| Naseath Management Consulting |
| Six Sigma Master Blackbelt |
| Lean Expert |
| Corporate Quality Executive |
| Phone: 972-955-6674 E-mail: brent@naseath.com |
Service Co’s Issues with Lean Six Sigma
In my experience, much of the money spent on Lean Six Sigma training and implementation
by service companies is wasted. Why? Because Six Sigma contains a vast set of statistical
tools that are too complex for most people to understand without extensive training, examples,
and repeated practice. During typical six sigma training, even though the methodology phases
are taught in sequence, the tools are dumped on the students leaving them confused, not
knowing where to start. Imagine if you went to classes for two weeks at Mr. Goodwrench and
each tool that can be used on a car was demonstrated for you one time, but you weren't told
clearly when to use it or which one applies to your type of problem? Then you are told to make
your car “work better”… (Hey, at least most of us grew up using wrenches and screwdrivers.
Few of us were raised using statistical tools for fun projects in the back yard.)
I’ve noticed that the work of actually solving the problem is invariably performed by the Black
Belts, who are mentoring the Green Belts, not the Green Belts themselves. Not only that, but
how many Green Belts in your organization perform additional projects after their first (to get
certified)? If you are like all the other companies I’ve seen, it is zippo, nada. Essentially, you
pay for the Green Belt to build their resume. You could save the training dollars and simply
have them gather data for the Black Belt, who can perform the project in much shorter time
than the BB can coach and motivate the Green Belt while helping them to “discover” the
solution to the problem.
Oh, wait, I’m forgetting something… Oh yea, the consulting companies make all their money
off the training. That’s why you get sold the training. But wait! If you buy the Six Sigma training,
you’ll also get… Lean training! That’s right. We now call it Lean Six Sigma! Using the same
five DMAIC phases of Six Sigma, we now throw in a completely new set of mostly unrelated
tools into the same two weeks. Now we can be certain your Green Belts will leave the training
totally confused, I mean, fully experts in quality. (OK, I admit, sometimes you have to pay for a
third week of training for your employees to be even more confused.)
Did you know that…
The Lean methodology was designed to level work cells and remove constraints to make
things faster, better, and cheaper while the Six Sigma methodology was designed to get to the
root cause of problems? These are two completely separate methodologies with entirely
different purposes. Who in the world thought we should dump all the tools of both into a bag
and teach them to the same poor Green Belts? Oh yea, I forgot again how the consulting
companies make their money. The haze is lifting and it’s starting to come back now… The
consulting companies first taught Lean for manufacturing operations. There were huge
improvements to productivity. Then, when they started running out of customers, they
promoted Six Sigma, with its catchy certification belts. Then, when the market in manufacturing
waned, they went after selling Six Sigma to service companies. And when that declined, they
lumped it all together into Lean Six Sigma. Ya gotta love marketing… (Yea, I know, there are
some big consulting companies that will never hire me again for disclosing all of this!)
When I was supporting part of the quality program for Bank of America, one of the top people
in their program told me that they had analyzed all of their previous quality projects to see
where the most money was saved and about 95% was saved from projects that used Lean
tools, not Six Sigma. By the way, they saved big money by making some of their major
continuous-flow processes faster, better, and (of course) cheaper. The bank has spent a
bundle on their Six Sigma program with a lot of publicity and notoriety as a Six Sigma service
company. Politically speaking, they would never admit that their program could have been
implemented for less. And to their credit, they did develop a reduced-tool set version of Six
Sigma, allowing many more employees to get benefits without two weeks of training and all
the confusion—a program called Management By Fact (MBF). This was an admirable gain
and I applaud them. A breath of fresh air and common sense. They also kept their lean
training totally separate from their Six Sigma training, a demonstration of the experience and
comprehension of their leaders.
Now I can hear some of you thinking, “Yea, I know all that. I save lots of money on my program
because I hired a guy who got his Black Belt and Master Black Belt certification off the web,
and boy he works cheap too. He’s helped us reduce our training from 2 weeks to 3 days!”
Hey, congratulations! If you are one of those many companies that hired a “quality
professional” to lead your program with no real experience, who got certified by taking web
training, then there is no need for you to read any more. And nothing I can say will help you one
bit. However, I have seen some big companies who must market themselves to their clients
as “Six Sigma” companies but who don’t want to pay the price so they hire consultants or in-
house trainers to give a 3-day Lean Six Sigma training for a fraction of the cost. After a brief
intro, the training basically consists of a 5 to 10 minute introduction of each tool with no
examples or hands-on exercises—or a high-level introduction with no explanation of how to
use any of the tools or perform a real project. Either way, do you think anyone walks away from
that training understanding or remembering anything that they can actually use in their job? All
that company bought is the right to put in their advertising, “We have umpteen million
employees who have received Six Sigma training”.
