THINKING

LEAN

BPM, Lean and Six SigmaAll Together Now

Figure 2. Key lean principles

5. Pursue
By William H. LaFollette, perfection

4.
CVS Health Establish
pull 1. Define
Lean value
principles

C ombining lean and Six Sigma methods with the

capabilities of business process management
(BPM) can be an effective way to enhance your pro- 3. Create
flow
2.Map value
cess excellence program. Granted, the three methods stream
each have a different focus:
Lean focuses on increasing flow through the
process, reducing cycle time and eliminating
wastes in the process. improve work processes using data and customer insight,
Six Sigma focuses on identifying and removing and by understanding workflow and removing waste.
the causes of defects and minimizing variation
At a high level, lets first consider some basic prin-
in the process.
ciples and key benefits of lean and Six Sigma and how
BPM focuses on process and the workflow in an
BPM could be used to complement those approaches
organizations units that together make up pro-
to provide key business value.
cesses.
But each methods overall purpose is the same: to
What is lean?

Lean has progressed throughout the years (see Figure

Figure 1. Lean history 1). The first person to truly integrate an entire pro-
duction process was Henry Ford.1 The core idea of
Early 1900s lean is to maximize customer value while minimizing
5S everywhere waste. Simply put, lean means creating more value for
Popcorn kaizens customers by using fewer resources.
War on waste
Eliminating waste in processes, or value streams, can
create workflows that have higher performance levels
Lean cheerleaders
due to decreased human effort, reduced investments,
Only lean tools higher return on investment (ROI) and faster response
Early 2000s to customer demands.
Maturity

Value stream mapping
Systems approach
Mix of tools and teams
Early 2010s
Problem-solving approach
People development
Mentoring and coaching
Culture and techniques
Key principles of lean (see Figure 2) are to:
Define value. Identify your customers and speci-
fy value. Clearly define value for product, service
and people.
Map value stream. Identify all steps in a pro-
cessboth value added and nonvalue added.2
Create flow. Steps should tie together in a logi-
cal sequence that accurately describes the pro-
cess.

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THINKING
LEAN

Table 1. 8 lean wastes Figure 3. DMAIC

Physical product
Type of waste Office example
example Define
Transporting Moving the product from Unnecessary
one location toanother. information
exchange Control
among depart-
ments. Measure
Six Sigma
Inventory Stock in stores in case Keeping several
unnecessary of breakdown. jobs open with-
out completing
any. Improve
Motion Walking to and from Looking in Analyze
unnecessary places to fetch things. several differ-
ent places to
secure informa-
tion for one
task.
Waiting Product in a work Job waiting for
in myriad industries to achieve hard and soft money
queue. approval. savings, while also increasing customer satisfaction.
Overproduction Making what you can. Producing
Six Sigma is often identified through the define,
reports that no measure, analyze, improve and control (DMAIC)
one uses. method (see Figure 3).
Overprocessing Running a small part on Entering the At its core, Six Sigma revolves around several con-
a large machine. same data into cepts, including:
more than one Critical-to-quality characteristics, or the most
system.
essential attributes in a product or service that
Defects Faulty or damaged Incorrectly com- are identified as most important to customers.
product that must be pleted applica-
repaired or scrapped. tion that has to Defects, which can lead to a failure to deliver
be redone. what the customer wants.
Skills/unrealized Not listening to team Not doing an Process capabilitythat is, what your process
people potential members improvement activity that can deliver.
suggestions. should be done. Variation and controlling what the customer
sees and feels.
Stable operations, which ensure consistent,
predictable processes to improve what the cus-
Establish pull. Work (flow) should be driven by tomer sees and feels.
pulling work as it is needed downstream. Design for Six Sigma, which is an algorithmic
Pursue perfection. Create a culture of excel- process that integrates quality as part of the
lence through reviewing and continually ana- new product design process and is used to meet
lyzing value and flow. customer needs and process capability.
Table 1 summarizes the eight wastes that lean aims To achieve Six Sigma quality, a process must pro-
to identify and eliminate. duce no more than 3.4 defects per million oppor-
tunities (see Figure 4). An opportunity is defined
What is Six Sigma? as a chance for nonconformance or failing to meet
required specifications, service level agreements
Six Sigma is a method used to improve business pro- (SLA) or compliance needs.
cesses by using statistical analysis rather than guess- Before adopting Six Sigma and DMAIC, an organi-
work. This proven approach has been implemented zations leadership must be on board and support the

