What does “work smarter not harder” really mean?

A common mistake in many workplaces is to take on too much work at the same time. The more products or projects being worked on in your organisation, the longer will be the average lead time (the start to finish time for the product or project to reach the customer). This is a mathematical inevitability (Little’s Law for those who want to delve deeper). Working harder won’t get everything to the customer more quickly if there are just too many products or projects in the system.

“How does the Theory of Constraints help me?”

Nowadays the largest use of lean thinking and Six Sigma is in information processing (transactional processes such as finance and insurance) and service industries (such as travel & vacation businesses).  You may well be in this sort of industry. Silicon Beach provide excellent training courses on Lean Six Sigma with many participants from transactional and service organisations. In this training we learn that the “Theory of Constraints” is an essential partner to Lean Six Sigma and has a several powerful messages for supervisors and managers. One of these is about how many products or projects to have in the system at one time, and how to organise the work.

Does organising the work really matter?

Consider six ships coming in to harbour to be unloaded. There are six ships and six cranes to unload the ships. It takes one crane six days to unload one ship. If each crane unloads one ship then the average time the ships take to be unloaded is six days. However, if the six cranes unload one ship first then this takes one day. The next ship will be unloaded after one day waiting and one day unloading i.e. two days, and so on. The average time to unload will be 1 + 2 + 3 + 4+ 5 + 6 / 6 = 3.5 days – almost half the time for the previous method but using exactly the same resources.  This simple story (from Hal Mather in 1999) shows powerfully that it is best to put as much resource as possible on to one product or service at a time. Don’t work on many things at once – your customers will on average get a faster service if you reduce the number of products in the system.  This is “work smarter not harder” as we are exhorted to do. Multitasking is the enemy of efficiency.

Case study: a real example from a design company

Here is an example based on a real improvement project (somewhat simplified). Consider a small company doing design projects (transactional knowledge-based work; no physical manufacture in their workplace). On average a design project takes three months if all resource (staff) is applied to this one project. On average there were four projects in the system. Staff were shared across all projects. Thus on average it took one year (four projects x three months) to deliver a project to a customer. The Sales Department then sold more projects which were taken into the company (additional staff were not recruited). There were then an average of eight projects live in the department. Delivery times started to be badly missed. Customers complained. Why? What is the new average lead time per project? It must be eight projects x three months = two years: twice the time used historically to predict delivery dates. That’s why customers were unhappy.

Critical Chain Project Management: simple but powerful ideas

Critical Chain Project Management is part of Theory of Constraints, and has several key ideas for reducing lead times. One of these is that multitasking is inefficient and drains people’s time. Avoid mutlitasking: as far as possible, work on one product or project at a time. This is known as the “relay runner” way of working. Each person does all their work on one project, and then hands the baton (their completed work) over to the next person, who immediately works on the project full-time and then passes on the work again, and so on. This will reduce start to finish times for service and projects, and will help delight your customers.

“But is this practical?”

Yes. Many organisations use Theory of Constraints and Critical Chain project management. In practice, working on a single project may be impractical, but single-project working should be the intention (vision) for reducing lead times in the workplace. Steven Wheelright showed many years ago (1992) that the optimum number of simultaneous projects for a skilled engineer is just two. Any more projects per person reduces the value-adding time spent on work.

“So how can I use this simple idea in my workplace?”

Think about where you can work on fewer products or projects in a more dedicated way, ideally one at a time, moving work more rapidly to the customer.  You will increase the throughput of your organisation and so make more profit (or get best value from resource if you are public sector or charity). Take some training: Theory of Constraints is introduced in the  Silicon Beach Yellow Belt training course, and covered more fully in the Silicon Beach Green Belt and Black Belt Lean Six Sigma training courses.

“What other key ideas will help increase my organisation’s throughput?”

Theory of Constraints thinking adds powerful tools to the Lean Six Sigma toolkit. Global optimisation does not come from local optimisation: system thinking is required. Improvement efforts should be focussed on constraints (bottlenecks) to the organisation doing its job (throughput of work to the customer).  The “Five Focussing Steps” show how to get benefit from understanding the constraints of your organisation. All these ideas are covered in the Silicon Beach Lean Six Sigma and Value Stream Mapping courses, and will be the topics for future blogs. Simple methods lead to dramatic improvements.

