Coming soon ! ISO Certification in Lean Six Sigma

Potentially a huge boost to the the spread and use of Lean Six Sigma !  The December 1st 2015 release of a new ISO Standard :  ISO 18404 ; 2015

ISO 18404 : Competencies for key personnel and their organizations in relation to Six Sigma and Lean implementation

The principle improvements made in this standard over the previous standards    ( ISO 13053 part 1 and part 2 ) are  :

1)   It recognizes both Lean and Six  Sigma  and how they compliment each other

2 ) It is designed to an AUDITABLE standard in which an organization ( and potentially individuals) can be CERTIFIED by ISO Registered Certification Bodies ( RCBs ).

The standard refers to 'Lean and Six Sigma'  instead of simply 'Lean Six Sigma'. The details of the mechanisms for becoming a 'Certified ISO 18404' organization will be similar to ISO 9000 / 9001 certifications.  A Registered Certification Body  (RCB ) will be required to audit the company processes to ensure compliance with the standard.    There may also be a certification process introduced for Black Belts and Green Belts to the standard described in the document,  however the details of this procedure have not yet been released.

Lean Six Sigma Training Ltd will be active and at the forefront of any new Lean Six Sigma certifications that are offered by ISO.   Stay tuned here for latest news !

Everyday, Everybody, Everywhere ...definition of Kaizen

I recently came across the work of  Masaaki Imai the highly respected Japanese operations management consultant and theorist.
He first reminded me that the Japanese translation of KAIZEN is actually ' Change For the Better'   and not Continuous Improvement as people usually translate it today.   He also made the incredibly insightful suggestion that the a new English definition for KAIZEN should be the following:
EVERYDAY, EVERYBODY, EVERYWHERE.   I think this is an excellent additional twist on the concept of KAIZEN.   Change for the better...Everyday, Everybody, Everywhere !

                                                                      Masaaki Imai

Little’s Law can help you reduce Customer waiting time

Lean Six Sigma Black Belts use Little’s Law to help reduce Customer waiting time ( Lead time). Little's Law tells us that we must reduce our WORK-IN-PROCESS ( WIP) and also increase our rate of THROUGHPUT.

Average Lead time = Average WIP / Average Throughput

Improving the FLOW of the process and PULL ( Just-in-time) helps reduce WIP , increase throughput and hence reduce lead time.

For example
WIP = Average 20 customer inquires that a call centre has started but not finished
Throughput rate = Average 40 customers we complete per hour we finish processing
Average Lead time (time per customer) = 30 minutes

NOTE: John D.C. Little’s original law was concerned with number of customers entering and leaving a market ( shop ) L = λ W
Where L = average number of customers in the store λ = average arrival rate W = average time that a customer spends in the store

Cycle Time :  The new Wait Time in Healthcare

http://blogs.bmj.com/quality/2013/01/08/cycle-time-the-new-wait-time/

Excellent article by Dr. Douglas Woodhouse ( physician-engineer and healthcare consultant ) explains how Lean Six Sigma can assist in reduction of waiting times ( Lead time or Cycle times ) for patients. The advice and direction given in this article is also supported by well documented studies of 'best in class' manufacturing ( particularly automotive ) and service industries ( such as Call Centers ). The 'best in class' industries understand process improvement methods. tools and techniques to reduce cycle time at the same time as improving quality ( of service or product ) and at the same time reducing costs. This is the essence of the methods, tools and techniques of Lean Six Sigma which although it has been well documented for over 20 years, still has yet to be discovered or is incorrectly implemented by many organizations. My company provides training if anyone reading this is interested in learning about how Lean Six Sigma can really help improve your processes. @lean6st

Father of Scientific Management & Work Place Efficiency : Frederick Taylor

Many of the key principles of LEAN and SIX SIGMA can be found in this book first published in 1911 !

The Principles of Scientific Management  by Frederick Winslow Taylor 

 This book laid out the principles of scientific management and improvement of workplace efficiency. 

