Ir. Dr. Aaron W K TONG shared his views on management that LEAN Management was developed by Toyota as a set of management philosophy with its own method/tools, such as well-known Quick Changeover, Kanban, Poka Yoke and so on.

On the other hand, 6 Sigma is a set of management philosophy developed by Motorola and expanded by General Electric Co. (GE). Its usual method/tools are Design of Experiment,　DMAIC mode (Define, Measure, Analysis, Improve, Control) and Statistical Methods etc.

Their "Minds" are:

Key point of LEAN is to eliminate the wastage (“Muda” in Japanese) which cannot add any value in the whole process for the clients. And 6 Sigma is to clear up the differences from the clients’ anticipation.

In order to achieve their targets of eliminating the Wastage or clearing up the difference, both of LEAN and 6 Sigma have their own usual method/tools.

But it was not because of the invention of management philosophy that these tools had been developed; and they should not be identified narrowly: using Design of Experiment (DOE) must equal to using 6 Sigma? Sorry, the philosophy of 6 Sigma didn’t come out until 1980s, but in Japan, Taguchi method——Design of Experiment was implemented before 1960s. Toyota also used DOE early in designing products and improving flows.

The analysis tool emphasized by both LEAN and 6 Sigma, Process Mapping (Formerly called Flow Chart) has existed for more than 100 years, but “LEAN 6 Sigma” is in pursuit of high quality and simple process. Ir. Dr. Aaron W K TONG deems that the whole management philosophy is still establishing. However in the real world, many outstanding enterprises have acted before the vogue and achieved high quality and simple process by choosing the best from the toolboxes of “LEAN” and “6 Sigma” spontaneously.

It was interesting that the first case in the seminar was Shanghai GM introducing their LEAN experience with DOE method of Sharon. And the second case was Hangzhou MSD Pharmaceutical implementing 6 Sigma. The interesting point is, MSD used the f LEAN tool——Single Minute Exchange of Die (SMED).

The great scientist Einstein spent all his life to build the Theory of Unified Field. It hasn’t been successfully developed so far, but we have made a big step in the development in physics. Likewise, the combination of LEAN and 6 Sigma is still on the way……