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These resources are the perfect introduction to Six Sigma for the uninitiated, and also form a perfect companion to our Six Sigma Training and Lean Training courses. Check out the outlines to our comprehensive Six Sigma Green Belt Training and Six Sigma Black Belt Training courses for more detail on the Six Sigma courses we offer here in Brighton, Sussex.

So – what’s on offer then?… We’ve summarised the new Six Sigma resources here – just click on the titles to go to the full resource.

Six Sigma Project Charter Template Download

Defining your Six Sigma project well from the start using a Project Charter is one of the keys to Six Sigma Success. Use this Free Project Charter Template to help you get off to the best start.

Lean Six Sigma Glossary Download

Lean and Six Sigma contain a wide variety of tools, and as such there are a lot of terms and abbreviations to understand. Get up to speed with them all using this comprehensive 33-page Lean Six Sigma Glossary

VIDEO: What is Six Sigma? What is Lean?

Completely new to Lean and Six Sigma? In this short, easy to follow interview our Six Sigma Black Belt Steve explains the methodologies and the differences between Lean and Six Sigma. Watch the video below, or follow the link above for the full transcript:

VIDEO: Six Sigma Green Belt vs. Black Belt

Six Sigma Belt Levels can be confusing. Here Steve explains the differences between Six Sigma Green Belt and Six Sigma Black Belt. Watch the video below, or follow the link above for the full transcript:

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There are already lots of reasons to take your PRINCE2 and Six Sigma courses at Silicon Beach Training.

And here’s another great reason! If you book in July or August you can take advantage of these fantastic low rates:

All Lean Six Sigma Green Belt Training Courses: £1,495 + vat (normally £1,795)
All PRINCE2 Foundation Training Courses: £845 + vat (normally £995)
All PRINCE2 Practitioner Training Courses: £995 + vat (normally £1,395)

And with small group sizes, inspirational tutors with extensive real-world project experience and some of the best PRINCE2 pass rates in the country, our delegates always go home happy!

I recently attended (and passed) the PRINCE2 Foundation & Practitioner course at Silicon Beach and cannot recommend it enough.  The brilliant trainer brought the subject matter to life making it interesting and integrating PRINCE2 into my day to day working life has been made so simple – a real life skill.  A great location too – thank you Silicon Beach.
Emma Rance – The Body Shop

For more information or to make bookings, call us on 01273 622272 or e-mail bookings@siliconbeachtraining.co.uk

Read more about using Six Sigma and PRINCE2 together
Read our Lean Six Sigma Training Case Sudy

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New Six Sigma Case Study in our Free Resources section

Read about our latest Six Sigma Training success story at Hachette UK

In addition to the public Lean Six Sigma Green Belt training and Six Sigma Black Belt training courses we run here in Brighton, we’re often asked to provide bespoke courses with content tailored around our clients’ own projects and processes.

In 2009, Hachette UK - the country’s largest publishing group – approached us to deliver Lean Six Sigma Green Belt training for their IT department.

This training was based around the IT department’s transactional processes, and was so successful that Hachette asked us to come up with some tailored Six Sigma training for their two distribution centres, Bookpoint and Littlehampton Book Services.

The Lean Six Sigma training programme we put together was completely bespoke, and contained extensive action learning, based around running real-life projects between the Lean courses.

Training at Bookpoint took place throughout 2009 and has not only shown real process improvements already, but has left Hachette with an internal Six Sigma training course that they can run themselves as new Six Sigma projects are launched, ensuring that process improvement is continuous.

And we’re already seeing promising signs of the same at Littlehampton Book Services, where training is almost complete.

Visit our Free Resources section to read the full Lean Six Sigma Case Study.