1.  Focus on improvement the process and training of workers to follow the process.

2. Management by analysis of data, hard facts and evidence ( scientific method )

3. Management to cooperate with the workers and understand the work that is being done ( now called 'the Gemba' )

4.  Management to conduct 'time and motion' scientific studies to determine the most efficient way for each worker to conduct each step in the process.  (  now addressed in the 'Waste of Motion'  in the 7-Wastes, or in the Lean tool of '5S' for workplace organization.)

5.  Exposing the fallacy that an increase in the output of each man or each machine will result in throwing a large number of men out of work.  Instead that reduced production costs can be passed on to the customer in part as reduced prices which will in turn lead to greater demand for the products.

"Black Box Thinking" aka "Lean Six Sigma"

A well written and engaging twist on #LeanSixSigma.  'Black Box Thinking' a new book by Matthew Syed.  The book deserves to do well. The concepts and methods have already been well documented in Lean Six Sigma however Mr Syed's book presents them in a way that everyone can relate to. Root Cause Analysis, Continuous Improvement ( #Kaizen ), understanding distribution of probability ( such as Normal Distribution / The Bell Curve ) etc are all covered!  These principles were all well understood, practiced and documented by companies such as Toyota and Motorola, and leaders in process improvement (such as Taiichi Ohno, Joseph Juran and W. Edwards Deming) as far back as the 1960's... 
What is interesting is that after over 50 years of the World being well aware of these principles for success it is still common for our senior managers, politicians, doctors etc to be ignorant of them. The Western education system is of course at fault. This is good news only for private consultants (such as me), and authors such as Mr Syed !

Management by Data and Hard Facts please.

#LeanSixSigma and the DMAIC method use measurement and collection of data from business processes, #hardfacts and statistical data analysis for evidence based management decisions.   Data Driven Decision making (DDD) is a key component of Lean Six Sigma.  In his book "Profiting from Evidence Based Management" ( 2008 ) Jeffery Pfeffer, professor of organizational behavior at Stanford University's business school ( and a Six Sigma advocate )  says that it is time for all managers to be more "Six Sigma' about the way they make decisions and solve business problems.

You may also be interested to read Dr. Pfeffer's article on the same subject in the Harvard Business review  https://hbr.org/2006/01/evidence-based-management.

Interestingly Pfeffer points out the two most common and erroneous ways management currently make business decisions are  1.   Using the opinion of an "Expert"  and  2.  Dogma and Ideology.

The downfall of the "Expert" method is that "Experts" see everything only through their own skill set.   Pfeffer explains:

“If you want to have an operation, ask a surgeon if you need one.” ( Joke haha ) Similarly, if your business needs to drum up leads, your event planner is likely to recommend an event, and your direct marketers will probably suggest a mailing. The old saying “To a hammer, everything looks like a nail” often explains what gets done.

The downfall of the "Dogma" method of management is perhaps more obvious.

Pfeffer explains:

When people are overly influenced by ideology, they often fail to question whether a practice will work—it fits so well with what they “know” about what makes people and organizations tick. In business, the use and defense of stock options as a compensation strategy seems to be just such a case of cherished belief trumping evidence, to the detriment of organizations. There is, in fact, little evidence that equity incentives of any kind, including stock options, enhance organizational performance. A recent review of more than 220 studies compiled by Indiana University’s Dan R. Dalton and colleagues concluded that equity ownership had no consistent effects on financial performance.

Instead of using 'Expert Opinion' of 'Dogma' we should follow the Six Sigma way of problem definition ( Define), data collection ( Measure ),  data analysis ( Analyze ) before we make a decision on how to improve ( Improve ) our business processes.

Inventory turn-over per year as a measure of 'Leaness'

I am presently studying the work of Dr Richard Schonberger who I consider one of perhaps the top 10 experts in Lean Six Sigma concepts and methods alive today ( several of the others are working for the Lean Enterprise Institute ).
Dr Schonberger  has a led a study which he called The Leanness Study which tracked the inventory turnover data for more than 1,400 companies in 33 countries over the past 12 years.