And if ALL OF THAT isn’t enough, you have to ask yourself if your processes are mostly
continuous (one transaction or widget after another as fast as you can get them done), or are
they reactionary or event driven, such as projects, maintenance, and services on demand?
Because if they are reactionary or event driven, then the standard Lean model won’t help you
much and could be very confusing. There are better event-based tools to use.
OK, now what do I do???
Well, first of all, I sincerely hope that some of the above information is useful to you in
managing your quality program. Second, the BIG So What is not to buy a lot of consulting from
me. Yes, I offer consulting when I’m available. But my objective for this website is not to sell
you a big project so that I can work 12 hours a day for the next two years or to add a bunch of
employees and get rich.
Most of my services are strategically oriented. I try to help you change your approach to
understand what quality is really all about, to see the vision of how to make a culture shift that
gives you permanent quality improvements going forward. I want you to convert from an
Organizational, Financial, or Marketing operational model to a Process operational model. And
to realize that what the customer feels is the direct result of the quality of your processes, not
your people or how hard your people work or your sales approach. And from that, usually
comes a dramatic lowering of cost and better ROI on your quality dollar. In the few companies
where quality is ingrained, it is automatic, organic, not a program. You can read more about
how I can help on my services page if you’re interested. (Sorry, there won’t even be a big sales
close at the bottom of the page—and you can’t buy my book, either.)
For you, right now, the BIG So What is to put a process in place to evaluate and review the
effectiveness of your training dollars and employee time spent on quality projects. Do you track
every project and the resulting savings UNIQUE TO THAT PROJECT IN HARD DOLLARS, not
just nebulous benefits? In most organizations, the project charter promises a lot of big money,
but no one follows up to find out that 12 months later the three-month project is still continuing
and in the end, there are no hard-dollar savings. Or that the same savings dollars are claimed
by five different projects. Or that all of the savings look good overall, but that in reality they come
from one or two projects and that the other 30 or 50 projects produced most of the training
cost with little return. In other words, the first big step is to live in reality, not in illusion. One of
my clients, Darrell Smith of Cisco, named his quality project, “Open Kimono”, because he is
willing to bare all to be in reality. I love that! Darrell has the vision.
If process improvement is not part of your current operations, it is likely that standardized
processes are not either. Your first big task may be to determine the best model to use for
mapping your processes. This depends on the type of process and whether it is continuous or
event-driven. (Usually there is little benefit to measuring a process that is executed differently
by everyone. Suddenly it is understandable why most businesses only measure the output of
a process and not the factors that determine that output, because they have no standard
process so those factors are unreliable! Which also means, that they have no prayer of ever
improving those processes either. And don’t even get me started on the “best practices” bull
puckey. That is where, with no standardization and no measurements in place, we choose
who is doing a process the “best” way and label it our best practice, often as a replacement for
a true quality program. Keep sniffing in the glue on that one...)
The next step is to analyze if you have an effective model in place to understand the data that is
coming to you from your standardized operations and your process improvements. Your mind
is finite, it can’t comprehend a huge amount of data. You need to structure the data into a
model that your mind can grasp and that you can use to effectively make decisions. Part of that
model may be a balanced scorecard to see if you are moving ahead and ideally it can include
industry benchmarks.
Once the model is in place, you will be in a position to understand your productivity and your
errors (defects) and the resulting cost of poor quality (usually in money wasted through rework
and in the liability cost/risk for service companies). Then you can determine what type and
form of training would be best and for which employees. How can your “program” become
“just the way we do things around here”? Do you know the ten Six Sigma tools that are used
on practically every Six Sigma project? Did you know that you can execute almost all of your
projects with almost all of the gain with just those ten tools? Which would they be for you?
Most companies have great quality leaders in their organizations, they just need a little
strategic mentoring to see out of their Six Sigma-trained box and some emotional support that
they really can be safe by staying in reality instead of illusion. Swapping out quality leaders is
not typically the solution to your problems, it is a strategic change in direction, a new approach.
Of course, you need leaders who can think conceptually, not just repeat what they’ve been told
or seen in their training, but that is pretty easy to evaluate. And that is where experience can
help.
If you need some down-to-earth, experienced help from someone who knows how to make a
real, practical difference and save hard dollars, please give me a call. I wish you the best in
your quality endeavors and in the great adventure we call “life”.