For more information about how Six Sigma training could help your organisation, check out the courses we offer here, or contact Colin Welch on 01273 622272 / colin@siliconbeachtraining.co.uk

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We provide a range of hands on training courses to help organisations to map, redesign and improve business processes, including Business Process Management training, Lean Training and Lean Six Sigma Green Belt and Black Belt training.

Below are out top 10 tips for effective Business Process Mapping.

1. Make sure you have the right people involved. Create the process map with people who perform the job.
2. Document steps in sequence. Try to restrict your diagram to major steps at first. Do not become bogged down in the detail.
3. Identify the major, (high level), tasks/decisions, by documenting the inputs and outputs of the process.
4. Document the steps performed to complete each high level task, in whatever state it normally goes through the process.
5. Identify what really happens, not what should/could happen to the process step. Many times what actually occurs is significantly different from what the work instructions say or what is most efficient.
6. List every single step that happens to the task, including errors, exceptions, wait time, moves and anything else. These steps that are not part of the usual process can be gold mines of savings.
7. Link all inputs and outputs.
8. Capture how long each step takes to complete.
9. Capture who completes each step.
10. Once you’ve mapped and re-engineered the process, repeat the mapping process to ensure the changes have taken place. This will help to engender continuous improvement.

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In addition to our range of Six Sigma training courses, we can also provide private or bespoke training tailored to the needs of your business, and provide all the consultancy and assistance you need to implement Six Simga along the way. If you’re interested in learning more, call to speak to one of our Training Managers on 01273 622272, or e-mail info@siliconbeachtraining.co.uk

Our top 10 tips for getting the best from Six Sigma are:

1. Top management commitment and leadership is paramount.

To secure commitment from the top management the first step is to train them. This should start with an introduction to Six Sigma and the tools and techniques used, and then the responsibilities and roles of the management as Champions. The leadership should be convinced of the benefits six sigma brings. A steering committee should be formed from the executive management so as to ensure that firstly: resources are planned for and roadblocks removed, and secondly: organizational goals are aligned with Six Sigma projects. Also a person to lead this should be selected. They will be trained as a Black Belt and will give regular reports to the Committee. The person selected should be the best performing person for this job.

2. All leaders should be Six Sigma Champions.

This normally involves a 2 day Six Sigma Champions training session that ensures that they learn to ask the right questions of any Six Sigma practitioners. This will include the Steering Committee,functional managers and process owners.

3. Conjoin Six Sigma planning within that of your business plan.

Make sure that Six Sigma Project savings become an input for the Operating Plan for the next year.

4. Ensure that the person training your belts is the right person for the job.

It is important to remember that the best trainers are practitioners of Six Sigma as opposed to an academic who will only teach theory. A typical Black Belt training program will be delivered over a couple of months, after which the Black Belt will complete a project before they are certified. A Green Belt will take over 4 months but only requires one project for certification.

5. The return on training investment should be at least 20 times what is put in.

This can be achieved by good practitioner positioning and correct project planning.

6. Spread movement along all sections of the business.

Rather than just concentrating all the projects on a few Black or Green Belts, teach shop floor operators how to use the tools and techniques. The project leaders and their team should be rewarded, so as to motivate them. A basic Lean Processes and Tools training course will be sufficient for shop floor staff.

7. Have a certification process.

Make sure that the certification process is fair and well thought out. This will mean that only through a successful completion of projects and good use of the tools and techniques will the candidate get certified. The Six Sigma reviewer, Finance Leader and Functional Area Manager should sign a certificate that declares if any benefits have actually been had.

8. Start a mentoring process.

Proper guidance should be given by any experienced practitioners to new candidates. This will mean that projects are completed on time and course corrections are made regularly.

9.Financial validation of projects is also important.

The Finance Leader should always sign off on any project’s savings. The project leader should deal with any tracking responsibility.

10. Six Sigma should not be classified as a Quality Manager’s job.

A Quality Manager’s role is distinct and they will not be able to manage a Six Sigma process for an entire business.

For even more Six Sigma tips and information, visit the Six Sigma section of our Free Resources pages

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However – another equally effective way to increase profit is to reduce outgoings, and a great place to start is to look at reducing waste in business processes.

