The Lean Six Sigma Guide to Doing More With Less: Cut Costs, Reduce Waste, and Lower Your Overhead

Chapter 15. Gaining New Perspectives on Deployment Cost and Speed Opportunities

With Anthony Curtis, Nolen Janes, Michael Mueller, Peter Gaa, and Rob Sharples

Ever since the economic collapse in 2008, our conversations with potential clients have taken on a new tenor: Those already embarked on a Lean Six Sigma journey wonder if there's more they could be doing. They tell us that they've trimmed all the fat they can. Those considering the journey wonder if Lean Six Sigma can make a big enough difference in performance—quickly enough—to help them survive this downturn.

In today's economy, long-term Lean Six Sigma deployments with threeyear returns are difficult for leaders to accept. The volatility of the market today requires short-term gains while developing the flexibility for the longterm plan. The need is clear: Leaders desire faster break-even points and a positive return on the investment much more quickly than ever before.

One of the advantages of being in the consulting world is having the opportunity to work with leaders in diverse businesses as they adapt Lean Six Sigma to their organizations' unique environments. We also get to work with smart, observant colleagues. Together, these factors have given us insights how organizations can best take advantage of their Lean Six Sigma investments, and opened our eyes to new ways that Lean Six Sigma can help drive cost cuts and higher performance—ways that some businesses exploit but that many, many others overlook.

In this chapter, ...