Insights December 2008, No. 1
By Chris Burger
So here's the classic scenario: reduce costs and increase productivity in an economic downturn...and lose focus on your customers. Why not turn your efforts into value for your customers?
More often than not, companies lose focus on their customers during the hard times by solely concentrating on cost out and productivity. Over the last few months, we have seen a surge in demand across all sectors for continuous improvement in the forms of Lean, Six Sigma, and Lean Six Sigma. In many of these sectors, companies are just now understanding the power of these methods, while others have been harvesting benefits for ten plus years. Regardless, these continuous improvement efforts must flow value to customers.
Many organizations misunderstand Six Sigma and Lean as methods for improving the capability of processes and eliminating waste - and that is where they end. However, the true purpose of these methods is both to improve the capability of processes and eliminate waste, AND deliver to customers exactly what they want - near perfect products and services - when they want them.
To harvest the full potential of these methods, companies should align resources according to the principles of Six Sigma and Lean - focusing both internally and externally.
Enable the organization to understand both internal and external customer perceptions and wants - differentiating value from waste.
Enable the organization to identify and eliminate waste and non-value add work - increasing the velocity of operations.
Enable processes and operations to continuously move forward - without detours, waiting, or bureaucracy.
Enable customers to get what they want when they want it.
Empower your organization to completely eliminate waste.
Provide a method to define, measure, analyze, improve and control process variation - increasing productivity and delivering near perfect products and services.
If companies can focus both internally and externally - driving cost out of their businesses while delivering to customers exactly what they want, when they want it - not only will they have an opportunity to weather the current economic downturn, but they will also have the ability to move quickly on new business opportunities when the economy rebounds.
For more information on how Transform can help your organization in the areas of Continuous Improvement and Lean Six Sigma, contact us at info@321transform.com.
Chris Burger is a Founding Partner of Transform and a Certified Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt.