He considers the measure of  the number of times that a company turns over its inventory per year to be perhaps the best measure of the 'Leaness' of a company.   For example, all other things being equal, a company the turns over its inventory 20 times per year is more Lean than a company that only turns over its inventory 10 times per year,

A friend of mine from New Orleans recently posted this photo from school of his nephew showing a cell-phone-holder-board to keep track of who is present in class.   This is an excellent example of a simple LEAN TOOL.  It results in MISTAKE PROOFING ( Poka Yoke ) the process of keeping track of who is actually present in the class, and at the same time is an excellent example of VISUAL MANAGMENT.   #LeanSchools  The best lean tools are often the simplest !

A certain well known high street bank in South Shields told me yesterday that the earliest they could set up an appointment to open a new Bank Account for my wife was 13 business days away on September 16th.   They claim that their "calendar" is full until then because of the "student season".
This is non-lean customer service on many levels.

I then went to Virgin Money and they were able to give an appointment on September 1st,  only 3 business days away.   Even this 3 day waiting time is more than is acceptable to customers in the age of real-time online services.

The application process only requires the details of the applicant,  proof of ID, and proof of address.
My belief is that Lean process could easily be completed in less than 10 minutes from time of entry to the bank to time of exit.
This would allow for day 4 appointments per hour.

I suspect that the appointment process is documented as being 30 minutes and they do not take more than 1 per hour.  This is information I will find on my next visit.

Neither bank asked the question about how much money we had to deposit or what specific services we needed.

In Lean Six Sigma we call the customer expectations "Voice of the Customer" (VOC) and the specific requirements of the customer the "Critical to Quality requirements" ( CTQs ).

Anyone in the management of these banks should be familiar with these terms.

7 Questions to ask about everything step of your process

The great Jim Womack, author of 'The Machine That Changed the World' and passionate advocate of Lean Thinking gave this sound advice back in 2003.   He eloquently describes the 7 Questions he uses in his Gemba Walks to analyse every step of the process.

His 7 questions are well worth repeating in 2015.  See below.


Jim says...

' When I walk through any value stream – and I walk a lot every year as I visit many companies in many countries -- I ask the following very simple 7 questions about each step:

1. Is the step valuable?  Or would the customer be equally happy with the product if the step could be left out?  If the latter is the case, the step is at best what Toyota would call “incidental work” and what I often call Type One muda.  Get rid of it as soon as you can!

2. Is the step capable?  Can it be conducted with the exact same result every time?  This is the starting point, but never the end point, for Six Sigma.

3. Is the step available?  That is, can it be performed whenever it is needed?  Or is the step subject to breakdowns and varying cycle times so you are never sure what will happen?  This is the starting point, but again not the end point, of Total Productive Maintenance.

4. Is the step adequate?  That is, is there capacity to perform it exactly when the value stream requires it?  Or is there a bottleneck?  Bottleneck analysis is, of course, the starting point of the Theory of Constraints.  Or, and more likely in the current era, is there too much capacity?  Toyota tries to avoid this by adding production capacity in small increments rather than in big hunks, increments that can be flexed by adding or subtracting employees.

5. Is the step flexible?  Can it shift over quickly from making green ones to making red ones quickly?  And can it changeover without compromising capability, availability, and adequacy?  Flexibility is the key to rapid response to changing customer desires while avoiding the inefficient production of big batches.

If all the steps in your value streams are valuable, capable, available, adequate, and flexible, you are well on your way.  What remains is to perfect the linkage between the steps.

6. Does the product flow from one step to the next with no delay?  Henry Ford pioneered with “flow production” in 1914 by moving the Process to the product rather than the reverse.  This is how he created nearly continuous flow not just on the assembly line but also in component fabrication at Highland Park.  Unfortunately, he found flow hard to sustain in a world with changeable demand and wide product variety.  That’s where Toyota came in.

Does the product only flow at the pull of the next downstream step?  This is the central point of JIT, one of the pillars of TPS: Products should only flow at the command of the next step downstream.

