Dr. Elena Averboukh is an industry-funded professor at the University of Kassel
(Germany) in Quality and Safety Control Systems and works internationally as a
Six Sigma and TRIZ Master Instructor and Fellow Master Black Belt for
manufacturing, transactional, design, financial and e-business companies
(www.sixsigma-24.de). She has two Master degrees in electrical/system
engineering and in mathematics/computer science and three Doctoral degrees in
process automation, modelling and identification of complex systems and in quality
and safety control systems. She may be reached via e.averbukh@ieee.org.
Elena A. Averboukh
Six Sigma Trends:
TRIZ Six Sigma for Analysis and Elimination of Root
Causes
How traditional Six Sigma may be reinforced
Here is a new article reflecting our on-going research on advanced tools, strategies
and trends in deploying six sigma in different industrial and business applications.
Our evaluation is based on
• practical deployment leadership, course development, training and project
coaching in diverse companies over the globe,
• basic research in the field of efficient methodologies for adult learning within
international research network.
TRIZ concepts and tools for problem solving become more and more popular
internationally. It also starts to be more and more accepted in rather “conservative”
Six Sigma world.
Here we present a new trend in deploying TRIZ Six Sigma, particularly aiming more
“ambitious” goals as finding and eliminating common (root) causes of process
variation and low capability within rather limited resources (time, man-power and
budget) of six sigma projects.
I will appreciate your responses and I am thankful also in advance for any feedback,
questions and discussion.
How we traditionally apply Six Sigma
Six Sigma approach is a data-based methodology and a set of analytical, statistical and
problem solving tools for systematic improvement of the capability of business processes
and/or products and/or services, which are applied in order to meet their customer's
requirements.
Under Custmers either Internal Customers, i.e. Business and/or follow-up Business Processes,
as well as emloyees etc., or external Customers within the distribution and sales chain, up to
the End-Users are considered.
Usually one business problem, where solution aprior is not known, is taken as a subject for a
Six Sigma project. Such Projects are managed along with Six Sigma Roadmap, e.g.
• so-called DMAIC for improving the business processes, which consists of 5 phases,
i.e. Define, Measure, Analyse, Improve and Control, and/or
• DMADV for improving (re-designing) products, i.e. Define, Measure, Analyse,
Design, Verify etc.
Specially trained Six Sigma professionals with different qualifications, like Green Belt or
Black Belt or Master Black Belt are managing and/or participating in such projects. Typical
Projects should be completed within rather limited time frame (usually, 3 months limit for
Green Belt Projects and 5-6 months for Black Belt projects) and should result in sustainable
improvement as well as lead to significant and proven financial benefits (typically, minimum
20.000 -50.000 euros/year for Green Belt projects and 100.000 -200.000 euros/year for the
Black Belt projects).
Why traditional Six Sigma fails in analysing and eliminating Root
Causes of the Problem
Unfortunately, traditional Six Sigma methods and tools are rather time and effort-consuming,
both in gathering (measuring) and analysing process or product performance data, as well as
in generating ideas and efficient improvement and/or re-design solutions.
This apparently results in a rather »surface« analysis, as time and project resources available
are usually not enough to generate and to evaluate sufficient set of ideas about the Root
Causes of the Problems.
And even the Root Causes are found (in Six Sigma they are usually called as a Common
Causes of process or product performance variation), they remain, traditional Six Sigma tool
set does not include any tools for systemic and efficient problem solving, apart from Osborn's
brain storming techniques, Six Hats, Mind Mapping etc. And the latter techniques are
although useful, but usually do not support finding efficient and simple ideas and concepts for
eliminating the Root Causes within the time frame, resources and budget of the project
available, which do not result in the new consequent (so-called secondary) problems.
As a result, major Six sigma companies are formally training six sigma professionals to focus
on eliminating »Special Causes« of process variation.
It usually leads only to short-term improvements and benefits (if any!) , but long term the
situation and process capability remain unchanged if not worth through the changes and
interventions made and due to the »secondary problems«.
What is TRIZ Six Sigma
It is an integrated approach where TRIZ methodology and tools are systematically integrated
into the Six Sigma Roadmaps.
TRIZ is an acronym for a Theory of Inventive Problem Solving, which was originally
developed in the 50-s of the last centruy by the russian inventor Henrich Altshuller. By
anylysing of patents H.Altshuller has found common basic principles and mental models of
the inventors within their successful problem solving process, from the problem definition to
a solution.
Today many software tools are available in the market, which are realizing the ideas and tools
of H.Altshuller as well as providing links to a patent data bases, which examplify relevant
principles and ideas.
Most advanced software tools which reflect the state-of-the-art TRIZ research and
methodology to Failure Analysis, Failure Prediction and Innovative Problem solving are
developed by the I-TRIZ analysts in Ideation Internatinal Inc. (I in I-TRIZ stands for
Ideation).
Root Cause Analysis and Elimination with TRIZ Six Sigma
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The approach to the root cause analysis in TRIZ Six Sigma starts with applying
techniques for intencifying the conflict in requirements (e.g. between Customer and
Business Requirements) and formulating the problem as a Contradiction.
Along with Analysis we »translate« the Contradictory requirements, e.g. from initial
Business Contradiction to the Technical Contradiction and further to the Physical
Contradictions in a special way, coming closer to the physical mechanism of the
Problem.
At each level we apply TRIZ principles and toolset to generate the ideas, how to either
eliminate harmful effect, or to improve useful effect or to resolve the contradiction. ITRIZ tools support these processes on the analytical level and provide exhaustive set
of relevant examples on implementing principles and ideas from different application
fields, which support our »thinking by analygy« and extends our own knowledge-base.
Using the same tool set we simulate secondary problems and find out potential
solutions, which may prevent them
Last step is a Concept generation and evalution, where different ideas are combined
into the error-prone concepts which may not only efficiently (and low-cost) eliminate
the Root Causes but also to provide a sustainable improvement long-term.
The whole process without TRIZ-tools is just not feasible to perform within few man-days,
which are usually available for such type of activities within Six Sigma Project frames. But
using TRIZ-tools it becomes although exciting but a trivial and scalable activity and leads to
significant and innovative improvements of the process long term capability.
Training and Deploying TRIZ Six Sigma
We have integrated TRIZ methodology and particularly I-TRIZ tools in all our Six Sigma
training currimulums since 2004. Usually when training Six Sigma professionals with TRIZ
Six Sigma first time, additional time comparing to the traditional Six Sigma courses is 1-2
days for Green Belts and 2-4 days for Black Belts.
Usually it takes much longer, i.e. about 10-14 days to upgrade already trained Six Sigma
Professionals in this new integrated approach.
We perform such upgrade gradually in several 2-4 days sessions along with rather demanding
project, where there is a long standing technological problem, or where many improvements
attempts did not result in any significant improvement of the long-term capability etc.
There is absolutely no contradiction between TRIZ Six Sigma and other Six Sigma
approaches, like Lean Six Sigma, Six Sigma Operational Excellence etc.
It is just NEW GENERATION of Six Sigma which enables six sigma professionals to
efficiently eliminate Common Causes of Process Variation within limited project time, manpower and budget resources.
Please, contact us for further details.
We look forward to help you to upgrade your Six Sigma Professionals in TRIZ Six Sigma for
sustainable improvement of the Business Process capability and for increasing the Value of
your Emloyees.
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Copyright 2006 Dr.Elena Averboukh