24 I NOVEMBER 2015 I WWW.ASQ.ORG

initiative, many experts empha- Figure 4. Six Sigma quality
size. Jack Welch, the former CEO
of General Electric who popular- Lower limit Process average Upper limit
ized Six Sigma in the late 1990s,
said the method could be a great
encompassing force for any orga-
nization. Six Sigma is a quality 99.7%
program that, when all is said and
done, improves your customers 95%
experience, lowers your costs and
builds better leaders, Welch said. 68%

What is BPM? 6 5 4 3 2 1 Mean 1 2 3 4 5 6

BPM is defined as a management

practice that provides for governance of a businesss improvement.4
process environment toward the goal of improving In support of enterprise goals, this practice or dis-
agility and operational performance.3 cipline provides an operational framework involving
BPM is often considered a business practice that modeling, automation, execution, control and mea-
involves techniques and structured methods. It is not surement of a business activity.
a one-time exercise, but requires a continuous evalu- In addition, BPM involves operational and tech-
ation of processes. nology improvements that often require additional
BPM scope covers the whole process life cycle: tools (such as process modeling software, change
process discovery, design, documentation, rollout, management techniques and methods to integrate
execution, measurement, monitoring, analysis and data across platforms) not associated with the stan-
dard lean tool set.
An enterprise BPM suite provides a foundation for
Table 2. Similarities in the disciplines a change environment, allowing business managers to
work with data analysts to generate applications that
Discipline Goal Phases can manage workflows and overall processes, track
Business Manage processes to improve Discovery
process agility and performance.
Modeling
management
Analysis Figure 5. BPM life cycle
Design
Monitor
Modeling
Lean Create highest value while Plan
consuming the fewest
Do
resources.
Check Design
Business
Execution
Act process
Six Sigma Reduce variation and defects. Define management
life cycle
Measure
Analyze Optimization

Improve Monitoring

Control

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THINKING
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work and monitor performance. This foundation, in
turn, can provide the context for using lean. Through
simulation, benefits of any proposed change can be
evaluated immediately.
Figure 5 (p. 25) shows the BPM phases:
Design/analyzeLook at possible process solu-
tions. Valid, accurate data and process definitions
are required to successfully analyze potential process
improvements.
Model/redesignReview business processes at a
high level. Gather enough data and details to under-
stand conceptually how the process flows. Concentrate
on ensuring the high-level details are correct. Dont
get distracted by how possible change and improve-
ment might be implemented. This phase is not about
formulating solutions.
ExecutionLaunch processes and begin user inter-
actions.
MonitoringTrack key performance indicators and
measure SLA compliance.
Optimization and automationImprove processes
further through What if? simulations. Consider
automation and more benefit analysis to fine-tune
processes, too.
Successfully deploying BPM usually involves:
Organizing around outcomesnot tasksto
ensure proper focus is maintained.
Correcting and improving processes before
(potentially) automating them. Otherwise, all
youve done is make the mess run faster.
Establishing processes and assigning ownership
before the work and improvements simply drift
away. They can because human nature can take
over and momentum can slow.
Standardizing processes across the enterprise so
they can be more readily understood and man-
aged, reducing errors and mitigating risks.
Enabling continuous change so improvements
can be extended and propagated over time.
Improving existing processes rather than build-
ing radically new ones. Building completely new
processes and systems can take significant time

