Key Points

• You need to develop a solid baseline before starting to measure the impact of any Lean Six Sigma project.
• Lean Six Sigma projects have tangible and intangible benefits. The latter can be difficult to quantify, but it can demonstrate the efficacy of a project.
• You need accurate data that is readily available to effectively measure the impact of your project.

Quantifying Lean Six Sigma impact across any project can be a challenging prospect. You need to prove to stakeholders and management that the investment has been worth the time and effort expended. When taking on any sort of initiative, it helps to have support for future projects. The immediate effects of this might not be readily evident.

The Lean Six Sigma impact of any project can be measured and quantified. Further, it can be readily touted as a reason why the project was a success in the first place. Today, we’re going to look at how to measure and prove the success of your Lean Six Sigma projects.

Isolating the Impact

Changes don’t happen in isolation. In any given project, the Lean Six Sigma impact you’re after is likely lost in the many changes happening simultaneously. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as these changes can be a good thing. You need to know how to isolate things to properly measure things, though.

For starters, you’ll need a working baseline. This should be established before the start of the project itself to better measure the Lean Six Sigma impact of your efforts. Alternatively, you could implement changes on a departmental basis. This allows one department to act as a control group of sorts. While you ideally would be making changes to multiple things at the same time, it might help to start slow to quantify what it is you’re doing.

Teams just starting to try Lean Six Sigma will want to keep the scope narrow. It can be tempting to try and go for the likes of a whole organizational upheaval. Start small, keep it focused, and you’ll have more than enough information to justify any future Lean Six Sigma projects.

Quantifying the Intangible

It’s easy to point to the harder benefits of a given project to measure the Lean Six Sigma impact of your initiative. That sells things quite short, however, as you’re likely doing far more than you realize. Most projects will have soft benefits, or intangible pluses from successful implementation. It’s difficult to assign a monetary value to these intangible results, but there are ways to quantify even abstract concepts.

One example is customer satisfaction. While not readily evident, you can quickly get a grasp through the use of customer surveys in the aftermath of a project. Positive or negative responses along the established criteria should be more than enough to point toward a return on investment.

Additionally, you could look at brand recognition. This one is much harder to quantify, but if you’re seeing more frequent purchases of your services or goods, that is a wonderful indicator of the efficacy of your LSS project.

Data Accuracy

Measuring Lean Six Sigma impact takes data, which should come as no surprise to anyone remotely familiar with the methodology. Data drives the methodology, and making sure you have accurate, readily available data is paramount for quantifying the impact of your project.

To this end, you’ll want to develop a strong data collection plan. This should be conducted at the Define phase of your DMAIC cycle. Key metrics should be established, with the frequency and who should be collecting them defined at the onset.

Additionally, make sure your metrics are clearly defined. Operational definitions enable consistent, continuous data collection, which is going to make measuring the impact of your project a far easier prospect.

Time Elapsed Between Implementation and Impact

Projects don’t always have readily identified impacts. When measuring the Lean Six Sigma impact of any given project, you might not have exactly what you need at the onset. This is where you need to establish a plan to measure the benefits, which will streamline the entire process over the next few years.

Our suggestion is to establish a long-term tracking plan that focuses on the changes over 6 months, a year, 3 years, and 5 years out from the implementation. Seeing the sustained benefits over time is going to be a boon for you and will demonstrate just how well the project went for the leadership and stakeholders who have a vested interest in your work.

Cost Attribution

One of the most important things you’ll need to do is to establish and track the costs of your project to better measure your Lean Six Sigma impact. All direct and indirect costs should be accounted for. This includes the likes of training, software, and any resources consumed through the course of a project.

You’ll want to establish standardized methods for calculating the costs of these expenses as time goes on.

Other Useful Tools and Concepts

Looking for something to go with your morning scroll? You might want to take a closer look at how to use Kanban outside of manufacturing. This useful tool is well-suited for a variety of applications and can be applied to just about any industry you can think of.

Additionally, you might want to consider looking at some digital tools to streamline your Hoshin Kanri processes. Technology has made great headway toward streamlining Hoshin Kanri, and modern software can take quite a bit of the legwork from your current workflow.

Conclusion

Demonstrating the ROI of any given Lean Six Sigma project can be difficult at first. However, with concrete plans in place, you’re setting yourself up for success and continued projects. Seeing the Lean Six Sigma impact on a given project requires clear strategies. Setting the framework now will lead to a far easier time justifying the work done.