Sincerely,
Brent
Brent Naseath
972-955-6674
brent@naseath.com
by service companies is wasted. Why? Because Six Sigma contains a vast set of statistical
tools that are too complex for most people to understand without extensive training, examples,
and repeated practice. During typical six sigma training, even though the methodology phases
are taught in sequence, the tools are dumped on the students leaving them confused, not
knowing where to start. Imagine if you went to classes for two weeks at Mr. Goodwrench and
each tool that can be used on a car was demonstrated for you one time, but you weren't told
clearly when to use it or which one applies to your type of problem? Then you are told to make
your car “work better”… (Hey, at least most of us grew up using wrenches and screwdrivers.
Few of us were raised using statistical tools for fun projects in the back yard.)
I’ve noticed that the work of actually solving the problem is invariably performed by the Black
Belts, who are mentoring the Green Belts, not the Green Belts themselves. Not only that, but
how many Green Belts in your organization perform additional projects after their first (to get
certified)? If you are like all the other companies I’ve seen, it is zippo, nada. Essentially, you
pay for the Green Belt to build their resume. You could save the training dollars and simply
have them gather data for the Black Belt, who can perform the project in much shorter time
than the BB can coach and motivate the Green Belt while helping them to “discover” the
solution to the problem.
Oh, wait, I’m forgetting something… Oh yea, the consulting companies make all their money
off the training. That’s why you get sold the training. But wait! If you buy the Six Sigma training,
you’ll also get… Lean training! That’s right. We now call it Lean Six Sigma! Using the same
five DMAIC phases of Six Sigma, we now throw in a completely new set of mostly unrelated
tools into the same two weeks. Now we can be certain your Green Belts will leave the training
totally confused, I mean, fully experts in quality. (OK, I admit, sometimes you have to pay for a
third week of training for your employees to be even more confused.)
Did you know that…
The Lean methodology was designed to level work cells and remove constraints to make
things faster, better, and cheaper while the Six Sigma methodology was designed to get to the
root cause of problems? These are two completely separate methodologies with entirely
different purposes. Who in the world thought we should dump all the tools of both into a bag
and teach them to the same poor Green Belts? Oh yea, I forgot again how the consulting
companies make their money. The haze is lifting and it’s starting to come back now… The
consulting companies first taught Lean for manufacturing operations. There were huge
improvements to productivity. Then, when they started running out of customers, they
promoted Six Sigma, with its catchy certification belts. Then, when the market in manufacturing
waned, they went after selling Six Sigma to service companies. And when that declined, they
lumped it all together into Lean Six Sigma. Ya gotta love marketing… (Yea, I know, there are
some big consulting companies that will never hire me again for disclosing all of this!)
When I was supporting part of the quality program for Bank of America, one of the top people
in their program told me that they had analyzed all of their previous quality projects to see
where the most money was saved and about 95% was saved from projects that used Lean
tools, not Six Sigma. By the way, they saved big money by making some of their major
continuous-flow processes faster, better, and (of course) cheaper. The bank has spent a
bundle on their Six Sigma program with a lot of publicity and notoriety as a Six Sigma service
company. Politically speaking, they would never admit that their program could have been
implemented for less. And to their credit, they did develop a reduced-tool set version of Six
Sigma, allowing many more employees to get benefits without two weeks of training and all
the confusion—a program called Management By Fact (MBF). This was an admirable gain
and I applaud them. A breath of fresh air and common sense. They also kept their lean
training totally separate from their Six Sigma training, a demonstration of the experience and
comprehension of their leaders.
Now I can hear some of you thinking, “Yea, I know all that. I save lots of money on my program
because I hired a guy who got his Black Belt and Master Black Belt certification off the web,
and boy he works cheap too. He’s helped us reduce our training from 2 weeks to 3 days!”
Hey, congratulations! If you are one of those many companies that hired a “quality
professional” to lead your program with no real experience, who got certified by taking web
training, then there is no need for you to read any more. And nothing I can say will help you one
bit. However, I have seen some big companies who must market themselves to their clients
as “Six Sigma” companies but who don’t want to pay the price so they hire consultants or in-
house trainers to give a 3-day Lean Six Sigma training for a fraction of the cost. After a brief
intro, the training basically consists of a 5 to 10 minute introduction of each tool with no
examples or hands-on exercises—or a high-level introduction with no explanation of how to
use any of the tools or perform a real project. Either way, do you think anyone walks away from
that training understanding or remembering anything that they can actually use in their job? All
that company bought is the right to put in their advertising, “We have umpteen million
employees who have received Six Sigma training”.
