Six Sigma & Lean

Six Sigma and Lean

Custom Research by Essay Six Sigma and Lean

Abstract

Within the world of modern business , and especially in the situations where products , tangible and intangible are provided to a customer , the ability to provide products of the highest quality , free of defects , in a way that allows the producer to generate a sufficient return on investment is essential , as it has been for as long as the concept of exchanging something of value for something else of value has existed As technology and business intelligence has improved

, there have emerged processes for the improvement of both products and the processes used to create them chief among these are the concepts of Six Sigma and Lean This will describe both of these concepts and explain how they are used as effective process , profitability , and product improvement tools Upon conclusion of the , the reader will have a much better understanding of these concepts and their real world applications

Six Sigma

When this was introduced , the statement was made that the improvement of products and the assurance of quality are basically ancient standards in the making of any good with this being said , it is generally accepted that the pioneers of the modern practice of mass production , such as Henry Ford , quickly came to the realization that the process used to make something is not what added value to the product in and of itself , but rather the end result of a quality product that was cost effective to make was the real goal of the manufacturer (Eckes 2001 therefore , there had to be a way to prevent , or at least reduce the costly mistakes and inefficiencies that exist in the production process and still be able to provide the level of quality that the customer would pay for and the producer could realize a profit in furnishing . This brought about the concept of quality management , which is the ancestor of Six Sigma in that they both aim to reduce defects and boost quality while reducing wastes . To loosely define Six Sigma , it could accurately be said that it is a highly precise way to statistically analyze production data in an effort to reduce defects the data could vary , depending upon the industry and product (Eckes 2001 . The popularity of Six Sigma was greatly increased , starting in the 1960s , based upon the impressive results that General Electric was able to achieve through the usage of Six Sigma . Before Six Sigma was born , however , earlier methods of defect reduction and quality enhancement existed , such as Through the use of Six Sigma , there exists a highly reliable and valuable statistical tool with this in mind , one of the more hands on ' methods of process improvement is Lean

Lean Explained

The organizations that learned from the experience and best practices of Henry Ford set themselves apart from their competition if for no other reason than due to their ability to reduce cost and waste from production processes , while...