What is Lean Six Sigma?

Lean Six Sigma uses a team-based, problem-solving approach to improving efficiencies and effectiveness. Born in the manufacturing sector, Lean Six Sigma works to produce products and services in a way that meets consumer demand without creating wasted time, money or resources.

Specifically, Lean is "the purposeful elimination of wasteful activities." It focuses on making process throughput faster, which is production over a period of time. Six Sigma works to develop a process that is nearly flawless in terms of defects, while improving quality and removing as much variation as possible.

If you use Lean and not Six Sigma, you may be speeding up the amount of errors you produce. If you use Six Sigma and not Lean, your processes may still be producing waste. By combining them, you create world-class processes and people.

This process is led by skilled facilitators (certified Black Belts) who bring a set of potential tools that are uniquely applied to each process and situation. Starting with a thorough measurement and analysis of the "current state" of the process, the team identifies where efficiencies are being lost and uses Lean Six Sigma techniques to improve those processes.