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

Foreword

Though I have now retired from the consulting industry, I spent over 20 years helping companies grow corporate value through process improvement initiatives and business transformation. My work with improvement had begun in the late 1980s, when, upon my return from extended studies in Japan, my colleagues and I pioneered the introduction of what are now known as Lean methods in the United States. Years later, in 2002, my company, George Group Consulting, led another wave of innovation: fully integrating Lean with Six Sigma so that companies could simultaneously improve cost, speed, and quality while tying all process improvement projects to shareholder value.

Lean Six Sigma has subsequently become one of the most popular business improvement methodologies of all time. Our clients reported to the markets that their Lean Six Sigma initiatives have been cost-neutral in less than one year, that they've reduced costs upwards of 20 percent and have improved ROIC and Economic Profit by as much as 10 percent or more by year two of the deployment. The media abounds with examples of companies large and small that have made similar gains.

In the past decade, continuous improvement, including Lean, Six Sigma, and Lean Six Sigma, has reached unprecedented levels of acceptance. In fact, about 50 percent of Fortune 500 companies and over 80 percent of Fortune 100 companies (according to AVR Associates, Ltd, 2009), as well as government entities such as the U.S. Navy, U.S. Army, and multiple ...