Over the past two decades, manufacturers across industries have boosted productivity and competitiveness through Continuous Improvement (CI) methodologies. Two of the most widely used are Lean Manufacturing and Six Sigma, often combined into a unified Lean/ Six SIgma approach.

For small and medium-sized manufacturers (SMMs), committing to these methods can be transformative, delivering measurable gains in safety, quality, delivery, and cost. By mastering Lean and Six Sigma, SMMs can streamline operations, enhance sustainability, and significantly improve both revenue and profitability.

What is Lean Manufacturing?

Lean is a continuous improvement approach that targets the removal of any process setups that don't add value as defined by the customer. By streamlining workflows and eliminating non-value added activities, Lean ensures that value flows smoothly to the end customer with minimal waste. Since waste represents unnecessary cost, reducing it boosts efficiency, productivity, and profitability.

Lean Manufacturing is understood in three distinct areas:

• An overall business strategy
• A philosophy for continuous improvement
• A continuous improvement toolkit

Lean is a mindset for viewing an organization through the lens of how products and services are created, delivered, and continually improved, covering every stage from concept and design to manufacturing, sales, fulfillment, and back-office operations. Its greatest impact comes when Lean principles, primarily philosophy, and tools extend beyond a company's own walls, reaching both upstream suppliers and downstream partners across the entire value chain.

Lean is guided by a set of five principles and three perspectives.

Principles of Lean Thinking:

• Identify what is of value to the customer
• Understand the flow of that value through the organization
• Improve the flow of value through the organization
• Let the customer pull that value through the organization as needed
• Seek perfection

The three perspectives that are at the core of the principles of Lean Thinking are:

• See from the perspective of the customer
• See from the perspective of the part, product, or service
• See from the value stream perspective (end to end)

What is Six Sigma?

Six Sigma is a data-driven methodology that uses statistical tools to improve processes by reducing variation and eliminating defects. Its core objective is to apply a measurement-based strategy that identifies and addresses the root cause of errors, leading to more consistent and higher-quality outputs.

By analyzing process data and modeling performance, Six Sigma pinpoints changes that can reduce defects, increase throughput, and boose efficiency, ultimately lowering production or service costs. Reducing variation means producing more quality products with the same or fewer resources, improving both performance and profitability.

Six Sigma is usually understood by three distinct elements:

• A Strategy of Continuous Improvement
• A set of Statistical Tools that are applicable to addressing variation in any process related to producing a product or providing serivce
• A method to define the Degree of Quality a process can achieve

In statistical terms, Six Sigma measures how well a process is performing. Achieving Six Sigma quality means producing no more than 3.4 defects per million opportunities. A "defect" is anything that falls outside customer specifications, and an "opportunity" is any instance where a defect could occur.

Lean/Six Sigma Together

Lean and Six Sigma tackle performance issues from different angles. Lean takes a macro view, making waste in business and manufacturing processes visible. Six Sigma takes a micro view, uncovering hidden waste within processes and equipment through statistical analysis. In both cases, identifying waste allows resources to be focused on eliminating it.

The two methods complement each other well for small and medium-sized manufacturers (SMMs). Lean improvements are generally less costly to implement, enabling many companies to achieve substantial gains for years before investing in the training and tools required for Six Sigma.

How Manufacture Nevada Can Help

Manufacture Nevada offers manufacturing consulting solutions for small and medium-sized manufacturers. At Manufacture Nevada, we can help your business achieve Lean/Six SIgma compliance through various events. Click here to schedule a consultation with our Business Advisors, and click here to register any upcoming Lean/SIx SIgma events.

Content from this blog was sourced from CMTC.