7. Is the flow leveled back from the customer to the extent possible, with a standard inventory of finished goods if necessary?  Leveling permits every step in the whole value stream to operate smoothly while still satisfying the customer with exactly what is needed exactly when it is needed.

As I walk through any value stream – and I walk a lot every year as I visit many companies in many countries -- I ask the following very simple questions about each step:

Is the step valuable?  Or would the customer be equally happy with the product if the step could be left out?  If the latter is the case, the step is at best what Toyota would call “incidental work” and what I often call Type One muda.  Get rid of it as soon as you can!

Is the step capable?  Can it be conducted with the exact same result every time?  This is the starting point, but never the end point, for Six Sigma.

Is the step available?  That is, can it be performed whenever it is needed?  Or is the step subject to breakdowns and varying cycle times so you are never sure what will happen?  This is the starting point, but again not the end point, of Total Productive Maintenance.

Is the step adequate?  That is, is there capacity to perform it exactly when the value stream requires it?  Or is there a bottleneck?  Bottleneck analysis is, of course, the starting point of the Theory of Constraints.  Or, and more likely in the current era, is there too much capacity?  Toyota tries to avoid this by adding production capacity in small increments rather than in big hunks, increments that can be flexed by adding or subtracting employees.

Is the step flexible?  Can it shift over quickly from making green ones to making red ones quickly?  And can it changeover without compromising capability, availability, and adequacy?  Flexibility is the key to rapid response to changing customer desires while avoiding the inefficient production of big batches.

If all the steps in your value streams are valuable, capable, available, adequate, and flexible, you are well on your way.  What remains is to perfect the linkage between the steps.

Does the product flow from one step to the next with no delay?  Henry Ford pioneered with “flow production” in 1914 by moving the Process to the product rather than the reverse.  This is how he created nearly continuous flow not just on the assembly line but also in component fabrication at Highland Park.  Unfortunately, he found flow hard to sustain in a world with changeable demand and wide product variety.  That’s where Toyota came in.

Does the product only flow at the pull of the next downstream step?  This is the central point of JIT, one of the pillars of TPS: Products should only flow at the command of the next step downstream.

Is the flow leveled back from the customer to the extent possible, with a standard inventory of finished goods if necessary?  Leveling permits every step in the whole value stream to operate smoothly while still satisfying the customer with exactly what is needed exactly when it is needed.

I respect Kauser Khan for her obvious business skills and determination and wish her and her company Protocol.org.in all the best ( see article below ''She trains for Professional Excellence'' ) it is essentially a 'Finishing School for Executives'...HOWEVER, the hiring and promoting of executives based on their  'executive image', soft skills and political correctness is NOT the correct approach as shown by the world's most successful companies ( Toyota, GE, Apple for example ).  Effective and capable executives need an intimate understanding of the specific business processes in their companies ( the 'gemba' where value is actually created ) and a technical understanding of the inner workings of the business.    Of course executives need the 'soft skills' however this should never be at the expense of true understanding of the processes for which they have ultimate responsibility.   These are the teachings of Eiji Toyoda ( Toyota ), W. Edwards Deming and Joseph Juran ,,,and one of the foundations of 'Lean Management'  promoted today by such organizations as the Lean Enterprise Institute  ( Lean.org ) ...James Womack and co.

Who was the first Lean Six Sigma practitioner in history ?   My vote goes to Adam Smith in 1776.  Adam Smith owned a factory in Scotland that made pins.  He introduced 'Division of Labor' in his pin factory in 1770 and developed a 'work cell' process that involved 10 separate workers in 18 separate activities.
He documented the process flow and recognised the value stream.
He wrote in his book 'The Wealth of Nations'  that 10 workers together using division of labor over the 18 activities could produce over 48,000 pins per day.  However individually one worker working alone on all 18 activities would struggle to produce less than 20 pins per day.

This is documented in his lectures that were the basis of his classic work on ecomomics called 'The Wealth of Nations' which was first published in 1776.      'The Wealth of Nations'  was influential with the founding fathers of the USA, especially Alexander Hamilton.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Wealth-Nations-Adam-Smith/dp/0553585975

Adam Smith was also the first man in history to document the Lean Six Sigma concept of value.
He identified two different kinds of value, "use value" and "exchange value." 

