Creating the Best of Both Worlds in IN with Lean and Six Sigma
The IT industry has not been untouched by the variations and defects. Though many times IT technology is the solution to help reduce variations and defects, IT sector companies are themselves facing situation that necessitate them to apply improvement methodologies like Six Sigma. Six Sigma is very popular with IT companies, because it provides them with a good solution to increase their capabilities and services.
The IT industry, like the manufacturing industry, is faced with a few challenges. The biggest problem is the length of the project. Projects take too long to complete beyond set deadlines. Not just the data oriented tools, but the lack of knowledge base in the industry is an area of concern. On some occasions, companies have not been able to utilize the DMAIC methodology properly for software development projects. Once the projects are completed, the teams disperse - and Six Sigma remains limited to that project itself.
The solution comes in the form of using Lean tools with Six Sigma. They are very complementary, especially in instances of high variations and wastes. These result in defects, which Six Sigma helps attack. It can be difficult to see where total wastes may be, but Lean can help with this.
The best way to bring about improvements is to use Lean concepts and tools to assess such concern areas of the project that are responsible for the drawbacks. By undertaking such an assessment, or in other words "leaning out" the processes, it becomes easy to analyze and examine the quality issues using Six Sigma tools and techniques. The causes for variation can be figured out with the help of various Six Sigma tools. This approach of leaning out projects to be taken under the Six Sigma scanner yields good results in the selected process areas.
Analyzing a larger scope of the project allows movement towards cost reduction by seeing where quality is poor, thus lowering costs. There is not a one size fits all solution. With Lean and Six Sigma working together, problem areas are taken care of and overall success can be seen.
