"Using a Lean Six Sigma Approach to Drive Innovation"
Strategy & Leadership
2007, Vol. 35, No. 2, pp. 5-10
An analysis of companies that have used lean Six Sigma programs to achieve broad-based innovation identified the following characteristics that set them apart:
- Their vision of innovation was based on factual customer data and market insights. Their leaders created a compelling vision based on this understanding of market demands and their own organization's capabilities. They maintained focus by limiting their objectives to just a few.
- Their leadership committed itself to perpetual innovation. Leaders played very active roles, and showed that they were enthusiastically committed to real organizational change.
- The strategic innovation vision was aligned across the extended enterprise. It was used as a unifying force to align efforts both within the company and with supplier and customers.
- After an initial intense period of lean Six Sigma training, the companies established enduring processes and outlooks that affected much more than just their operations. They were able to both improve their business performance and create an organization with an ingrained tendency towards innovation.
The article provides a set of questions to assess whether your organization is equipped to make radical innovations and maintain this approach over time.
A brief case study of Caterpillar is used to illustrate the lean Six Sigma approach to innovation. Caterpillar has managed to increase their market share in all their lines of business. Between 2001 and 2005, revenues increased by 80 percent.
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