How to Identify Projects for Lean Six Sigma
                     How to Identify Projects for Lean Six Sigma?
About Us
MindCypress is an excellent platform for cognitive e-learning with a great progressive  
course structure. We have been creating an impact on the online education industry,  
since 2015. Currently, we are catering to most parts of United States (USA), United  
Kingdom (UK), Middle East, Africa and South East Asia for services like Classroom and  
Live Virtual Training Courses. In today’s time, we are making our presence globally in  
the field of e-learning. Professionals and scholars would get a career growth with  
MindCypress’s innovative self-learning & certification program.E-learning courses from  
MindCypress gives you the convenience and flexibility to take sessions from anywhere  
and indulge in the modules at your own pace. Our courses are best suited for people  
who want to continue working while, studying and earn a certificate that can turn out to  
be beneficial for their career growth.
Improving the performance of a business strategy is integral for any organization that  
deals in products or services. This blog revolves around project identification and all the  
factors involved, in relation with the Lean Six Sigma methodologies. Six sigma is often  
used by organizations to understand the demands of customers, statistical analysis,  
management and improvement of their business process. The need of the hour is to  
improvise and improve your process according to internal and external factors, both.
If you are a new to sigma world, it is recommended that you pursue a complete Lean Six  
Sigma Green Belt Certification and learn everything you need in detail.
Let’s start with some basics!
What is Project Identification?
Project identification, as the name suggests means identifying potential projects and  then 
implementing Lean Six Sigma methodologies according to the goals of your  business. It 
mainly depends on two factors: Internal and External. External factors  denote the threats 
and opportunities to satisfy client demands, responding to market  trends or tracking the 
competitor’s activities. Whereas, internal sources are related to the  factors influencing 
the project, within the organization. Such sources become the base of  a project and can 
be used to further select which project would comply with the Lean Six  Sigma 
methodologies.
After project identification, selection of the appropriate project that needs six sigma is the  
next step of the process flow. Let’s dive straight right in!
Project Selection:
Six Sigma projects should positively impact Key Performance Indicators related to areas  
of Customer, Financial, internal business presses, knowledge/education & growth.
People get confused between other quality or process improvement methodologies and  
Six Sigma but, it is very different from the others. It demands results. The outcome is  
conveyed by projects that are tightly connected to customer demands and business  
strategy. Over the years, Six Sigma projects are combined together with project  
management and business process improvement practices. This further helps in  
selecting the projects for Lean Six Sigma. A project is a short-term endeavor accepted to  
create a unique product, service or result.
Process Elements
The provisional nature of the project requires a fixed beginning and end. The end is  
finalized when the project’s goals have been accomplished, when the project is  
dismissed due to its objectives will not or cannot be met, or when the project is no longer  
needed. Most projects are taken to create a lasting outcome.
The logical process flow as explained by Thomas Pyzdek is as follows,
1. Define the project’s goals and deliverables.
2. Define the current process.
3. Analyze the measurement system.
4. Measure the current process and analyze the data using exploratory and  
descriptive statistical methods.
5. Review the current process and correct any threats found.
6. Use SPC to perform a process capability study.
7. Recognize and correct special causes of variation.
8. Apply statistically designed experiments to improve the current process.
9. Cultivate and implement an entirely new process that meets the project’s goals  
using an Employ breakthrough strategy.
10. Institute control and nonstop improvement systems and stop.
Process Benchmarking:
Process benchmarking is one of the most important factors of the Project identification  
process. It is a method of comparing company’s internal business processes and its  
performance measure with that industry’s best practices.
Generally, they are related with quality, time and costs.
For example: Cost of Poor Quality (CoPQ), Defects, Cycle Time, Overall Equipment  
Effectiveness (OEE), Productivity, and Cost per unit Cost.
For example, a manufacturing company having an Assembly unit benchmark its OEE as  
85% as it is Industry’s best practice.
Process Inputs and Outputs:
The inputs signify the flow of data and materials into the process. The processing step  
includes all tasks required to effect a transformation of the inputs to an output. The  
results are the data and resources streaming out of the transformation process.
Owners and Stakeholders:
A process owner is responsible for managing a process in a project. Their responsibility  
includes continuous management and improvement of this process. Understanding how  
a process interacts with the upstream and downstream processes is what makes a  
Process Owner the most effective at his job.
For example, a Sales Engineer is responsible for responding to new Request for  
Quotation (RFQ) or Request for Proposal (RFP) by new customer. So he is process  
owner of the business process of Sales.
Stakeholders are those People who are the end user of project or product or any service  
by which they are getting benefitted.
For example: The users of new ERP system are stakeholders who are getting benefitted  
by that ERP.
Lean Six Sigma can turn out be a game changer for you and your organization. Process  
identification is a crucial part of the methodology which might sound like a complex topic  
and a blog won’t be able to justify the intricacies involved with it. This is why we suggest  
you to complete your Lean Six Sigma Green Belt certification.
MindCypress will help you with the training. Contact us today!
Resource: https://blog.mindcypress.com/p/how-to-identify-projects-for-lean-six-sigma