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About the Author
Robert C. Newbold, CEO and founder of ProChain Solutions, is one of the world’s leading experts on project scheduling and management using the Critical Chain approach. Rob is a frequent writer and speaker on the subject of project management. Over the past 25 years he has developed process improvements in the fields of health care, manufacturing, and project management. He is the author of The Billion Dollar Solution (2008) from ProChain Press and Project Management in the Fast Lane (1998) from St. Lucie Press, and holds degrees from Stanford University, State University of New York (SUNY), Stony Brook, and Yale University.
CHAPTER 6
Project Management in a Lean World—Translating Lean Six Sigma (LSS) into the Project Environment
AGI-Goldratt Institute
Introduction: It’s a Lean World
For most large organizations in the Western Hemisphere, the call to pursue a discipline of improvement began with the 1980s NBC broadcast of “If Japan can . . . Why can’t we?” Many embarked on the quality movement of putting human and financial resources toward that commitment. Investing in training from Dr. Edward W. Deming, Dr. Taiichi Ohno, and Shingeo Shingo as well as juggling the onslaught of new training and consulting organizations that emerged, the mid to late 1980s saw the introduction of a myriad of techniques—most seeming to have a three-letter acronym. Whether it was SPC (Statistical Process Control), TPS (Toyota Production System), SMED (Single Method Exchange of Die), JIT (Just-in-Time), or TPM (Total Productive Maintenance), external and internal experts with different techniques descended upon the business units to form numerous Process Improvement Teams, all competing for the same resources that were already fully needed just to run the business.
Motorola is credited with the invention of the Six Sigma methodology. Those inside Motorola saw the power of the various techniques from TQM, Deming, Juran, and others and evolved them to a management system that was focused on improvement and the bottom line. First aimed at processes within manufacturing, Motorola then developed the elements to embed it within their operating culture.
Thanks to James Womack and Daniel Jones through their book, Lean Thinking (1996), the tools of the quality movement now had a framework to work more collectively—the Lean Principles. The principles of specifying value and the value stream, creating smooth flow, and enabling the customer to pull value and the pursuit of perfection ensured the process of improvement would be ongoing. (For a good synopsis of Lean and Six Sigma methodologies, please refer to Chapter 36, “Combining Lean, Six Sigma, and the Theory of Constraints to Achieve Breakthrough Performance by AGI-Goldratt