Person Applying Six Sigma Principles on His Workplace

Lean Six Sigma Principles and How to Use Them

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The business model of the lean startup was popularized by the book The Lean Startup by Eric Ries.

It has sold over one million copies and inspired meetings all around the world in 32 countries where entrepreneurs meet and discuss lean startup principles.

Since then, the lean startup model has been combined with the six sigma approach to business. Together, they create the lean six sigma principles, an exciting business approach that can help take your company to the next level.

Read on to learn everything you need to know to start a lean six sigma operation! 

What is Lean Six Sigma?

Lean 6 sigma, or lean sigma six, is a way of analyzing the functioning of your business so that you can find opportunities to improve it.

Lean six sigma uses two main sets of tools, DMAIC and DMADV.

DMAIC stands for Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, and Control. On the other hand, DMADV stands for Define, Measure, Analyze, Design, and Verify.

As you can see, the first three steps in both processes have the same names.

The lean startup method uses five basic principles. They are Value, the Value Stream, Flow, Pull, and Perfection.

Many of these principles overlap with each other to help reinforce each others’ strengths. Together, they create the lean six sigma business approach.

Lean Six Sigma Principle 

Define means that you identify the important pieces in your business system. Those include the desires of your customers as well as how your project can relate to those desires.

The Measure principle recommends that you collect data about the system you’ve defined and measure how well you are already relating to customer needs.

The Analyze principle says to identify cause and effect relationships between the actions you’ve been taking and the results you’ve been getting. Then, you perform simple experiments to test whether or not your cause and effect relationships are correct.

The Improve principle builds on the cause and effect relationships you’ve discovered. If you now know that a certain cause produces a great effect, then double down on that action and reap the rewards!

Lean six sigma provides several techniques to use during the Improve step, such as poka yoke and design of experiments.

Lastly comes the Control stage, where you keep tabs on the results of your improvements and quickly correct any dynamics that threaten to derail your process. Techniques like production boards, visual workplaces, and others help you to repeat the five-step methodology until you’re enjoying business success.

This summary just barely scratches the surface on DMAIC. That leaves DMADV and 5 principles of lean startups to still discover!

You can find lean six sigma training to help you learn each of the principles in depth. Soon, you’ll have the knowledge to transform every piece of your business for the better!

Business Knowledge is Power

We hope you learned something helpful about the lean six sigma principles. To learn more about business solutions and employment opportunities, check out our other pages.


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