Adam Smith also recognised one of the negative consequences of division of labor - that the workers no longer need to understand the value of the product as a whole and therefore are at risk of becoming detached from the reason for their work and as thinkers and problem solvers.

This indeed is what happened and led to increasing waste and inefficiency in large manufacturing processes such as Henry Ford's production lines, up until the Toyota Production System (TPS) changed the role of the workers to make them also the problem solvers and thinkers.

His influence is well acknowledged by historians and academics.   A picture of Adam Smith and his pin factory is now on every British £20 note !

Read below.  This is taken direct from his 1776 book 'The Wealth on Nations'

To take an example, therefore, from a very trifling manufacture; but one in which the division of labour has been very often taken notice of, the trade of the pin–maker; a workman not educated to this business (which the division of labour has rendered a distinct trade), nor acquainted with the use of the machinery employed in it (to the invention of which the same division of labour has probably given occasion), could scarce, perhaps, with his utmost industry, make one pin in a day, and certainly could not make twenty. But in the way in which this business is now carried on, not only the whole work is a peculiar trade, but it is divided into a number of branches, of which the greater part are likewise peculiar trades. One man draws out the wire, another straights it, a third cuts it, a fourth points it, a fifth grinds it at the top for receiving the head; to make the head requires two or three distinct operations; to put it on, is a peculiar business, to whiten the pins is another; it is even a trade by itself to put them into the paper; and the important business of making a pin is, in this manner, divided into about eighteen distinct operations, which, in some manufactories, are all performed by distinct hands, though in others the same man will sometimes perform two or three of them. I have seen a small manufactory of this kind where ten men only were employed, and where some of them consequently performed two or three distinct operations. But though they were very poor, and therefore but indifferently accommodated with the necessary machinery, they could, when they exerted themselves, make among them about twelve pounds of pins in a day. There are in a pound upwards of four thousand pins of a middling size. Those ten persons, therefore, could make among them upwards of forty–eight thousand pins in a day. Each person, therefore, making a tenth part of forty–eight thousand pins, might be considered as making four thousand eight hundred pins in a day. But if they had all wrought separately and independently, and without any of them having been educated to this peculiar business, they certainly could not each of them have made twenty, perhaps not one pin in a day; that is, certainly, not the two hundred and fortieth, perhaps not the four thousand eight hundredth part of what they are at present capable of performing, in consequence of a proper division and combination of their different operations.

Adam Smith, An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Vol. I ed. R. H. Campbell and A. S. Skinner, vol. II of the Glasgow Edition of the Works and Correspondence of Adam Smith (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1981). Chapter: [I.i] CHAPTER I: Of the Division of Labour.
Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, edited with an Introduction, Notes, Marginal Summary and an Enlarged Index by Edwin Cannan (London: Methuen, 1904). Vol. 1. Quotation.

I was recently asked about my opinion of a new process improvement concept called 'Customer Experience Management'  or CEM.    This has been promoted in the last couple of years as the next step in the 'evolution' of Business Process Improvement in the light of the rapidly changing way the customers make choices and interact with the providers of products and services.  My view is that of course business process owners need to be intimately connected and in tune with to what the 'Customer Experience'  is for their product or service.  This is emphasized in Lean Six Sigma in the 'Understanding the Voice-of-the-Customer  ( VOC ),  as well as developing the Critical to Quality metrics ( CTQs ) and Specification limits ( USLs and LSLs ) using data collection and data analysis tools such as Focus Groups,  Surveys and Feedback collection methods,  testing for statistical significance (  t-tests, ANOVA, Chi-Squared etc ).    
In summary I think that the term Customer Experience Management ( CEM ) is a good 'catch all' term to describe the methods, tools and techniques we use in Lean Six Sigma for the data collection and data analysis of Customer information in order to understand the VOC and therefore to develop the right products and services with the right features and functionality.

Takt time is a useful metric that many companies could benefit from using.

