Lean Six Sigma
Lean Six Sigma processes are used by many businesses without it being realized. Many companies today are adopting the Lean Six Sigma processes to aid in cost reduction and waste management. The Six Sigma program aids in eliminating the negative effects caused by variations within the supply chain. The Lean process is all about the speed, flow and elimination of waste concerning inventory. Although Lean and Six Sigma are separate programs, they complement each other. Together these two programs provide supply chains with a tool that eliminates, “unnecessary inventories through disciplined efforts to understand and reduce variation, while increasing speed and flow in the supply chain.”(Lean Logistics Understanding) Lean and Six Sigma are valuable for many processes, but the programs have been proven to be exceptionally valuable to logisticians. Implementing Lean Six Sigma will allow logisticians to effectively conduct supply chain operations by reducing waste in the following areas: Inventory, transportation, space and facilities, time, packing, administration and knowledge. Lean Six Sigma saves supply chains thousands by reducing waist and redundancy. Lean Six Sigma is the key to supply chain success Lean management strategy was developed to eliminate waste and increase speed. This strategy can be trace back to the Toyota production system where it was used to tie customer demand and production together to improve the company’s production output. Six Sigma is statistics driven; it stabilizes variations and improves quality of processes. Lean Six Sigma is widely embraced by many companies and the DoD to improve processes and eliminated waste. The DoD offers classes at various Air Mobility bases to train personnel on the implementation of LSS. Companies often adopt Six Sigma to improve facility operations. New Breed a third party company utilized Six Sigma to improve warehouse layout, reduce waste, and the overall flow of property being distributed.