In 2008 when the GFC hit we asked the question. How are we going to beat this?

The answer was we needed to get: Better, Smarter and Cheaper. This then led to the question of: How?

At this time we researched the implementation of a Lean/Six sigma programme.

To carry out the programme would require:

• Executive commitment
• Training resources
• Experienced trainers
• Commitment of people's times

Our long term objective is to train all our staff, get everyone from all areas and levels involved, launch into improvement projects, then make this part of our continuous improvement culture.

An investment of a lot of time and money was anticipated, so we researched the best way to do it. So how did we do it?

Step 1: Develop a strategy

Step 2: Get executive commitment

Step 3: Determine how training would be delivered and who would drive the project

Step 4: Company wide commitment to training

As this was a national problem a number of obstacles were encountered however these were overcome and the project continues to achieve:

• An informed work force that have either yellow or white belt Lean /Six sigma qualifications
• A culture that fosters continuous improvements
• A company that in hard times continues to grow and offer security to all its employees. Return to Program or go to Bio

Kerri Gill, What are the burning issues for leaders of lean and six sigma?

The issues of Leadership are many and varied, from cultural to training and tools.

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Hilton, Roger
Leadership towards Organisational and Personal Competence in Lean Sigma

1. Introduction

It has been widely demonstrated in the literature that many organizations have produced substantial savings and cost reduction through many Six Sigma projects - for example, (Motwani et al. , 2004) ; (Banuelas et al. , 2002) ; (Gabor, 2001) . There is some recent limited evidence for Lean Sigma including a publication in an industry paper (Best Practice, 2005) ; (Shah et al. , 2008) .

The success of a Lean Six Sigma program can vary according to the performance measure used to determine success. For example, the choice of a performance indicator may influence the assessment of the success or otherwise of a Six Sigma deployment. For example, in measuring performance using stock price, Goh et al (2003) show that each of twenty Six Sigma program adopters do not have a statistically significant change in the stock price even though other performance indicators change. However, when corporate competitiveness is the measure, Lee et al (2006) propose a research model to test whether S ix Sigma management activities improve corporate competitiveness. They apply a structural equation model to 161 valid questionnaires collected from managers in a number of Samsung companies that have introduced S ix Sigma and have been actively applying it for several years. Empirical results showed that six sigma activities do indeed contribute to process innovation, quality improvement, and finally corporate competitiveness.

O'Rourke (2005) suggests that Xerox defined success for their Six Sigma program as increasing profits, reducing costs, business velocity and increased customer satisfaction whilst another large US business (Selectron) used whether or not they continuously improve metrics in quality, productivity, cross functional collaboration and employee satisfaction as the success measure.

A question arises, can any organization adopt this rigid data driven approach to achieve higher quality performance? Huq (2006) suggests that a company must develop a unique combination of resources and competencies that "bring home" the benefits of Six Sigma.

The competency-based perspective is based on the premise that a company needs to have the assets, skills and resources necessary to perform some selected activities systematically in order to achieve a better competitive position in the market place ( (Eriksen et al. , 1996) ; (Sanchez, 1996) ). According to these authors, the competencies have a cognitive aspect in terms of knowledge and skills the company possesses and an action aspect that enables a company to deploy its competencies in a coordinated manner.

According to Huq (2006) these competencies also include both personal and corporate competencies. Personal competencies comprise the technical knowledge and charisma of the Six Sigma facilitators leading the Six Sigma or Lean Sigma deployment, that is the Black Belts and Master Black Belts. Corporate competencies comprise a combination of skills, knowledge and experience that enable a firm to implement a change program successfully (Dunphy et al. , 1997) . These skills and knowledge are embedded in a corporate culture and work methods and they can only develop through continual process improvement efforts (Huq, 2006) .

A company that has gone through a comprehensive quality program that has focused on the following has the necessary competencies needed for Six Sigma implementation (Huq, 2006) .

• Customer preferences
• Continual process improvement
• Workforce culture
• Process view of the firm

Most successful adopters of Six Sigma had initially implemented TQM, Baldrige or some other quality improvement initiative (Huq, 2006) ). For companies that had emphasized Quality Function Deployment (QFD), problem solving, statistical process control, process capability studies etc. a transition to Six Sigma would be a natural course of action (Huq, 2006)

In this paper we demonstrate how leadership must focus on the above principles to ensure " Organisational and Personal Competence in Lean Sigma"

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Giles Hirst,
Balancing the tightrope: Using positive approaches to juggle competing demands of efficiency and innovation

Leadership in Designing the Implementation of Lean Six Sigma in a multi-dimensional organisation.

Leaning lean six sigma delivery and programs through a scalable curriculum and contextualised implementation approach.

Designing lean six sigma programs needs to enable stakeholder input from all levels of an organisation without consequence of size. A well constructed lean six sigma program design will encompass the best aspects of quality management systems, educational frameworks, project management and principles of lean six sigma itself to give the implementation of the program a clear view of timelines, requirements and success factors.

This approach will give the program the foundations to deliver business improvements based on the organisations strategic critical success factors, waste reduction, net after tax benefits, and sustainable transformational change while focusing on internal and external customer deliverables.

Program design should include at all business levels links to the organisational goals and strategy with respect to:

•  educational frameworks in training design and integrated assessment activity in the workplace on designated projects at all belt levels;

•  quality management systems to deliver a sustainable continuous improvement culture to keep improving the organisations processes and controlling delivered projects;

Pirola-Merlo, Andrew Associate Professor
Balancing the tightrope: Using positive approaches to juggle competing demands of efficiency and innovation

This paper presents a model for introducing Lean-Sigma into a small manufacturing SME that takes account of the special characteristics of that kind of organisation.

By SME in this context is meant a manufacturing company of 20-60 people.

The approach takes into consideration a number of factors:

• The special characteristics of this type of SMEs which can make introducing Lean-Sigma a particular challenge
• An approach using methods and tools appropriate to the type of operation
• Adopt a broad approach to developing the organisation's capability though identifying barriers to effectively introducing lean
• What is available to them to support them in continuing on their lean journey.

From this an overall 3 step model is suggested. Return to Program or go to Bio