It is the 'beat' or 'rhythm' that the workers need to work to 

Takt time is the time produce a unit of product or service in order to match the customer demand for the product or service.   

For example if you have 480 shirts to press, and an 8 hour shift ( 480 minutes ), then your Takt Time is 1 minute (  1 minute per shirt ).

• Producing faster than Takt time results in the waste of "overproduction",  or in an unnecessary peaks and troughs in production ( work too fast...then have nothing else to do until the next order comes in )
• Producing slower than Takt time results in the waste of "waiting" by the customer or by the downstream activities in the process and results in lower customer satisfaction.

Yokoten is a Japanese term that can be roughly translated as "across everywhere." In a Lean company it is used to mean "best practice sharing".  This is an essential tool for implementation of the Lean principle of Standardized Work.   This is sometime called 'The One Best Way' to do an activity or task,  and it should be recognised and then Yokoten used to make sure that this 'One Best Way' is followed by all workers across the organization.  

'What is Hypothesis Testing ?' in less than 500 words

Someone recently challenged me to write the short version to the question 'What is Hypothesis Testing ?'  so it can be used by someone in a practical way.  Don't get too caught up in the definition of the word  'Hypothesis' ... I think we all know a Hypothesis when we see one !  It is of course some sort of statement made as an explanation, or proposal or what we suppose the truth to be....

Hypothesis Testing  tells us the Probability that the Evidence we have is Sufficient to support our Hypothesis or not.  
The Evidence is the data that we collect or measure to support our Hypothesis.  Without data as Evidence then we cannot do a Hypothesis Test.
The Hypothesis Test is the mathematical analysis of the data which tells you the Probability that you would be Wrong to accept the Hypothesis.   The mathematical analysis can be done with one of ( approx) 12 different analysis tests that are all different types ( 'flavors' ) of test. Some examples of the names of these analysis tests are '1-sample t-test', 'Moods-Median Test' or 'F-test', to name just 3.   The correct analysis test to choose depends on the type of data you have and the form of your Hypothesis.  ( To make the correct choice of test needs more understanding and practice ).
The Probability number that is produced by the mathematical analysis is called a 'p-value'  and is a decimal number from 0 to 1.   A p-value of 0 would mean that the data indicates that you have a zero percent chance that your Hypothesis is wrong.   A p-value of  1  would mean that the data indicates that it is 100% certain that your Hypothesis is wrong.   In practice we never actually get p-values of exactly 0 or 1,  but we can be very close to those numbers.   So depending on your p-value, you make a decision if you want to go ahead and do something in practice...such as spend some money to make a change.   Usually we have some Risk Level ( called the alpha level of risk ) that we compare the p-value to, and if the p-value is less than the Risk Level,  then we would be prepared to do something in practice or make a change.  We are looking for a low p-value,  usually less than 0.05, which would indicate that there is less than a 5% chance that the evidence ( data ) does not support the Hypothesis.

I hope this helps someone, somewhere to have a better understanding, without going into so much details that it become more confusing or the person switches off and starts reading their Facebook ! Please feel free to send me questions if you are still puzzled.  ---- John

Viewsonics go #EXTREMESIXSIGMA crazy with their new monitors. Zero defective pixels allowed out of a total of 4 million / monitor. Their website explains how each of their 18"  SXGA  LCD monitors that they produce has nearly 4 million sub-pixels. 
Their return ( warranty ) policy will allow you to return a monitor in the first 3 months even if you find 1 bad pixel !  Very impressive.  

Even 7 non-performing pixels would equate to an extremely small 0.00018 percent of the total sub-pixels.

(1280 Horizontal Pixels) * (1024 Vertical Pixels) * (3 sub-pixels per pixel) = 3,932,160 sub-pixels

This is much higher than the standard set by Motorola when they established 6 sigma level as 3.4 defects per million opportunities for defects.   I always thought that Motorola set the bar too low !   I say we now need #EXTREMESIXSIGMA  or perhaps #SEVENSIGMA.  Who is with me on this ??

