What is Lean Six Sigma?

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Lean Six Sigma (LSS) combines three important improvement methods: making work better (with the Six Sigma statistical methods); doing the work faster (with thelean operations principles); and performing work at the lowest total cost (adding a pragmatic business focus).

The LSS improvement methods provide tools necessary to identify and eliminate waste and quality  problems in the work that is conducted throughout your organization. LSS results in processes that operate at  higher levels of productivity and deliver outcomes that generate financial benefits that are readily identified and captured using the standard financial reporting system.

BEST Lean Six Sigma programs are created to support a company-wide, strategy-driven, coordinated process of business improvement. Thus, special emphasis is given to inform and support management groups to understand the potential of LSS and to plan for its company-wide implementation. In addition to the typical Lean and Six Sigma issues, our program gives particular emphasis on change management to realize and capture the benefits from improvement projects.

History of TPS

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The Toyota Production System (TPS) arose out of necessity in response to the circumstances surrounding the company. Many of the foundational concepts are old and unique to Toyota while others have their roots in more traditional sources.

The oldest part of the production system is the concept of Jidoka which was created in
1902 by Toyoda founder Sakichi Toyoda. This concept pertains to notion of building in quality at the production process as well as enabling separation of man and machine for multi- process handling. The origins of this notion began in the Toyoda Spinning and Weaving company which was started by Sakichi Toyoda. Sakichi invented a loom that automatically stopped whenever it detected that a thread was broken.

This stopped the process from created defective material. Later on in 1924 he created an automatic loom that allowed one person to operate multiple machines. The rights to manufacture the loom outside of Japan for were eventually sold to the Platt Brothers Ltd. in England. This money  was then partially used to start an automotive division that was later spun off in 1937 as a separate business and company under Kiichiro Toyoda the son of Sakichi.

The most famous element of the TPS is no doubt the Just-in-Time pillar of the production system. The phrase Just-in-Time was coined by Kiichiro Toyota in 1937 after the start
of Toyota Motor Corporation. The company was quite poor and could not afford to waste money on excess equipment or materials in production.
Everything was expected to be procured just in time and not too early or too late. Later elements developed in the 1950’s including takt  time, standardized work, kanban, and supermarkets added to the basis for JIT.
After World War II Taiichi Ohno a promising engineer in the Toyoda Spinning and Weaving
Corporation was brought over to the automotive side of the business. He was given the task of improving operational productivity and  driving in the concepts of Just-In-Time and Jidoka. He was eventually appointed machine shop manager of an engine plant and experimented  with many concepts in production between the years of 1945-1955.

His work and effort is largely whatresulted in the formulation of what is now acknowledged as the Toyota Production System. There are numerous other people inside the company that contributed to the overall development of the company and the production system.
There are also many other tools and techniques that were developed in Toyota such as 7 Wastes, Standardized Work, 5S, SMED, Visual Control, Error Proofing, as well as many
others.