Have you wondered where you can see examples of quick changeovers and the concept of SMED applied in reality? The truth is that there are numerous different cases all around us, but they are sometimes not as obvious as they should be. Taking the time to study those cases and knowing what makes them work is important if you’re studying the concept of SMED for your own organization.

1. F1 pit stops

Any fan of Formula 1 can tell you that there has been a significant, very noticeable evolution in the way pit stops are handled in the sport throughout the years. Nowadays it’s a fine-tuned process that can take just a few seconds to complete from start to finish, and it’s often hard to track what the different crew members are doing. Slowing things down and analyzing their actions more carefully reveals an extremely precise process where everyone knows their job and does it with great accuracy and timing. Accuracy is just as important as speed here though, which has led to the development of some more unusual but highly effective quality control methods used exclusively in this field.

2. Plastic injection molding

The plastic injection molding industry has seen some great developments in the area of optimization and efficiency, and SMED is the likely cause for many of them. We’re already seeing some manufacturers going to great lengths to ensure that the changeover between their different production nodes is as smooth and quick as possible, and there are certain techniques that have become established industry standards. Considering how this industry is always trying to push the limits of its efficiency, it’s definitely an interesting direction to look in if you want some exciting ideas.

3. Software development

It should not be surprising that software developers are among the most active adopters of quick changeover practices. There are numerous examples all across the industry, and working with complex development systems would often have you initiating a code base from scratch in just a few clicks/seconds, as well as other similar feats of great efficiency. It’s interesting to note that this industry has adopted many lean practices without even understanding lean entirely at first, and some developer circles came up with their own concepts that closely mirror those of lean. Today, many parts of software development and delivery are executed in a way that allows workers to very quickly move from one piece of the puzzle to the next one, and without losing any accuracy in the process.

4. Easily exchangeable components

This one can be seen in many industries, and it’s a common element in any area that involves a lot of manual construction nowadays. Many parts involved in putting those projects together are now designed in ways that make them much more suitable for quick changeovers. This can go down all the way to the simplest nut, which is sometimes designed in a way that allows the worker to quickly change from one nut to the next when tightening multiple ones in a sequence. Small details like that can actually shave off a significant chunk of time from the work of such facilities.

5. Auto manufacturing

A commonly used example of quick work in general, there’s a lot to learn from the auto industry when it comes to quick changeovers. Modern manufacturing processes are designed precisely down to the last second, utilizing every available resource as fully as possible. It’s quite fascinating to see how a modern car is put together in the factory, and the typical assembly line uses various tricks to accelerate the process and relieve the different nodes of some of their responsibilities. You’ll often see the car moving through the assembly line in strange increments, but internally they make a lot of sense when you consider the transitions between them.

If you’d like to learn more about SMED, check out this training video that covers the basics and will give you some ideas to consider

The post 5 Examples of Quick Changeovers/SMED appeared first on 6sigma.

Getting your startup business up and running is a daunting project, but it’s just the beginning of a long journey. Properly developing that business into something meaningful with a strong position on the market is something you’ll be doing pretty much as long as that company exists, at least if your goal is for it to grow properly. Growth can be defined in various ways, but once you’ve started exploring lean startup methodologies, you’ll find that they have the potential to address all growth-related aspects of your business.

Adapting to a Rapidly Evolving Market

Old business growth methodologies are rapidly falling out of favor, and this can be attributed to the way the market itself has changed over time. Everything changes all the time, sometimes even faster than on a daily basis, and you can’t expect the techniques you were using yesterday to still be relevant tomorrow.

That’s exactly what lean startup methodologies try to address as well. For example, by continuously gauging the opinion of your customers and striving to stay up to date about their demands, you can know how to approach the next phase of your own product’s development. You shouldn’t work with data that hasn’t been validated recently, as one of the core principles you’ll have to get used to rather quickly is that information can become obsolete in the blink of an eye in the modern world.