Thoughts on ISO 13053 standard for Six Sigma (2011)

A few thoughts on the ISO 13053 standard for Six Sigma which was published in 2011:

Yes, "Standardization" is one of the key tools of Lean and Six Sigma....however...

1. When international bodies get involved their motivation is sometimes only to acquiring more authority and leverage in the commercial marketplace.

2.  It is important to be able to update or improve a standard rapidly, when the need or opportunity arises. Again, my concern is that international bodies often have rigorous, slow and many-staged processes to adapt standards to changes in usage.

3. Lean Six Sigma or even simply six sigma should be considered as a Body of Knowledge rather than a clearly defined methodology. Establishing a standard can lock out useful tools which could otherwise add value in a real life situations.

Then the purists say "we use the one true six sigma" and become less willing or even unwilling to use tools which would otherwise add value to an improvement project. The danger lies in that a company chooses to work with a purist and their options of paths to success are therefore narrowed.

4. No one body or organization is the 'owner' of Lean,  Six Sigma or Lean Six Sigma ...and that should be made very clear.

I look forward to your comments and possible additions or alternative views.

Chris Alcock

One of the 5 foundations of Lean Six Sigma is a concept called 'Flow' ...when a process moves in a steady, balanced and sustainable rate of throughput which matches as close as possible the customer demand, without stress or overburdening of the resources ( workers or machinery).  The concept of Flow also applies to a state of mind, action  and behavior of an individual worker.  In this context 'flow' is defined by behavioral psychologists and cultural anthropologists, such as professor Natasha Dow Schull from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and author Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, who in 1990 crystallized the idea of "flow" in his best selling book of the same name.
Prof Schull says 'To achieve flow your worker activity needs to match your worker ability'.  

Ahhh ! This is directly analogous to the lean six sigma understanding of flow.

References to Prof Schull  and her studies of flow in this BBC article. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-32628753

I am adding a new Lean concept to my training material that is called "Collaborative Consumption". It is the concept the 2 or more different businesses or departments with businesses collaborate to make maximum use of resources. Outsourcing is an example of this however there are other examples such as shared use of receptionists for several companies in the same office block, shared copier rooms, or shared warehouse space where you only pay for what you use. Whenever you have assets ( equipment or people ) that you are not using 100% of the time you can ask yourself the question 'would someone else pay me to use those assets while they are not being used".   There is a good website dedicated to technology that enables Collaborative Consumption www.collaborativeconsumption.com/     

While teaching the 'Design of Experiments" (DOE) section of the Green and Black Belt exam syllabus I am often asked by students about the relevance of DOE to the service industry.   Most students can see the obvious application of DOE to the Manufacturing sector however using DOE in service industries such as Banks, Call-Centre, Heath Service etc is not so obvious.
To help with this please see the White Paper published by Lou Johnson of MiniTab ( Minitab.com).
Lou Johnson describes a few great examples of successes using DOE in service industry.  See examples below:

• A 15-factor supermarket test uncovered 6 changes that led to a 150% increase in product sales. (Direct Marketing, December 1997)

• A national carpet retailer increased their sales 20% by experimentally determining the sales person / customer interactions that optimized customer purchases. (Lean Six Sigma for Service, 2002)

• A 19-factor direct mail credit card test pinpointed 5 significant effects for a 15% jump in response rate.
  (International Journal of Research in Marketing, 2006)

• GE Capital saved over $3MM by implementing the results of a 7 factor designed experiment studying methods to collect unpaid debt. (Quality Engineering, 2000)

• A global newspaper tested 11 creative and 4 price elements in one mail drop for a 41% increase in net response.
  S(presented by Financial Times at DMA07) 
  

The Conclusion drawn in the Whitepaper are also important and powerful:

Designed experiments have tremendous potential but are greatly under-utilized in the Service Quality industries. In particular, in-market testing – including retail, direct mail, Internet, and advertising testing – provides ample opportunity to leverage the experimental design and analysis techniques that have been developed in the past three decades. But the enormous potential comes with unique challenges. Far from textbook conditions, the “front lines” of marketing and service operations deal with the uncertainty of human behavior with textbook statistics often the first casualty. However, success is within reach. With the right statistical tools, good process knowledge, and a clear strategy, designed experiments can be completed, leading the way to improved sales and customer satisfaction. 

