Prelims

Jiju Antony (Heriot Watt University, UK)
Vijaya Sunder M. (The World Bank Group, India)
Chad Laux (Purdue University, USA)
Elizabeth Cudney (Missouri University of Science and Technology, USA)

The Ten Commandments of Lean Six Sigma

ISBN: 978-1-78973-690-8, eISBN: 978-1-78973-687-8

Publication date: 29 November 2019

Citation

Antony, J., Sunder M., V., Laux, C. and Cudney, E. (2019), "Prelims", The Ten Commandments of Lean Six Sigma, Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. i-xxiii. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-78973-687-820191001

Publisher

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Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2020 Emerald Publishing Limited


Half Title Page

The Ten Commandments of Lean Six Sigma

Praise for The Ten Commandments of Lean Six Sigma:

I am delighted to finally see a well-structured Lean Six Sigma book that focuses on the behavioural and cultural necessities for successful Lean Six Sigma programs rather than on the use of tools and techniques. The authors have drawn upon their vast experiences working with Operational Excellence programs across diverse industries to bring us the absolute must-have components for success.

John Dennis, Chairman, International Lean Six Sigma Institute, UK

I would recommend this book as it captures the essence of results-based references to the tools and concepts required in a structured way to achieve the process of implementing the leverage of Lean Six Sigma to maximise efficiencies and maintain the managerial process. Every business needs to revisit and discover how to propel your organisation to new levels of competitive success this book will support and guide you.

Michael Mitchell, Managing Director, Bespoke Clinical Care Ltd, UK

The Ten Commandments of Lean Six Sigma brings together the leading authors of our time and presents a unique guide for any leadership team as they embark on their LSS journey. The final chapter on the future of LSS is a must read for established LSS practitioners.

Stephen G Anthony, Master Black Belt and CEO of the Institute of Six Sigma Professionals, Wales, UK

In today's competitive world, any firm needs to be conscious of quality, cost and timely delivery. To achieve this, the book The Ten Commandments of Lean Six Sigma will be a very useful guide for practitioners. The book addresses all that is required by the practitioners to implement LSS in their respective organizations. This book aims to transfer the knowledge that is available with the academic world for its practical application in the competitive business world.

S Navaneetha Krishnan, Senior Deputy General Manager at Warship Design Centre, Larsen & Toubro and Commander (Retd), Indian Navy

The authors' experience with training in both academic and industrial settings are evident, as the methods prescribed for preparing individuals for LSS execution are applicable to both scenarios and will likewise prepare the reader for either. They understand that it is not enough to be technically proficient, in order to be a successful LSS practitioner, and they offer solid advice in the critically required soft skills, as well. This book will help any organization preparing to embark upon the continuous improvement journey.

David W. Hoffa, PhD, ASQ CSSBB, External Process Engineering Manager, Johnson & Johnson

This book is definitely a new piece of art in Lean Six Sigma literature! The authors present an exceptional combination of rigorous literature review and solid pragmatic recommendations addressing critical topics in Lean Six Sigma from top to bottom. Content is brilliantly presented in an understandable language and the sequencing of commandments flows smoothly and logically in a way that you just can't stop reading.

Marcelo Machado Fernandes, PhD, ASQ Certified Master Black Belt, Lean Six Sigma Consultant at FCV and SETA, Consultant at Minitab LLC, Founder of MF Treinamentos (MF Operational Excellence), Brazil

Title Page

The Ten Commandments of Lean Six Sigma

A Guide for Practitioners

Jiju Antony

Heriot Watt University, UK

Vijaya Sunder M.

The World Bank Group, India

Chad Laux

Purdue University, USA

Elizabeth Cudney

Missouri University of Science and Technology, USA

United Kingdom – North America – Japan India – Malaysia – China

Copyright Page

Emerald Publishing Limited

Howard House, Wagon Lane, Bingley BD16 1WA, UK

First edition 2020

Copyright © 2020 Emerald Publishing Limited

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-1-78973-690-8 (Print)

ISBN: 978-1-78973-687-8 (Online)

ISBN: 978-1-78973-689-2 (Epub)

Dedication

Dedicated to our parents and families

List of Figures

Figure 2.1 Changing HR Requests from Management
Figure 3.1 Effort–Impact Matrix for Project Selection
Figure 4.1 Levels in Lean Six Sigma
Figure 4.2 360-Degree Feedback Mechanism
Figure 4.3 Phase-gate Monitoring
Figure 6.1 Backward Design Process

List of Tables

Table 3.1 Criteria for Project Selection and Respective Scores
Table 3.2 Criteria and Score for Project Selection
Table 10.1 Linking Lean Green – Similarity in Views

About the Authors

Jiju Antony is recognised worldwide as a leader in Lean Six Sigma methodology for achieving and sustaining process excellence. He is a Professor of Quality Management and Director of Process Improvement in the School of Social Sciences at Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, Scotland. Professor Antony has been researching on the topic of Six Sigma and Lean Six Sigma since 2001 and published over 200 journal, conference and white papers as well as four books on these two topics alone with over 15,000 citations and H-index of 71; which is considered to be the highest in the world on Operational Excellence topic. He is the founder of the International Conference on Six Sigma and is also the founder of the International Conference on Lean Six Sigma for Higher Education. He is the Editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Lean Six Sigma, Associate Editor of the Total Quality Management & Business Excellence journal and Associate Editor of TQM Journal.