Table 3. A comparison of approaches

Approach/roles rel-
Project teams for pro-
evant to process Leadership
cess improvement
improvement
Business process Executive sponsors Project lead Act as team members
management
Process owners Team facilitator
Steering team T eam members
- Subject matter experts
These roles are
- IT
assigned to executive
- Data person
and senior leaders.
- Documenter
- Customer (optional)
- Supplier (optional)
Lean Executives, managers Project teams formed on
and supervisors have basis of need. They would
lean leadership and include employees, super-
coaching as one of their visors and others on the
expected roles. Regular line. They would go and
leadership walk-arounds see to understand the
are used. waste or bottleneck.
Six Sigma Executives are champi- A Black Belt (BB) would Become team members
ons of the effort. lead the project team. The of the project team.
team would be selected
as part of the charter pro-
cess and include SMEs
and stakeholders relevant
to the process.
Employees Coaching roles
No specific coaching
on project teams. roles. Process owners
or team facilitators
play this role with their
teams. Business archi-
tects could be thinking
strategically with execu-
tives. Business analysts
could be team facilita-
tors andcoaches.
Act as team members Sensei is specific lean
and individual perform- coach. Executives and
ers in identifying wastes managers are coaches
and seeking improve- to teams and their
ments. Follow visual employees.
standardized work pro-
cedures at their site.
Master BBs would be
coaches to executives
and BBs to their teams.
Green Belts could be
onteams.

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 that can negate any gains achieved.
The benefits of BPM are often defined through
improved efficiency, effectiveness and agilityfor
instance, by supporting implementation of new busi-
ness models and faster regulatory compliance.
Complementary approaches
Organizations improve their processes by deploying
various approaches. Successfully deploying BPM lies in
the cooperation between business and IT approaches.
BPM can act as the glue between the two. We often
see drivers for process improvement coming from two
directions:
1. Bottom-up, which is an IT-driven initiative to
automate processes, replace older BPM technolo-
gies or both.
2. Top-down, which is the preferred approach to
achieve process improvement through initiatives
such as lean or Six Sigma.
It must be understood, however, that the ongoing
management of lean and Six Sigma activities is driven
by those closest to the work. Therefore, their input, con-
tribution and value must be recognized and leveraged
to drive ongoing operational successes. Table 2 (p. 25)
summarizes some of the similarities in the disciplines.
There are similar and complementary aspects between
the three approaches in the leadership, project teams
and employee elements as well, represented in Table 3.
Dilbert
SIX SIGMA FORUM MAGAZINE
Lean, Six Sigma and BPM can complement one
another by providing high value with low effort. BPM
solves key challenges for lean or Six Sigma initiatives
and can make these initiatives even more effective
without affecting timelines or creating high costs.
BPM doesnt just address technology issues, but also
can provide a framework that can bring process
improvements to the next level.
We see the most value in a lean, Six Sigma and
BPM relationship if we let BPM become the founda-
tion for the quality improvement applications to be
implemented. Perhaps we should look to embrace
an alternative to the independent lean, Six Sigma,
BPM approaches. Maybe something called lean
BPM could be considered an alternative that reduc-
es complexity and costs associated with traditional
approaches.
REFERENCES
1. Lean Enterprise Institute, A Brief History of Lean, www.lean.org/
whatslean/history.cfm.
2. Al Norval, Lean Value Streams, guest blog for Mark Grabans Lean
Blog, Dec. 9, 2010, www.leanblog.org/2010/12/lean-value-streams.
3. I4 Process, i4process.com.
4. BPM Leader, www.bpmleader.com.
WILLIAM H. LAFOLLETTE is a senior advisor/operational excellence
architect at CVS Health in Scottsdale, AZ. He holds a masters de-
gree in engineering from Columbus State University in Georgia.
LaFollette is an ASQ senior member and an ASQ-certified quality
engineer.
DILBERT 2015 Scott Adams. Used By permission of UNIVERSAL UCLICK. All rights reserved.
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