CPD - Lean Six Sigma for Process Improvement

Lean Six Sigma is a powerful method to make your business thrive among competitors. Many business owners use it to run their businesses because the approach provides systematic steps. It allows them to improve their business productivity and profitability. As a result, it drives business performance and builds a solid foundation for future changes.

However, executing this approach requires a deep understanding and strategic methods. That is because Lean Six Sigma is a complex step that combines several improvement processes. It includes analytical problem-solving, broad perspectives, and various tools to get the best business results. In response, this CPD programme steps in to help you with the lessons.

What is Lean Six Sigma?

Lean Six Sigma is an approach that focuses on improving business performance by removing useless variations of a business. At the same time, Six Sigma is the tools and techniques to improve the operational process by lowering any failures in products, services, or processes. These defects can lead to customer dissatisfaction or prevent a product or service from performing as expected. To avoid these failures, you can use several tools and techniques, including:

• Kanban: A visual workflow management system that can help you manage work, find business problems, and reduce any useless variations. 
• Kaizen: A Japanese mindset that encourages you to make ongoing improvements by making small changes. 
• Value stream mapping: A visual tool to analyse the areas that need to be optimised and reduce useless business variation. 
• The 5S tools: A method to create a positive work environment.

With all the techniques, a business can grow and thrive. For this reason, many individuals are learning about this approach. Learning this method can equip them with professional expertise that is varied based on its certification levels. The certification levels start from white belt, yellow belt, green belt, black belt, master black belt, and champion. In this case, the champion is the level for those who are in executive roles that make business decisions.

Importance of Lean Six Sigma

Lean Six Sigma is essential because it helps individuals and businesses improve. As for individuals, it can help you to grow problem-solving skills, improve work discipline, improve your data-driven and decision-making ability, and it can develop your leadership. With these capacities, this can lead your business to grow better. All in all, it impacts your business by providing the following benefits:

• Make better work and business productivity
• Lower operational waste and costs
• Improved product quality
• Quicker response to customers
• Better employee engagement
• Good customer satisfaction

5 steps of Lean Six Sigma

There are steps to follow Lean Six Sigma for your business. These include defining, measuring, analysing, improving, and controlling. These steps are also known as the DMAIC methodology. This method can bring a lot of benefits to people and companies. For example, you are trying to make a change in your workplace to make a better leadership style and achieve strategic goals.

To begin with, you can define your company’s mission, vision, and values. After that, you need to find the leadership style that can support your initiatives. Then, you need to learn the gaps between your desired leadership and the current one you have. Once you study it, use strategic solutions to fill in the gap. 

If everything has settled, check your initiatives to align them with the business goals and use them again for the unpredictable problems that may happen again. To understand it more, below is a detailed explanation of each step of Lean Six Sigma, such as:

Define

It is a step that aims to define the project problems, processes, goals, and scope using a customer and business point of view. You can do this by making a project charter that outlines the project’s outcomes, scope, and deliverables. You can also make a map of the work processes and clarify the needs of each process. This way, you can identify the project’s focus and sort the variations that do not have value for the company.

Measure

This is the second step of Lean Six Sigma, where you will examine the process you take and how it helps to solve the problems. You can start by determining how to monitor the project’s performance, collecting data, and developing a flowchart. This step can help you understand the process better, find areas for improvement, and identify if the task is already meeting the customers’ expectations. If it is not meeting the expectations of customers, then it can be categorised as waste.  Now, waste is any product, service, or process that is unbeneficial for a business.

Analyse

Once you measure the problems and processes, you can analyse them to find their root causes or process variations. Usually, people will use statistical analysis and other tools, such as value stream mapping, just-in-time (JIT), or plan-do-check-act (PDCA), to help them find the most significant cause of the problems. Without this analysis, you can’t find solutions that can solve the problems. This can lead the company to waste more time, consume resources, increase variations, and create new problems. As a result, it can’t improve business success.

Improve

Once you understand the causes of the business problems by analysing the data in the previous stage, you need to develop and use the process improvements. This aims to prevent the issues from happening again in the future. You can use Lean Six Sigma tools to reduce waste, improve workflow, and make the business more efficient. 

Control

If you have already improved and used a better process, you need to control it for continuous growth. You need to create realistic metrics and plans for correcting any variations that may happen during the process. The goal of this step is to make sure the improvement processes are still working and helping you to make the company thrive.

Course Summary

Understanding Lean Six Sigma is vital. Many companies are seeking ways to improve their business excellence. Doing so can help them drive business success, deliver value to their customers, get a competitive edge, and many more benefits. Even so, doing it all can not be done in just a night. It needs careful thought, preparation, and strategies to make it succeed.

Lean Six Sigma can help to make it all happen. However, this approach can be challenging to use because of several factors, like problems with changes, insufficient leadership support,  poor training and programme, and lack of cultural changes. To help you avoid these problems, our coaching class will teach you valuable lessons on how to use the method correctly. After the course, you will have the knowledge and skills to make innovations for your business development.

Course Structure

The CPD - Lean Six Sigma for Process Improvement course helps you learn how to make a continual optimisation of business operations. This course walks you through several steps and strategies you can use to improve your business. This can equip you with a deep understanding and valuable skills in managing this advancement. Therefore, this lesson will teach you the following materials, including:

1. Fundamental understanding of Lean Six Sigma and its importance for a company
2. DMAIC methodology for business excellence
3. Proven strategies for continuous improvement
4. Skillsets to solve business problems 
5. Change management strategies 

Entry Criteria

There are no formal requirements to join this Lean Six Sigma training. All people from different backgrounds can enrol in this programme. It is accessible to a wide range of professionals, including those who are interested in business performance development. These people include project engineers, process developers, business analysts, and those who work in production.

Improve your business with Lean Six Sigma from CCM

There are several ways to use Lean Six Sigma for your business to thrive, such as getting strategic management support, promoting your business, defining your business ownership, determining your business value, setting priorities, collecting measurement data, and improving business control. 

These tips can help you lower inefficiencies and reach business goals by conducting continuous improvement. To help you understand more about this business advancement, the College of Contract Management creates several valuable resources for your learning journey. With that being said, let’s enrol in the CPD - Lean Six Sigma for Process Improvement course!

Our CPD - Lean Six Sigma for Process Improvement class aims to help you explore strategies you can use to improve your business growth. However, the schedule of this programme is still under development. In the meantime, you can visit our website to find other learning topics that you may like. If you have any questions or need further assistance, our team is ready to assist you. Your happiness is our priority.