This is where Lean Training can really help your business. Lean Principles will help you to identify where your processes are inefficient and where this is having the biggest impact on your customers.

Below we’ve provided a list of the 7 deadly wastes - if you recognise any of these in any of your business processes they’re most likely not as lean as they could be, and one of our practical Lean Training Courses could help you.

Before we start – its worth noting that a business process can be absolutely anything your orgasniation does on a routine basis. This could be the way invoices are processed, how incoming calls are handled, right up to complex  processes like manufacturing a car or putting up a building. No process is too small or large to be improved by Lean.

1.  Over Production
This is making too much of whatever you’re producing – not stopping when you should have done, making or processing things too early. How often do you make extra “just-in-case”?

2. Waiting
This is when something gets stuck at a certain point in a process. For example people waiting in a queue, or parts piling up in a factory. In most cases its very hard for waiting time to be reduced to zero – but Lean Principles suggest that zero should always be the goal. This also refers to when the people in your process are waiting for something to do – this is wasted time, and it’s the processes’ fault for not being lean, not theirs!

3. Transporting
Transporting something from one place to another in a process is almost always wasteful as your customers don’t pay for it (unless it’s an agreed delivery charge). The more you move things around, the more likely they are to get lost or damaged, so quality will suffer. Communication will also suffer when things are transported over long distances, but this can apply as much to moving things around within one building. If you move 30 boxes only 100 yards you’re travelling a total of 6000 yards (counting going back each time for the next one!)

4. Inappropriate Processes
Think “using a sledgehammer to crack a nut”. Are you using a very sophisticated machine to make something very simple? Is someone with valuable qualifications and experience doing the filing? It works the other way round too – e.g. printing hundreds of brochures on a cheap ink-jet printer!

5. Unnecessary Inventory
Having no stock and making everything to order is a virtual impossibility for most businesses. However Lean recognises that having masses of inventory is a big waste, and can be reduced in most cases.

6. Unnecessary Motions
This refers mostly to ergonomics. Are your people having to repeatedly stretch, bend, pick-up, move in order to see something etc… If so this may have implications not only for their health & safety, but for the quality and efficiency of your product or process.

7. Defects
Defects are always costly. If they’re internal this leads to scrap, wasted material and the time spent to do the job again. Defects on products or services that have been delivered lead to field repairs, refunds, additional transportation costs and potential lost custom.

So – those are Lean’s 7 deadly wastes. The next big question is – how do you get rid of them?!

Lean is basically a toolkit that will help you to do just that, and these tools are covered in our range of Lean training courses.

The Lean training courses available include:

Lean Awareness (1-day)
This comprehensive introductory Lean training course provides an overview of Lean principles and tools and how your organisation can work towards leaner processes

Lean Processes & Tools (3-days)
This practical hands-on Lean training course provides a more in-depth understanding of Lean processes and tools – delegates will leave this course with a sound practical understanding of how to apply Lean to their processes.

Value Stream Mapping (2-days)
This 2-day training course will enable delegates to identify their processes Value Streams, produce a Value Stream map and develop a Kaizen improvement plan

For more information on these Lean training courses or to arrange a booking, please call our office on 01273 622272 or e-mail us at bookings@siliconbeachtraining.co.uk

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PRINCE2 is the industry standard methodology for Project Management, whilst Six Sigma is a statistical analysis tool and management system designed to streamline business processes by eliminating defects. The two methodologies are complementary, and these useful resources provide advice on how they can be best employed together…

You can download a PDF of the White Paper from APMG’s Best Management Practice website.

Silicon Beach Training are one of the UK’s leading providers of PRINCE2 and Six Sigma Training.

Our range of instructor-led training courses include:
PRINCE2 Foundation Training in Brighton, Sussex.
PRINCE2 Practitioner Training
Lean Six Sigma Yellow Belt Training
Lean Six Sigma Green Belt Training
Six Sigma Black Belt Conversion Training

For more information on PRINCE2 and Six Sigma training courses call Colin Welch 01273 622272, or e-mail colin@siliconbeachtraining.co.uk

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