Administracion

Six Sigma and Supply Chain Excellence

Follow these twelve steps to boost quality and eliminate waste for stakeholders both in and outside your company.

Six Sigma Lean. What do these initiativeshave to do with the supply chain? The short answer is everything. The origins of these approaches are based, in Six Sigma’s case, on continuous improvements in quality and variation control, andlean’s case, on production velocity and eliminating waste. Both Six Sigma and lean can help improve supply chain efficiency and companies today are quick to take advantage of one or the other approachthroughout their organizations. However few companies realize that while each approach can be mutually exclusive, an interesting thing happens when the two are combined.Which brings us to our first questions?

Have we forgotten what customers want?

In the “old” days, quality advocates functioned more or less as company cops, authoritative figures who’dget you in trouble for taking shortcuts. Today, and definitely in the future, the quality professional’s role will have less to do with blowing the whistle than seamlessly integrating processes withinall business operations relating to customers. This represents a distinct departure from the past and requires specific tools and procedures. To access these tools, companies are combining lean andSix Sigma methodologies. Thus, to answer the questions, quality professionals haven’t forgotten what customers want, but the quality community has never fully realized the best approach for recognizingcustomers: defining value, delivering it and maintaining accountability for those goals.

Which leads us to the next questions?

How can we bring value to the supply chain?

First, what isvalue? Simply, it’s whatever the customers says it is and is willing to pay a company to deliver – whether goods or services. Lean says in order to measure value inhibitors, increase value and...