Which are the common challenges in implementing Lean Six Sigma?

Lean, Lean Six Sigma and Six Sigma terms are frequently heard by practitioners when using Lean Six Sigma. Although the phrase is often used as an excuse to prevent changes, it can be considered valid for marketing and sales within any business.

This article looks at the reasons why to go for Lean Six Sigma implementation. In some instances, the companies may be right, and the implementation may take a certain amount of versatility and effort to succeed. In other cases, they may not be distinct from many others. Practitioners need to consider which statements are accurate and incorrect so that they can mix conventional and unique strategies to make Lean Six Sigma work in any industry.

Continuous improvement has been a keyword covering the numerous methodologies and disciplines, including performance management, compliance, quality management, the advancement of business processes, Six Sigma, Lean, and several others.

Despite the many different terms, strategies, and approaches used by organizations, one thing is similar to all these continuous improvement initiatives. They tend to enhance business processes and improve performance continuously.

However, studies have shown that most Lean Six Sigma programs, particularly those with a green philosophy in mind, fail to achieve the desired results. They always start well enough but don’t have a lasting effect because people lose motivation and focus and return to their old habits.

What is Lean Six Sigma?

Lean Six Sigma is a team-oriented management approach to boost efficiency through waste and defect elimination. In other words, any usage of resources that do not produce value for the end-user is regarded as a waste and should be eliminated under the terms of Lean Six Sigma.

Why is Lean Six Sigma important?

Lean Six Sigma’s key advantages include satisfaction with consumers and cost savings. It results in sales growth and increased efficiency.

Lean Six Sigma is a tool that offers appreciated analytical and process skills. These credentials apply to leadership positions.

Major challenges

If Green Lean Six Sigma’s continuous improvement is essential for an organization’s health and image, why are so many applications not useful? Let us know a few challenges faced by implementing Lean Six Sigma teams:

Difficulty in establishing a stakeholder collaboration environment:

A significant number of stakeholders, each with their particular interests, need to contribute to continuous improvement. It could include process owners, quality managers, training departments, IT, Lean Six Sigma experts, and more. In specific highly regulated industries, it may also include compliance and risk officers in the stakeholder list.

The above list presumably includes only the people involved in the capture, analysis, and agreement processes and does not have employees who need to tailor themselves to new working ways. Since many projects will most probably occur at various points of the life cycle, it may be challenging to get everybody to work together.

Identification of priority improvement areas for issues:

As is always the case when Green Lean Six Sigma is implemented, many brilliant ideas about things an enterprise should develop. Yet, how to identify the priority items? Social responsibility and company priorities can be well defined and aligned with specific organizations. Simultaneously, with new projects or a chain of focus, there is a sense of overload for others. In the above case, each improvement initiative is measured and evaluated according to its importance for its overall strategy.

Usage of improved methods for optimizing processes:

Each process must be regarded as an asset. To better take advantage of the environmental benefits, each process must be captured, analyzed, strengthened, and deployed. Some king of the business process management tool is required to enhance operations. However, if this tool’s learning curve is too high, it may be an obstacle rather than a support to people interested in the Green Lean Six Sigma project.

Meeting compliance requirements during process improvement implementation:

You could have stricter controls, guidelines, and standard operating procedures that could make Green Lean Six Sigma a nightmare for your company’s process analysis and deployment within a highly controlled industry. Furthermore, if the auditors must continuously prove that processes, procedures, process reviews, and compliance obligations are complied with, the implementation will necessarily be accompanied by a certain degree of governance.

The insufficient effort by employees:

Like the best plans in the world, if your people disregard them or refuse to obey them, the new and improved Green Lean 6 Sigma method will become useless. As it is established, continuous improvement (the Lean Six Sigma objective) calls for constant step-by-step improvement feedback. The key risk is the exhaustion of change among employees who may be adverse or hostile to changes introduced if there are no immediate results.

Is it worth getting Lean Six Sigma certified?

You can position yourself as a developing agent within any organization with Six Sigma Green Belt certification. Moreover, enhancing your team or company’s efficiency can strengthen your management skills and make you even more useful.

It is better to start at the Green belt level of Six Sigma certification. It is difficult but not so hard to achieve. Six Sigma Green Belt training from a prominent institute allows you to receive this credential efficiently.

The challenging Six Sigma Black Belt examination requires disciplined study, experience, and sound planning and testing strategy. It can be a challenge to select an online Six Sigma certification program because more companies offer them than ever before. Earning Six Sigma certification can significantly affect your salary cap, so it is essential to master the LSS approach. All training is online and flexibly organized so that you can take the course at your speed. You can speed it up if you have time or if you plan it out over one year. The Lean Six Sigma certification will also give you confidence when making decisions while collecting and analyzing data.

Conclusion

Many organizations do not understand that Lean Six Sigma is not just a set of tools and technologies. It is an ongoing learning process whose principles help companies reduce waste and minimize adverse environmental effects.