Thinking One Step Ahead

Many startups fail due to their inability to think a few steps ahead, and only focus on the problems at hand presently. Sure, developing a company from scratch usually throws a lot of work in your direction, and it can get overwhelming quite quickly, but you also have to keep an eye on the future. If you don’t, you will end up stuck in a vicious loop where every action you make only serves to improve the company in its current state, but sets it up for failure in the long run.

Plan your production lines in advance, well before they’re even built. Don’t fall for the trap of thinking that your company doesn’t actually have any production lines, either many types of production work can be abstracted in this manner quite easily. Even something like software development can be seen as a chain of events connected to each other. The software is designed, that design is passed on to developers who write the code, and then submit their work to testers who do quality control.

You’d be surprised how much you can achieve with a change like rearranging the physical placement of the desks in a software company’s offices, for example. Reducing the time necessary for communication between important entities in the company can make a huge difference in the productivity of each individual link in the chain, and regular production companies have realized this a long time ago.

Always Keep Moving Forward

Last but not least, it’s important to always move in the direction of growth. Even if the current step you’re making isn’t completely aligned with that, the key is to look towards the future and ensure that you’ll end up in a good state later on. Any contribution to the long-term progress of the company should be seen as moving forward, and this is exactly what you should be aiming to do at every point as well.

This means that you should never sit idly in a situation that suits you, just because you’re comfortable enough with the status quo. This is stagnation and it’s the immediate precursor to failure, but unfortunately entrepreneurs tend to realize this far too late.

Conclusion

There is a lot to gain from applying lean startup methodologies to grow your business, and the sooner you establish a rigid system for the application of those principles across the whole organization, the better you’ll fare in the long run. Of course, this also assumes that all of your employees are on the same page as well, and that’s a separate task that you’ll have to accomplish along the way. But generally speaking, the sooner you secure that aspect of the business, the better you’ll be able to progress later on when things get really difficult.

The post How Can Entrepreneurs Grow Their Business Using Lean Startup Principles? appeared first on 6sigma.

It should come as no surprise to anyone familiar with lean concepts that the methodology eventually found its way into software development. Today, lean and agile are commonly encountered words in programming circles, and many modern programmers pride themselves in their ability to follow the principles outlined in both of those fields, allowing them to deliver quality products in a measured manner.

And even though lean has been altered and adapted to the specific nature of software development in order to work better for this purpose, at its core, it’s still the same. Anyone familiar with lean methodologies should immediately recognize the core values of the philosophy in any typical list of lean software practices, and they should also know how to translate those into actionable items that they can execute in their workflow.

Waste in Software Development

One of the biggest problems in any type of software development is waste. Developer resources are commonly utilized incorrectly, leading to multiple rounds of repeating the same task, changing minor requirements, and in some of the worse cases, throwing out the whole project and starting over from scratch.

On the other hand, improperly designed software can be very wasteful of users’ resources, and even though some developers don’t put this in the same category as traditional waste in production, it’s just as bad when you consider the impact on your company’s standing on the market.

By following solid lean principles, a software development team can ensure that they bring waste down to a minimum, while also improving the overall quality of the products they deliver. Another core component of lean methodologies in software development is that decisions should be made as late as possible that is, anything involving the requirements of the project shouldn’t be planned too meticulously from the start.

Which, at its core, is just another technique for avoiding waste. You’ll sooner or later start to see this pattern all over lean software development guides, and the better your developers understand the concept, the more solid your software products will be.

Don’t Forget Agile!

Some people confuse lean and agile and lump them in the same category, especially when it comes to software developers, but there are some significant differences between the two camps that have to be observed. Both philosophies do emphasize rapid iteration and quick delivery of successful, functional results, and this is definitely something to pay attention to if you’re having trouble in the final stages of project delivery.

Agile tends to emphasize more on rapidly iterating on an idea, which can sometimes create a little waste, but nothing that can’t be controlled through some careful planning. Agile also places a significant emphasis on ensuring that you can keep up with your current pace of development in the future, instead of burning out after a short, but quick burst.

