Lean Six Sigma Templates

You may learn the application of Lean Six Sigma Templates that are widely used in Six Sigma Projects. You may download the templates of the Define, Measure, Analyse and Improve phases at no cost here.

Why is Lean Six Sigma so Effective?

Every organisation wants to improve its performance, processes and solve their problems. There are quite a few methodologies available for the teams to follow. Though the managers and leaders are experts or experienced in their fields to solve, they need to adopt a new methodology.

The Success in Structure

The Six Sigma methodology – evolved over the past 3 decades – is still the most widely applied tool that guarantees success and quantum money savings. It is still evolving by adopting new and relevant tools into its basic framework.

People who experienced the power of Six Sigma will agree that success comes from its structure – the DMAIC steps. The discipline of following the sequence gives a solid and proven methodology to problem-solving.

The DMAIC Phases

Define

In Define Phase, we are concerned about understanding the problem and planning to manage to solve this problem.

Affinity Analysis

If the business is facing problems with its top line, the team must focus on customer-related problems. Here, we will try to understand the voice of customers, categorise those requirements using Affinity Analysis. The Affinity Analysis gives an idea of the customers’ customers’ major concerns – probably the company could not grow its customer base because it is not performing as expected by the customers in these concern points.

Kano Model

We use the Kano Model to prioritise customer concerns. It talks about 3 categories of concern points or features or factors, namely, Hygiene Factors, Performance Factors and Wow Factors. We need to attend to the concern points falling under the hygiene category with top priority in Six Sigma projects followed by the Performance category. It becomes a strategic decision to either work on Wow factors or not.

VoC to CtQ Drill Down

Here we translate the Voice of Customer to the language understood by the people in the business or shop floor. We derive Critical to Satisfaction (CtS) points from the customer requirements or feedbacks. Then we will convert CtS into Critical to Quality (CtQ) parameters. The CtQ parameters are the measurable parameters in the process of business that has to meet a certain level to meet the customer requirements.

The Rolled Throughput Yield Analysis

If the company’s biggest concern is the bottom line, then we identify the Six Sigma projects from the RTY analysis. With this analysis, we can identify the real pain area within the chain of processes.

Project ‘y’

We call the measurable performance parameter of a process that will impact the business problem Project ‘y’. We derive the Project ‘y’s from CtQs or Yield Analysis.

SIPOC

SIPOC is the acronym for Supplier – Input – Process – Output – Consumer. We identify the process steps within the value chain that will impact the Project ‘y’. The list of such steps forms the column of ‘Process’. And we list the process steps which supply the inputs and steps which consume the output.

Stakeholder Assessment

Stakeholders are the people who can influence or are affected by the Six Sigma Project. They could be inside the organisation as well as outside your organization and/or plant. The key to any successful project rests with the support of its stakeholders. Stakeholders will either help or hinder the project, depending on their views and circumstances.

Stakeholder analysis is a tool used to assess the relative positions of all the stakeholders involved with respect to their response to the potential changes.

RACI Matrix (In CSense we follow RACIPS)

Classification of Stakeholders into 4 or 6 categories for Effective Communications

• R – Responsible
• A – Accountable
• C – To be Consulted
• I – To be Informed
• P  – Present
• S – Support

Project Charter

Project Charter is a one-page document that states the need for the project, team members involved, the goals undertaken by the teams and the timeline.

Click here to download Define Phase Templates Six Sigma Templates – Define

Measure

We convert the real-world problem into the mathematical problem in the measure phase by quantifying it in the universal sigma scale.

Operational Definition

After defining our project y, the next step is to measure our process concerning the problem at hand or project y. How to measure? What data do we need to collect? We use an Operational Definition to minimise ambiguity before the start of the Measure Phase.

Process Capability Calculations

Here, we calculate the yield of process steps, defect levels as ‘Defects Per Million Opportunities (DPMO). We may also calculate process capability using Cp and Cpk values. Then we convert the measurement of yield (%) or DMPO or Cpk into the Sigma Scale. This Sigma level reveals the intensity of the problem.

Click here to download Measure Phase Templates.Six Sigma Templates – Measure

Analyse

Analyse Phase starts with a question : Why our Process Capability is poor?

List of all Possible Causes

We use classical brainstorming, fish-bone analysis, FMEA etc., to arrive at the list of all possible causes. Then, we move on to drill down to the root causes with Why-Why Analysis.

Prioritisation of Root Causes

We will then filter the root causes based on the probability of success. We then calculate the probability of success based on relative scoring called RCPN (Root Cause Prioritisation Number), similarly to FMEA.

Validation of Root Causes

We need to validate the prioritised root causes before going ahead. We use the Validation plan for planning and conducting such validations.

Click here to download Analyse Phase Templates CSense Six Sigma Templates – Analyse

Improve

Finding out or generating solutions to the root causes. We use classical brainstorming, anti-solution brainstorming or TRIZ (Theory of Inventive Problem Solving) for finding out solutions. Then with a list of potential solutions, we weigh them based on the effort-benefit analysis.

We will filter the most viable points with an effort-benefit plot as solutions and implement those points with an Action Plan.

Click here to download Improve Phase Templates. CSense Six Sigma Templates – Improve