This is the response to a question I was recently asked about how the DMPO to Process Sigma level is calculated and how practical is it ?  Here is my voice of sanity in the confusion that surround the subject of DPMO and Process Sigma.

Just remember the following numbers and it will help to keep you straight:

Short Term Process Sigma of 6  is equivalent to 2 defects in a Billion Opportunities or Defects for a 2 tailed and centred process ( defects occur on both sides of the mean ).   If it is a 1-tailed process and defects only occur on one side then it is only 1 defect per Billion needed to be called Process Sigma of 6.

Long Term Process Sigma of 6  is equivalent to 3.4 defects in a Million Opportunities for Defects and relates  to a 1-tailed process or 6.8 if you know for sure that your process has defects on both tails ( 2-tails ).

Here is also a nice explanation given by "Hog" of isixsigm.com in Blog.  Nice job Hogg!

The sigma process metric is defined as the distance to the *nearest* limit, and does not relate to the other limit (if there is one). Consider a process centred between two limits, and ignore the 1.5 shift for the moment. If the left and right limits are 2 standard deviations from the mean, this is clearly a 2 sigma process. If however the left limit were 3 sd away, then this would still be a 2 sigma process. Certainly there are less defects experienced with less of the distribution outside of the limits, but you cannot call this a 3 sigma process or something between 2 and 3, it still has to be called a 2 sigma process. Taken to the extreme if the left limit was 10 sd away then this is still a 2 sigma process and effectively becomes a one sided issue, with the defects equal to the area under the normal curve to the right of just the 2 sd limit.

The DMPO equivalent to process sigma is just an approximation for use when the distribution is not particularly normal or the metric is discrete or when it is just easier to count opportunities and defects. It works for one-sided limit cases, and for high values of sigma. For low sigma values and where two sided limits exist it will always be an approximation – one approach is to add both sides of the tails together and calculate the equivalent process sigma from a one-sided limit.

Hogg : isixsigma.com 2001

Other examples of Winston Churchill"s "Lean Thinking" are the following quotes:

"Every man should ask himself each day whether he is not too readily accepting negative solutions." June 22, 1918

He recognized the importance of root cause analysis and then the correct selection of the solution ( "A" in DMAIC).

Winston Churchill also understood the importance of identifying and defining the Value and Purpose in anything we do  ( the "D" in DMAIC )

"It is wonderful what great strides can be made when there is a resolute purpose behind them." 
May 7, 1947

As we celebrate the life of Winston Churchill ( 1874 - 1965 ) on the 50th Anniversary of his death it is worth reminding ourselves of his wisdom and clarity of thought.   If Winston Churchill was alive today he would certainly have understood and appreciated the principles of Lean Six Sigma.  His speech and writings testify to the fact that he understood that continuous change ( in the right direction ) is necessary for improvement and to move towards the ultimate goal ( 5th step) of Lean which is of course to seek Perfection.  

In a 1925 speech to the House of Commons he said:

“There is nothing wrong in change, if it is in the right direction.

To improve is to change, so to be perfect is to change often.”

Winston S. Churchill, 23 June 1925, House of Commons

I often hear it said that one of the goals of a business is to increase customer satisfaction (in "lean" terms we would say "Satisfy the Voice of the Customer").   I disagree with this statement.   Customer satisfaction is actually only one of the means by which we increase sales and therefore revenue...towards the ultimate goal of increased profits.  The primary goal of business is to increase profits ( and shareholder value ) .   If businesses could obtain their primary goal without customer satisfaction then many of them probably would !   Many examples of monopolies or patent holders ( think phamaceutials ) where being the sole supplier of a product is of far greater importance to business success (profits) than customer satisfaction.  Seeing customer satisfaction as the "end game"  is flawed thinking.    Of course customer sat is important, but as a means to an end and not the end itself.