Evaluating the Effectiveness of Your Lean Six Sigma Program

Posted by on Jun 9, 2019 in Continuous Improvement, Lean Six Sigma, Organizational Goals | 0 comments

Implementing and sustaining Lean Six Sigma takes a lot of commitment, discipline and hard work as most everyone that’s involved knows.  But how often do you step back and evaluate the effectiveness and value you’re receiving from all your hard work?  And are your efforts taking your organization in the right direction?

We tend to get comfortable with the way things are going and fail to take the time to objectively evaluate the direction we’re going in and whether it’s really making an impact.

Here are some thoughts to help you evaluate the status and effectiveness of your Lean Six Sigma program:

  1. Start by assessing your business’ current state and its outlook for the future.  Does your company have a clear direction it wants to go in?  What value do you provide to the market and your customers?  Is the company’s strategy clear and has it been properly communicated?
  2. Does the company have documented financial and growth targets?  Do your Lean Six Sigma projects support these efforts?  Projects that support these efforts may focus on cost savings opportunities, defect and scrap reduction, etc.
  3. Do projects focus on high-level metrics, business goals, and KPIs (key process indicators)?
  4. Is upper management, leaders, champions, and project sponsors actively engaged in the process?  Does a Lean Six Sigma steering committee exist?  Is it active?  Has a deployment champion been assigned to lead the program?
  5. Has ample consideration been given to the Lean Six Sigma infrastructure?  This includes management training, selection criteria for Master Black Belts and Black Belts, Lean leaders, project selection criteria, calculation of project savings, statistical software to be used, etc.
  6. Do your Lean and Six Sigma projects deliver the anticipated results, i.e., improvement, savings, ROI, etc.?
  7. Do your project Black Belts and Green Belts possess the right skill sets and knowledge of Lean Six Sigma tools and techniques?  What process do you have in place to ensure belts increase their knowledge and understanding of the tools and techniques?
  8. Are projects completed on time?  Do projects get delayed or stalled due to teams getting side tracked due to project scope creep or not knowing the next step to take?
  9. Do project teams successfully transfer project improvements to the process owners?  Do you have a process to ensure improvements are sustained?
  10. Are projects evaluated to determine if they’re appropriate for replication in other areas?

Answering and follow-up to these questions is the role of the Deployment Champion and the Steering Committee and should be reviewed several times throughout the year.  Doing so will ensure your process is robust and growing to meet the needs of your business.

 

 

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