We're learning about the infrastructure for continuous improvement. In this session we're going to talk about the roles and responsibilities of different individuals, the people in different positions in organizations and what they do. But before we get to that, let's remind ourselves of the two initiatives that we're focusing on here, Lean and Six Sigma. Lean focuses on waste reduction, whereas Six Sigma focuses on reduction in variation. Lean is about trying to eliminate waste from the point of view of customer, and Six sigma is about trying to reduce variation so that we can get better quality products, better quality goods and services to customers, and have a process that is impeccable in terms of being defect-free. The things that we're going to focus on when we look at continuous improvement infrastructure in general are the roles and responsibilities of people in both of these initiatives. That's what we'll be looking at in this session. Then next we'll get into the idea of strategy deployment. Which is, how do we convert a business strategy to actions that are being taken on the frontlines or process improvement projects that are being undertaken at the front lines. These two topics are obviously connected. The people who are responsible for different things in the organization are going to be responsible for deployment of strategy, for the different parts of strategy deployment. That's how these two aspects of continuous improvement infrastructure are going to be connected. We'll also look at, in lessons later on project selection and specifics. Talk about, some techniques that can be used in order to prioritize projects. How do you select which one to do first and which one should be second and third priority. Then we'll see how organizations can get started with a Six Sigma or a Lean initiative, through using process improvement projects. Finally, we'll see different kinds of project infrastructure. Using a DMAIC, if you remember thats a, define, measure, analyze, improve control, which is a framework for projects and Six Sigma. We'll also look at an A3 an implementation framework which is used by Toyota, which is popularized by Toyota, but which is used under the Lean initiative. We'll also see some other frameworks as well, that are going to be similar to this. But mainly we'll focus on Six Sigma and Lean, as being frameworks. Let's get started with looking at some of the responsibilities of people when there is a Six Sigma implementation, Six Sigma deployment that is being undertaken by an organization. Let's start from the top. First we have the Executive Leader Champion, who's going to be like the CEO. This would be the Jack Welch at GE, who championed the idea of Six Sigma and decided that, that's what they were going to do throughout GE. What is the champion do? The champion provides the resources, that's the main objective, or that's the main role that the champion from top management plays, is given the resources, putting the money where the mouth is. In terms of, we're talking about this initiative, this is what we should be doing. Here are the resources. Here's how you can spend time doing continuous improvement, focusing on getting training for continuous improvement, focusing on doing projects, focusing on data collection. That has to come from the top in terms of a blessing, in terms of where we are going to spend resources in doing these things. The top management also has to take a big role in trying to connect, what is being done in process improvement to business strategy. That's the role of the executives, were the top management. Next, let's move on to the upper middle management, and these would be divisional leaders, if it's a manufacturing company, it could be plant managers. If it's a hospital, it could be different areas, different departments within the hospital. You have the ER, you have the pediatrics department, you have the geriatrics department. There may be different departments there, and each of those would be upper middle management and would be playing the role of project champions in Six Sigma. In Six Sigma, the project champions, their role is to invite projects, to say, here's a problem that we have in our department, in our division, in our plant, in our location, and then they can go to the six-sigma part of the process improvement part of the organization, the infrastructure that's there of black belts and green belts. We'll talk about next, and tell them, look, here's a problem, can you help us solve it? Can you be the internal consultants essentially, come and help us solve this problem using the methodology. That is Six Sigma, that is what the Six Sigma black belts and green belts would be experts at. You'd be inviting them, as the upper middle management project champion to come and take care of some problems by using Six Sigma methodology. They would also be participating in project reviews, looking at what's going on in the projects. If you're thinking about Six Sigma, you should be thinking about DMAIC, define, measure, analyze, improve, control, as being the five phases of a project. A project champion would be keeping an eye, on the report outs at all of these phases. Seeing after define, what was found and whether that project is something that is worth continuing or if it's getting too big to be one project and needs to be divided up. Those are the things where the project champion has a role to play in, in conjunction with the project leader, who would be the black belt or the green belt, who's actually working on the project. The project champion would have, some say in that, or should have some saying that, rather in terms of being involved, being engaged in the Six Sigma initiative. The project champion, and this is from upper middle management, is also going to play a role in trying to take barriers out when somebody is trying to implement a project. What do we mean by that? Well, if there's a black belt, who needs some support from a different department for carrying out the project. Let's say they need some IT solutions and they don't have people from IT on the team or they're not, or they're finding it hard to get time from IT to get the project done, to get the project going forward, it's the upper middle management who has the authority, who can talk to their counterparts in the IS department, in the Information Technology, Information Systems department and get something done about it. They play, this idea of removing barriers from any obstruction that's being faced by the project leader in terms of moving ahead with the project.