And if ALL OF THAT isn’t enough, you have to ask yourself if your processes are mostly
continuous (one transaction or widget after another as fast as you can get them done), or are
they reactionary or event driven, such as projects, maintenance, and services on demand?
Because if they are reactionary or event driven, then the standard Lean model won’t help you
much and could be very confusing. There are better event-based tools to use.
OK, now what do I do???
Well, first of all, I sincerely hope that some of the above information is useful to you in
managing your quality program. Second, the BIG So What is not to buy a lot of consulting from
me. Yes, I offer consulting when I’m available. But my objective for this website is not to sell
you a big project so that I can work 12 hours a day for the next two years or to add a bunch of
employees and get rich.
Most of my services are strategically oriented. I try to help you change your approach to
understand what quality is really all about, to see the vision of how to make a culture shift that
gives you permanent quality improvements going forward. I want you to convert from an
Organizational, Financial, or Marketing operational model to a Process operational model. And
to realize that what the customer feels is the direct result of the quality of your processes, not
your people or how hard your people work or your sales approach. And from that, usually
comes a dramatic lowering of cost and better ROI on your quality dollar. In the few companies
where quality is ingrained, it is automatic, organic, not a program. You can read more about
how I can help on my services page if you’re interested. (Sorry, there won’t even be a big sales
close at the bottom of the page—and you can’t buy my book, either.)
For you, right now, the BIG So What is to put a process in place to evaluate and review the
effectiveness of your training dollars and employee time spent on quality projects. Do you track
every project and the resulting savings UNIQUE TO THAT PROJECT IN HARD DOLLARS, not
just nebulous benefits? In most organizations, the project charter promises a lot of big money,
but no one follows up to find out that 12 months later the three-month project is still continuing
and in the end, there are no hard-dollar savings. Or that the same savings dollars are claimed
by five different projects. Or that all of the savings look good overall, but that in reality they come
from one or two projects and that the other 30 or 50 projects produced most of the training
cost with little return. In other words, the first big step is to live in reality, not in illusion. One of
my clients, Darrell Smith of Cisco, named his quality project, “Open Kimono”, because he is
willing to bare all to be in reality. I love that! Darrell has the vision.
If process improvement is not part of your current operations, it is likely that standardized
processes are not either. Your first big task may be to determine the best model to use for
mapping your processes. This depends on the type of process and whether it is continuous or
event-driven. (Usually there is little benefit to measuring a process that is executed differently
by everyone. Suddenly it is understandable why most businesses only measure the output of
a process and not the factors that determine that output, because they have no standard
process so those factors are unreliable! Which also means, that they have no prayer of ever
improving those processes either. And don’t even get me started on the “best practices” bull
puckey. That is where, with no standardization and no measurements in place, we choose
who is doing a process the “best” way and label it our best practice, often as a replacement for
a true quality program. Keep sniffing in the glue on that one...)
The next step is to analyze if you have an effective model in place to understand the data that is
coming to you from your standardized operations and your process improvements. Your mind
is finite, it can’t comprehend a huge amount of data. You need to structure the data into a
model that your mind can grasp and that you can use to effectively make decisions. Part of that
model may be a balanced scorecard to see if you are moving ahead and ideally it can include
industry benchmarks.
Once the model is in place, you will be in a position to understand your productivity and your
errors (defects) and the resulting cost of poor quality (usually in money wasted through rework
and in the liability cost/risk for service companies). Then you can determine what type and
form of training would be best and for which employees. How can your “program” become
“just the way we do things around here”? Do you know the ten Six Sigma tools that are used
on practically every Six Sigma project? Did you know that you can execute almost all of your
projects with almost all of the gain with just those ten tools? Which would they be for you?
Most companies have great quality leaders in their organizations, they just need a little
strategic mentoring to see out of their Six Sigma-trained box and some emotional support that
they really can be safe by staying in reality instead of illusion. Swapping out quality leaders is
not typically the solution to your problems, it is a strategic change in direction, a new approach.
Of course, you need leaders who can think conceptually, not just repeat what they’ve been told
or seen in their training, but that is pretty easy to evaluate. And that is where experience can
help.
If you need some down-to-earth, experienced help from someone who knows how to make a
real, practical difference and save hard dollars, please give me a call. I wish you the best in
your quality endeavors and in the great adventure we call “life”.
Sincerely,
Brent
Brent Naseath
972-955-6674
brent@naseath.com
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