Lean Yellow Belt Handout
1) what is Lean Six Sigma (Lean – people side; Six sigma – production side)
2) 4 voices to everything we do (voice of the customer, business, process, employee)
• Getting feedback typically requires some sort of analysis – often have to translate what is said into what
you need to provide. That’s where CCRs (critical customer requirements) come into play.
Voice of the Customer:
Voice of the business:
• Benchmarking – compare your intervention results with someone else’s – state results, another
agency’s results, etc. Benchmarking is comparing your results with others to see where you stand.
• This voice is often found in financial information and organization strategy and direction.
• Process improvement efforts are used to produce bottom-line results.
• One way of doing this is performance and process benchmarking. This is when you compare your
service or product to others. Agencies can compare to other agencies or agency to statewide results, etc.
When you compare, you want to identify opportunities for improvement – you’re not looking to see
what you do that you think is better than them, but to see how they do things and if there is anything you
can bring to your agency to make your product or service better, to get better results, etc.
• I know that prevention is big into using best practices. You’re also probably used to collecting data, but
please don’t skip the step of looking at your competition or other agencies that provide similar services,
so you can improve your own.
Taking what customers say
and turning it into customer
requirements for
improvement projects.
Lean Yellow Belt Handout
Voice of the Process:
This voice is that which is observed from the process and what the data tells us. The goal is to proactively
prevent problems based on “listening” to the data.
Voice of the Employee:
• You also get a lot of employee feedback when you’re doing a process map for the voice of the process.
Employees are essential to the success of your improvement project.
• The VOE is crucial to the mission of the organization. – employees take personal ownership, can make
or break the success, can identify areas of concern and potential opportunities.
• You can use the following tools: FMEA and Weighted Voting
3) batching vs. continuous flow (stop batching whenever possible)
Batching
• There are things that need to be batched – like cookies and laundry.
• Some of the advantages:
• Cheaper unit costs
• Typically, smaller production amounts than for continuous processing
• Some of the disadvantages:
• Flaws aren’t immediately recognized
• Time lost switching between batches
• Higher inventory and often more space required for working and storage
• Quality will affect each batch, not just one item
• Production scheduling
Continuous flow
o Continuous flow removes time delays and allows for cross-training opportunities for efficiency
and happier workers and customers
o Some of the advantages:
o Reduces waste
o Reduces inventory and transportation costs
o Increases productivity – more units completed in less time
o Improves quality – easier to spot and correct errors
o Reduces lead times
o Adapts to customer needs more effectively
4) FIFO/ FISH (LIFO) – first in, first out; first in, stays here/first in last out
5) TIM U WOOD – the 8 wastes Lean seeks to reduce/remove
• Waiting – how much time do you wait for other people to do their job, so you can do yours?
Lean Yellow Belt Handout
• Over-processing – too much red tape – what definitely needs done in the process and what can be
eliminated?
• Over production – producing too much – this can feed into the inventory issues. Used to be that people
would produce records and push them out to the community for purchase. You were stuck with all the
songs that came on the record – Push system. Now people produce songs that can be purchased online,
one song at a time – Pull system. Hot-N-Ready pizza, etc.
6) current state/ future state – used in mapping a process. Current state is what is being done now, while
future state is how you want the process to operate
7) value-add/non-value-add – look at the current process and identify value-added activities and non-
value-added activities (some might be necessary and some are not necessary)
Review answers:
Lean: Improve speed, reduce cost
4 voices: voice of the customer, process, business, and employee
Batching: cookies, laundry, updates to a computer system
FISH; LIFO; FIFO: First in, stays here; Last in First Out; first in first out
TIM U WOOD: Transportation, Inventory, Motion, Underutilization, Waiting, Over production, Over processing,
Defects
Tool used for current state: Mapping; Things to work towards future state: identify wastes and brainstorm for
ideas
Value-added: directly tied to goal; non-value-added – can be essential, tied to regulations, etc. or it could be
unnecessary step(s)
1. Huddles – short meetings
https://www.rhythmsystems.com/blog/daily-huddle-template-and-examples-from-real-companies - huddles
article
http://www.netpromotersystem.com/system-processes/huddle.aspx - leading huddles video
https://www.forbes.com/sites/christinecomaford/2016/07/31/3-types-of-meetings-that-will-engage-your-
team-and-increase-team-performance/#7f9df9195b6f – types of meetings article (Forbes)
2. Gemba walk – go to where the work is being done
• Theme: productivity, cost efficiency, safety, etc.; Use a list of questions. (see checklist)
• Prep: let the team know you will be observing them; this is a common process with the goal of continual
improvement
Lean Yellow Belt Handout
• Process, not people: not a time to worry about skill, this is just a time to look at the process, why the process
is the way it is...
• Value stream: gives you the best opportunity to see waste and assist team with overall improvement
• Write it down: this is not a time for suggestions, just observations
• Invite someone: take other people with you for another viewpoint
• Follow-up: share what was learned or seen with the team; inform them of any expected/needed changes
https://kanbanize.com/lean-management/improvement/gemba-walk/
- Gemba article
3. Visual management – use visual management to increase communication, build cooperation and
collaboration and monitor the work being done
• Visual management can be as simple as a checklist for your personal use, or as complex as a
dashboard for everyone on your team to use.
• Another way of monitoring the process is using visual management.