Vijaya Sunder M. is currently Head of Business Process Excellence at the World Bank Group, Chennai. He is a Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt, PMP, ISO 9001:2015 Quality Lead Auditor, and Lean Facilitator. He holds his PhD in Operational Excellence from the Indian Institute of Technology Madras, a distinction holder in MBA from Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Learning and gold medalist in Bachelor of Engineering from Anna University, India. He has led and mentored various operational excellence programs that helped improve the customer experience, employee satisfaction, eliminate process defects, increase productivity and reduce costs across multinational organisations including World Bank, Barclays, American Express and Citi. He has trained more than 1,500 people (as on July 2018), in Lean Six Sigma, Agile, process automations, strategy and leadership for establishing process improvement capability in firms. Alongside corporate job, he practices teaching for MBA students as a visiting faculty at various business schools and has published research papers in several reputed international journals and magazines.

Chad M. Laux is currently Associate Professor of Computer & Information Technology at Purdue University, West Lafayette, and has developed a concentrated area in Lean Six Sigma where he teaches Lean Six Sigma Systems at the Undergraduate and Graduate levels in Computer & Information Technology. His teaching attracts a wide variety of student majors including Computer & Information Technology, Industrial Engineering Technology, Supply Chain Management Technology, and Healthcare Policy and Management. During his 13 years in the industry, he served primarily in Tier One organisations and managed Quality Engineering, Industrial Engineering and Product Design functions. During that time, Chad received multiple Six Sigma Black Belt certifications and conducted multiple continuous improvement projects.

Elizabeth Cudney is currently Associate Professor in the Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Department at Missouri University of Science and Technology. She received her BS in Industrial Engineering from North Carolina State University, Master of Engineering in Mechanical Engineering and MBA from the University of Hartford, and doctorate in Engineering Management from the University of Missouri – Rolla. In 2018, she received the ASQ Crosby Medal for her book on Design for Six Sigma. She received the 2018 IISE Fellow Award. She also received the 2017 Yoshio Kondo Academic Research Prize from the International Academy for Quality for sustained performance in exceptional published works. She received the 2008 ASQ A.V. Feigenbaum Medal and the 2006 SME Outstanding Young Manufacturing Engineering Award. She has published 9 books and over 85 journal papers. Dr Cudney is a certified Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt.

Preface

Lean Six Sigma (LSS) is a powerful Operational Excellence (OE) methodology for making critical business processes more efficient and effective by reducing waste and variation, which results in enhanced customer satisfaction, improved productivity and reduced operational costs. While the success stories speak for themselves, there were critics who have highlighted the failure of LSS due to various reasons. As more and more organisations are joining the journey of LSS, the failure of this initiative is also surfacing from various organisations. Though there is significant research evidence available on critical success and failure factors of LSS implementation in organisations, these aspects have been merely restricted to the tactical side of LSS.

Though organisations initially realised LSS as an effective toolkit with a collection of problem-solving tools for process improvements, later the evolution of understanding clarified LSS as an organisation strategy and a leadership approach for imbibing the quality culture in organisations. Although a plethora of articles on Lean Six Sigma have been published in a wide variety of sources, the authors have observed that no general guidelines have been provided to organisations for implementing and sustaining this powerful business process improvement strategy.

This book presents Ten Commandments of Lean Six Sigma from the perspective of practitioners, researchers and academics who have been involved in the training, teaching, research and consultancy on various topics of quality and continuous improvement such as Lean, Six Sigma and LSS. These commandments can serve as a practical guide for senior managers and executives for achieving operational and service excellence in various manufacturing, service and public sector organisations despite their size. We hope that business executives and senior managers as well as a number of practitioners and consultants will find this book useful in conveying the key elements to launch and sustain an OE journey in any organisational setting.

The book is divided into 11 chapters. The first chapter is an introduction to Lean Six Sigma (LSS) as a powerful Operational Excellence (OE) methodology for achieving both efficiency and effectiveness in business processes. The remaining chapters are the Ten Commandments of Lean Six Sigma which include some of the most important factors which need to be taken into account for the successful journey of LSS. Some chapters include the latest trends or emerging themes which will be essential for the further growth of OE in the next 25 years or so. We truly hope this book inspires many senior managers in organisations to get into the habit of embracing OE strategy for creating and sustaining competitive advantage. We are indebted to many contributors and leading experts for the development of OE strategy and its associated tools and techniques applied in industry today, especially Mr. Taiichi Ohno as the father of the Toyota Production System, Professor James Womack, Professor Daniel Jones and Professor Daniel Roos for their contributions to the Lean Production System in creating value for customers through continuous improvement, Dr. Mikel Harry who has done some pioneering work in Motorola for the development of Six Sigma as a business process improvement strategy and methodology and, finally, Mr. Michael George for his unique contribution to the integration of the most two powerful OE methodologies such as Lean and Six Sigma.

Jiju Antony, Vijaya Sunder M., Chad Laux and Elizabeth Cudney

Acknowledgements

This book was conceived further to publication from an article entitled Ten Commandments of Lean Six Sigma: a practitioner's perspective that appeared in the International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management. We are deeply indebted to a number of people who, in essence, have made this book what it is today. First, and foremost, we would like to thank a number of colleagues in industry for their constant encouragement in writing up this book. We would like to express our deepest appreciation to Katy Mathers and Pete Baker at Emerald Publishers for their support and forbearance during the course of the project. Finally, we would like to express our sincere thanks to our parents and family for their encouragement and patience as the book stole countless hours away from family activities.