Another important aspect of agile is that you should take as many decisions as possible in face-to-face meetings instead of communicating over other channels. This might not sound directly related to building a product, but it does play a major role in understanding what your clients want to accomplish with the project exactly, allowing you to prevent a lot of waste from being created when you implement something you didn’t understand correctly in the first place.

Getting Everyone on Board

It can be difficult to make programmers follow lean and agile practices, especially if you have some more experienced people on your team who have been practicing for a longer period of time. These styles of development were very unpopular some time ago, and it will take even more time before they become the default way of teaching programming.

Conclusion

But the sooner you ensure that your developers know what lean and agile are, and how to follow them in their work, the better improvements you’re going to see in the overall quality of the output of those developers, and subsequently, the better your clients’ satisfaction will be. In the end, what truly matters is that you are able to deliver products that work according to their requirements, and know how to adjust them later.

The post Lean and Agile Software Development appeared first on 6sigma.

Oracle is a major competitor to tech-giants like Microsoft and Apple, raking in hundreds of millions of dollars a year. Ellison makes it look easy, but maintaining a global business takes a lot of effort and upkeep. This is where Six Sigma enters the fold. If you examine Oracle’s processes and operations, you’ll start to see patterns emerge. What do they suggest? They suggest that much of Oracle’s success is down to Six Sigma. In fact, Ellison depends on Six Sigma methodologies for his vast technological empire. Learn his tips and tricks in today’s article so you can follow his example.

Six Sigma Strategies: Cutting Costs / Striving for Improvement

Oracle is the second-largest software company in the world. Thanks to Larry Ellison’s ingenuity and entrepreneurial skill, it is a leading tech-giant. But even successful corporations like Oracle have their problems. Inefficiencies don’t tend to announce themselves, and, once you’ve sprung a leak, the problem tends to escalate pretty quickly. Using Six Sigma improvement strategies, you can identify problems and fix them in record time.

Software development is complicated enough as it is, but expediting inefficient processes is difficult and time-consuming. Especially without the right tools. Changes can take months if not years. Thanks to CEO Larry Ellison’s insight and experience, Oracle stays on top of issues like waste, variation, and inefficiency. In fact, Ellison operates in much the same way as a Six Sigma Master Black Belt. Moreover, one of the solutions Ellison saw for Oracle’s problems was in plain sight the entire time. Oracle’s world-renowned software has helped other businesses improve their operations. Ellison’s solution was to take advantage of this gold mine of opportunity. He went about revitalizing his company’s operations to incorporate its own software, and to great effect. It has in fact saved over $1 billion dollars as a result of this strategy. But where does Six Sigma enter into this?

Larry Ellison: Six Sigma Champion

As we’ve already mentioned, Larry Ellison is well-versed in the ways of Six Sigma: “The way you get quality is to define a set of processes and procedures and make sure they are implemented everywhere.” Here Ellison alludes to DMAIC and standardization. Both are key elements of Six Sigma philosophy, without which there would be no Six Sigma. As such, techniques like Root Cause Analysis and DMAIC are plain to see in the above scenario. Using Root Cause Analysis, you can trace problems back to their source, allowing you to treat the underlying problem.

Similarly, DMAIC allows businesses to define problems with ease. It helps to be able to articulate what doesn’t work, after all. You can then measure and analyze the issue to develop improvement solutions and procedures to control future recurrences. For Ellison, who believes in simplifying and modernizing all procedures, the secret to reducing costs is streamlining processes. His aim is to make them more efficient and more consistent, and to ultimately increase profit. If this isn’t Six Sigma to a T, what is?

The post Six Sigma Leadership Profile: Larry Ellison appeared first on 6sigma.

What Is Agile Software Development?

Developing software is a discipline that’s still at a relatively young age, and for the most part, we’re still learning how to tackle some of the more difficult issues that can arise in a typical large-scale software project.

Different methodologies and styles have emerged in order to address the problem in various ways, and among those, agile software development is one of the currently most prominent and respected ones. Agile focuses on delivering a functional product as early as possible, and coordinating the development process with the customer’s requirements tightly.

