bundled in the lean six sigma methodology. It is primarily an analytical tool. With the help of bottleneck analysis, the team leader or project manager can detect and identify issues and problems with the business processes well in advance of them actually occurring. One can learn how to carry out such an analysis by getting a Lean Six Sigma certification.

We can understand what this tool does and how it functions by the name itself. Bottleneck means that when there is a flow or movement of goods and services and suddenly some kind of blockage comes in the way of the flow, it creates a jam and the goods and services stop moving, or in this case, stop being produced. The term bottleneck is explained in greater detail in the Lean Six Sigma certification.

This jam or blockage is called a bottleneck. It is a very serious problem and if it occurs in a business process, the entire flow of all the goods and services stops completely and no further business output can be produced. The tool called bottleneck analysis aims to solve this very problem.

Bottleneck analysis provides a set of guidelines, principles, processes, and protocols with the help of which a team leader or a project manager can analyze the bottleneck systematically. By thinking about the bottleneck in a structured way, the team leader or project manager can understand the bottleneck much better and can solve the problem and free up the bottleneck.

2. Just in time (JIT) -

Just in time manufacturing is another lean six sigma tool which is very important. It is widely used by team leaders and project managers around the world to save the resources of the company. It is an extremely clever tool which changes the entire paradigm of the manufacturing process. One can learn what this new paradigm is by getting a Lean Six Sigma certification.

Let us look at how the tool functions. Conventionally, what happens in the manufacturing process is that the customer places an order with a company for tools which the company has already manufactured and produced. Meaning that the company already has the items which the customer is ordering in its stock. All it has to do is – pack the item and then deliver it to the customer’s location.

But with just in time manufacturing, the company holds on manufacturing the item before the customer places an order. That is, the company only starts to manufacture the product after they receive an order from the customer. Now one might think that if the company has not even manufactured the product yet, why are they taking orders for it?

The answer is that this tool of just in time manufacturing is only used for products which are not very complex. That is, it only takes a short amount of time to manufacture or produce them, relatively. So what the company does is that it tells the customer that they are offering a certain product and once they have received a sufficient number of orders, they start to manufacture the product in batches or groups.

In this way, the company can avoid using too many resources unnecessarily. That is, it can avoid the wastage of resources. We can understand this by the following example. Suppose the company had expected that a particular product or good would be very popular in the market and would generate a high demand. They expected that the customers would immediately start flooding the company with orders for that particular product.

But once it launched the product the customers hardly took any interest. There were little to no orders. In such a scenario, the company will have to put all the products it had manufactured into cold storage. After some time, it will have to dispose of them or discard them. This will waste a lot of resources of the company including its time, energy, money, efforts etc. They can avoid all of that with Just in time manufacturing.

3. Value stream mapping -

Value stream mapping is a very important tool which comes bundled in the lean six sigma methodology. Value stream mapping is another lean six sigma tool which is very important. It is widely used by team leaders and project managers around the world to save the resources of the company.

Value stream mapping is a way to generate a visualization of all the business processes of the company. It includes all the different steps involved in manufacturing a product by putting it through the various business processes. The visualization not only includes all the various business processes but also their intricate and subtle interactions with each other. One can learn how to map these interactions by getting a Lean Six Sigma certification.

It is used to analyze and optimize the various business processes.

4. Overall Equipment Effectiveness -

Overall equipment effectiveness is a way to check and measure the effectiveness of all the equipment present in a manufacturing unit. It is a very systematic and methodical process to check the equipment. It involves assigning all the equipment a rating out of 10 based on some lean six sigma standards.

5. Plan-Do-Check-Act -

• Plan – Recognize an opportunity or process that needs improvement.

• Do – Create a small test.

• Check – Analyze the results of the test.

• Act – Move forward based on those results.

Each one of these steps is taught systematically in the Lean Six Sigma certification.

6. Error Proofing -

Error proofing is a risk analysis tool which is based on the thought that “Prevention is better than cure.” It seeks to detect and identify all the risks present in a business process and prevent them before they can escalate to cause bigger problems. One can learn how to carry out such risk analysis by getting a Lean Six Sigma certification.

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