DEPLOYMENT

Deploying Lean Six Sigma or any Business Process Improvement Initiative

Improvement Initiative:

Years ago, when Lean Six Sigma was “young”, companies invested significant money to deploy it by leading the effort with huge training waves.  The return on that investment was slow since projects tended to take 8-12 months before they’d begin to produce savings.  Additionally, an up front investment in deployment infrastructure was created to help support the Belts so that they could focus and deliver savings to the business.

Today, some will say that model is dead.  We at Avior Group believe the model is simply different.  There is still a need for training and infrastructure; however the timing may need to be adjusted in order to maximize ROI and cultural engagement.  Additionally, assessments are leveraged early to understand organization readiness and the value landscape.  Below is a description of what we feel are the 4 important elements of a deployment.  The specifics of how and when these are done depend on your organization.

Assessment of Current State:
Understand the current state of the organization and readiness to support a methodology that will provide structure and accountability for results.

Having the right structure and team in place is crucial to having a successful Lean Six Sigma or process improvement initiative. If you are just starting to investigate if deploying an Organizational Excellence, BPM or Lean Six Sigma methodology or have some progress and successes with your deployment, a Readiness/Maturity Assessment would be the first step and our recommendation at any level.

The assessment would provide you and your team an outline or roadmap from our16+ years of deployment in many industries. We have provided guidance and tools to help mitigate some of the challenges with the culture and discipline needed to realize and/or exceed the desired objectives.

Align Leaders, Objectives and structure:
Establish or revisit Governance using a Steering Committee to provide oversight management ensuring financial measures are in place, data is available for projects and the infrastructure will support and be able to manage the cultural challenges including the ability to coordinate changes as needed in the deployment.

Identify Projects and appropriate level of training:
Including but not limited to an opportunity diagnosis, prioritization methodology and ongoing Project Selection pipeline including cross functional and department specific opportunities. Financial Validation of benefits is crucial in order to manage any internal leadership challenges or changes. System needs to be robust, audit resistant and quantifiable. Training designed to meet the needs based on maturity of the organization.

Personnel Selection:
Determine appropriate Champion and Full Time Black Belt resources, the impact and linkage to human resource development, ongoing resource needs and skill development, material preparation and distribution, project management needs and structure and the ability to track progress and evaluate project impact, sustainment of results and leveraging opportunities.