Foundations Of Lean Six Sigma (ch. 1-6)

Question 0

What does George argue are the two best arguments for getting involved in Lean Six Sigma?

Answer 0

1. There is very little downside. Even of your efforts fail, the kind of training and education offered through Lean Six Sigma can only enhance your job skills
2. The upside is enormous

Question 1

What are the four keys to Lean Six Sigma?

Answer 1

1. Delight your customers with speed and quality
2. Improve your processes
3. Work together for maximum gain
4. Base decisions on data and facts

Question 2

What is VOC?

Answer 2

Voice of Customer.

It’s used to indicate that the opinions and needs of customers are being represented in decisions about products and services.

Question 3

What are defects?

Answer 3

Things that don’t meet customer needs.

E.g. If you promise a :-day turnaround time and it takes 3.5 days, that’s a defect.

Question 4

What is a “customer” according to Six Sigma?

Answer 4

People outside your company who purchase your services and products AND people inside the company who use the output of your work.

Question 5

What are CTQ requirements?

Answer 5

Critical to Quality requirements.

These are the features of a product that are MOST important to your customers. These are the ones you should pay the most attention to.

Question 6

Accepting something as “just the way the work happens” is known in Six Sigma as __________?

Answer 6

Waste

Question 7

What is WIP?

Answer 7

Work In Process.

WIP is the amount of work that is officially in a process and isn’t yet complete.

Question 8

What is Lead Time?

Answer 8

Lead time is how long it takes you to deliver your service or product once the order is triggered or how long it takes for something to cycle through the process from start to finish.

Question 9

What is Completion Rate?

Answer 9

How many items of work get finished during any given time period (day, week, month).

Question 10

How do you calculate Lead Time?

Answer 10

Use Little’s Law…

Lead Time = Amount of Work-in-process / Average Completion Rate

Question 11

What does “In queue” refer to?

Answer 11

Whenever you have WIP, you have work that is waiting to be worked on. That work is said to be “in queue” and the time it sits around waiting is “queue time.”

Any time that work sits in queue is counted as a delay, no matter what the underlying cause.

Question 12

What is Value-added work?

Answer 12

Work that adds value in the eyes of your customers.

Question 13

What is non-value-added work?

Answer 13

Also known as waste.

It’s work in a process that customers would not want to pay for if they had the choice.

Question 14

What does “complexity” refer to in Lean Six Sigma?

Answer 14

The number of different types of products, services, options, features, etc. that your processes have to handle.

Decisions about complexity are usually made at a strategic level.

Question 15

What is Process Cycle Efficiency (PCE)?

Answer 15

Process Cycle Efficiency = Value-add Time / Total Lead Time.

This is the ratio of value add time (work that customers would recognize as necessary to create products or services they are about to purchase) to total lead time (how long the process takes from start to end). This lets us gauge the potential for cost reduction.

Question 16

What is a typical Process Cycle Efficiency (PCE)?

Answer 16

A typical Process Cycle Efficiency (PCE) is 3%.

A PCE of less than 10% indicated the process has a lot of opportunity for improvement.