Article 1. The Effectiveness and Efficiency of Lean Six Sigma and Enterprise Lean

In all of my writings I seldom refer to efficiency without adding effectiveness.   A system can be efficient and still not be effective in doing a job right. The DOD turned its attention from its successful battlefield operations to its ineffective bureaucratic support systems.  To fix the problem the DOD found an incredibly useful tool in Lean Six Sigma in making its high level Procurement and Delivery systems effective.  Lean Six Sigma also makes the systems more efficient at a gross level but in the major subsystems inefficiency still exists a point still not well understood by the DOD’s enthusiastic Lean Six Sigma supporters. 

Knowing how Lean Six Sigma works is important.  The Lean portion finds the best logical sequence for doing something while Six Sigma makes sure the system works properly by monitoring the system in operation identifying where the system is faltering and failing to operate properly.  Often Six Sigma can identify the subsystem that is failing to keep up.  With this information the subsystem can be studied and made more efficient and effective.  This approach does work but in the broader picture you will find that all of the subsystems are to a certain extent inefficient and not as effective as they could be.  What happens in this approach by fixing individual systems on a system by system basis you will force the entire system to be out of balance creating other inefficiencies which were not visible before.  The best approach is to implement Enterprise Lean in all of these supporting subsystems by training and using the vary personnel who work on the subsystems to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of the subsystems.

This approach of using Lean Six Sigma on high level systems and Enterprise Lean on subsystems will make both high level systems and subsystems effective.  But to actually get the highest efficiency possible you must use the data developed by the Enterprise Lean teams to Right-Size the supporting Agencies making sure all personnel have a full time job.  The Lean Team data should also be used to develop bottoms-up budgets which identify the actual costs of a systems functions.  This is also the data needed to manage an Agency’s work by balancing its work load.

I recommend that all large organizations both state and federal put together a Lean Six Sigma team of professionals to study and fix their high level systems.  I also recommend that this be followed by the implementation of my General Reform Model which builds on the data developed by the implementation of Enterprise Lean in the first part of the Model.  The result is a highly efficient and effective organization.