• Visual management displays progress status easily.
• It conveys information and immediate feedback.
• It makes variation visible.
• Several pieces of information can be displayed on visual management.
• I use visual management so when my supervisor comes in my office and asks me about a project, I
can just turn around and tell her what I’m doing on it even if I haven’t worked on it for a while (I use
a white board). It’s also good if you have a recurring project and you develop a display so your
supervisor can come in and see it without asking you where you’re at on the project. ✔ How do
you use visual management?
4. Lead time and process time – the time it takes for work to be completed or passed to the next step
• Lead time – the time it takes from when someone receives the work and when it is completed (either
an answer is given, it passes to the next part of the process, etc.)
• Process time – is the touch time. The time that it takes for the person to work on the project (maybe
it only takes 5 minutes to review an application, but they received the application 2 days ago and
they don’t give the result of the application to the applicant for another week. the lead time would be
2 days and 5 days with a 5-minute process time in between).
• Quality improvement would want to shorten the lead time in this example.
Lean Yellow Belt Handout
• Lead time in clinical screenings: this second example - there is a screening that detects cancer. In
this case, quality improvement would try to increase the lead time as close to the cancer onset time
as possible, so the treatment and survival time is longer for the patient. This is important to know for
prevention work and is why screenings are often used.
5. Personal Kanban – managing your to-dos
• Examples: re-order tags; checkbook check that tells you it’s time to re-order; currently, medical
appointment reminders via text
• Map your work, manage your ‘to-do’s’; balance your workload
• Setup is flexible – if you have a backlog, perhaps have a couple columns on who is working on
which backlog and which items are the most important to work on now. here are a few pictures of
some examples:
• If you’re in an office, a white board is just fine.
• If you travel, there are many Personal Kanban tools in your phone apps: just search up the word
‘Kanban’ and find one that fits you. https://lifehacker.com/productivity-101-how-to-use-personal-
kanban-to-visuali-1687948640 – suggests Trello, KanbanFlow, and Evernote (with Kanbanote)
• Typical Kanban board – waiting, to do, doing, hold and done!
• A backlog board – they have prioritized the backlog in three categories: ‘cool’ ‘warm’ and ‘hot’
followed by ‘doing’ and ‘done’
6. 5S – sort, straighten, shine, standardize, sustain
• Sort: - When in doubt, throw it out (red tag; location by frequency of use)
• Straighten: - – A place for everything and everything in its place!
• Shine: enhances quality, safety and pride;
o from the movie Robots: - You can shine no matter what you’re made of
o 5-15 minutes daily; FlyLady.com
• Standardize: If you fail to plan, you plan to fail!
o Standardized tools/ideas:
1. TIM U WOOD
2. Push/pull
3. Batching vs. continuous flow
4. Kanban/visual management
• Sustain: continual improvement; keep up the good work; use a calendar so you - don’t forget to do
the mundane!
Lean Yellow Belt Handout
1. PDSA
P1: SIPOC; customer requirements (survey, focus group,
interviews) – develop charter/start A3
P2: GEMBA; Process map – identify waste (TIM U
WOOD) and pain points
P3: SMART goals
P4: Fishbone diagram; pareto charts; run charts; bar
charts – Root cause analysis/ 5 Whys
P5: flow; poka yoke; standard work; new process map –
state hypothesis: if we do XXX, then we think YYY will
happen
D1: implement solution; gather data to measure success
– action register, Gantt chart, data collection tools
S1: feedback from customers – determine if actions
taken were successful
A1 and A2: collect data and review it periodically, track results using visual management – tell your story by
completing the A3
Lean Yellow Belt Handout
2. Project Selection:
Where can I look for project ideas:
o Performance or strategic plan measures
o Evaluations/audits
o Regular surveys of employees/customers
o Customer complaints
o When something bugs you/ when you say, ‘there’s got to be a better way!’
3. Root Cause Analysis:
4. Data Collection:
o Discrete data - At least 100 data points for discrete data collection (sometimes 200-300) – less tests
and analysis
o Continuous – more tests and analysis – need less data
Lean Yellow Belt Handout
5. Statistical Tools:
touch; histogram represent a continuum broken down into
Pareto Chart
Lean Yellow Belt Handout
Lean Yellow Belt Handout
6. A3 reporting and follow-up
You remember the PDSA cycle – well, the A3 is the one-page report/summary that is developed out of the
cycle – color coded to match the steps of the PDSA cycle.
• Change the boxes to fit your summary.
• Try to use pictures, diagrams, charts, etc. to convey your project, results, plans, etc.
• Results = can be measurable and not so measurable
• Other results = cost savings; customer/employee satisfaction, etc.
https://www.smartsheet.com/free-lean-six-sigma-templates – lean six sigma templates (free online tools)
https://lean.ohio.gov/resources.aspx – LeanOhio resources (tools and training)
https://tkmg.com/webinars/ - Karen Martin webinars (fantastic online training webinars)
https://niatx.net/Content/ContentPage.aspx?PNID=2&NID=15 – NIATx e-learning courses for process improvement
https://www.moresteam.com/toolbox/index.cfm - MoreSteam®
Beth E. Gersper, MPA (contact me for discussion, facilitation and other TA for continuous improvement and quality)
☎ 614-644-2182
✉ Beth.Gers[email protected].gov