Here is a brief introduction to how the process works and the important ideas behind it:

Agile is based around a set of twelve principles, which are outlined in its manifesto. It’s important for any team wishing to implement agile methodologies to not only fully understand the principles behind them, but to also apply them in their daily practices.

1) Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software.
Customer satisfaction should be at the top of any team’s priority list when developing software. Even if the customer is the team itself. It’s important to properly understand the exact needs of the customer, and to communicate with them regularly in order to ensure that all requirements are being met. Frequent delivery ensures that any misunderstandings will surface early on.

2) Welcome changing requirements, even late in development. Agile processes harness change for the customer’s competitive advantage.
It’s not rare for software requirements to change in the course of development. While many other development methods struggle with this, agile actually welcomes it in its fullest. This means that a team should be ready to handle any changes in the requirements, even if it means scrapping a large portion of their hard work.

Compared to development methodologies which split the process into components like analysis, design, implementation and testing which can last weeks at a time, agile is very suitable for a rapidly evolving model.

3) Deliver working software frequently, from a couple of weeks to a couple of months, with a preference to the shorter timescale.
Again, this puts an emphasis on speedy delivery and on ensuring that the customer’s requirements are being met in a timely manner. Not only that, but by focusing on delivering a working piece of software, teams are forced to actually think about the critical components of the project and focus on them with a priority. The standard time frame is called a sprint, and it usually occurs every 2 weeks.

4) Business people and developers must work together daily throughout the project.
This principle serves to correct a common problem in the modern software development environment. The gap between the developers of a program and the people presenting it to the customer is often huge, and can lead to significant problems in the development process. Agile ensures that all teams involved are always on the same page with regards to the future of the project.

5) Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and support they need, and trust them to get the job done.
A more personal principle, this is based on the idea that a developer given a comfortable working environment and constant job satisfaction will be able to consistently produce higher quality work. This is a common concept in other industries, but it seems to have taken some time to arrive to the world of software in a more direct way.

6) The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a development team is face-to-face conversation.
Another common issue of software development is the way it predisposes individuals to communicate through electronic means. This can significantly add to the feeling of an improper connection between team members. When the situation allows for it, a team should always prioritize personal meetings to discuss the current status of the project.

Different software development methodologies can sometimes focus on various complicated metrics for determining the current status and health of a project. Agile, on the other hand, puts an emphasis on the simplest possible factor how much of the product is actually finished and works well enough to be presented to a customer.

8) Agile processes promote sustainable development. The sponsors, developers, and users should be able to maintain a constant pace indefinitely.
No matter how large a project grows, the team should always be ready to handle its new scale. The same goes for the opposite case as well if the requirements shrink, the team must retain its current pace and not waste any effort.

9) Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design enhances agility.
Small details matter a lot in creating a solid final impression, but reaching the phase where they’re added to a project requires a solid underlying foundation as well. These two factors can significantly enhance the perceived value of the final product.

10) Simplicity ” the art of maximizing the amount of work not done ” is essential.
This is a rewording of a principle that’s very common in rapid software development in general nowadays. Do just as much as is required to complete the task, and only do more if the customer says something. This concept can be very effective in getting a project off the ground and up to speed. Often, it’s easy for developers to anticipate other customer needs, but this can add delays to the work, and it may not actually be something the customer wants.

11) The best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-organizing teams.
Management structure is another common problem in software development nowadays, and agile recognizes that by putting an emphasis on a team’s ability to govern its own work. While some form of higher-level management will always be required, it should not be critical to a project’s completion on the technical side.

12) At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective, then tunes and adjusts its behavior accordingly.
Software development is a constantly evolving discipline, which sees new ideas on an almost daily basis. A good team should be able to constantly integrate those new developments into their own work when it benefits them.

Conclusion
It’s hard to say which software development methodology is objectively the best at the moment. The truth is that they all fill a different niche in a very large and complex market. But when it comes to rapid development and delivering a product that actually works as soon as possible, few can beat agile’s strong principles and simplistic philosophy.

The post The 12 Agile Software Development Principles appeared first on 6sigma.