In simple words, what is the difference between Lean and Six Sigma?

Mr. Jammar puts it better than others, but don't be fooled. Lean is about making things more EFFICIENT, not just faster. Faster is not always more efficient. you can eliminate inspection and speed up delivery, but you may be delivering poor quality. Lean will streamline a good process, to include reducing manpower if appropriate. six sigma will streamline production, by focusing on identifying and preventing defects. That's it. Six Sigma is just a name for what quality has been doing all along through QA/QC/QP. Lean is a cost cutting tool at the core.

Both Lean and six sigma are about eliminating waste and IMPROVING quality.

lean is to reduce the wast, and six sigma reduce the defects/defectives

Assalam Alaykom Ashraf,

In very simple words:

- Lean is about looking after wastes and eliminating them by having a focus the value added to the customer

- Six Sigma is about increasing quality by reducing process variability

Lean allows you to go FASTER and Six Sigma gives you a better quality.

The combination of both helps you to get Faster with a Better Quality. That's the goal of Lena Six Sigma.

Six Sigma = Culture + Quality {Improve performance on customer critical to quality requirements}Lean = Speed + Low Cost {Reduce Waste and increase process speed, It depends on Kaizen events to identify then to reduce or elimnate non adding value steps. From my own side Six Sigma quality enable lean speed & vice versa.

Lean is more about decreasing waste thereby improving the speed of the process.

Whereas Six Sigma is more about reducing the variation thereby improving the quality.

Agree with Mr. Peebles. Very well explained.

Think about the IPO (Input / Process / Output)

Lean :

- focus  : on the Process 

- emphasis : efficiency (speed/flow) => decrease time/effort + same quality/accuracy

- goal : remove waste and improve flow

Six Sigma :

- focus : on the Output

 - emphases : effectiveness (quality) => same time/effort + increase quality/accuracy

- goal : remove defect and improve quality

Effectiveness should always be considered FIRST (quality FIRST)

Efficiency can improve time/cost but shouldn't compromise effectiveness.

hope this simple explanation helps you.

if you need more detail about lean or the six sigma methodologies, don't hesitate.

  Zoher

Six Sigma focuses upon process capability and reduction of variation to improve quality Lean focuses on the elimination of waste and value stream to improve efficiency My personal philosophy is that when you're looking at almost any improvement project, it just makes common sense to apply both methodologies. Certainly increasing your process capability by eliminating the possibility of errors (Six Sigma) is a wonderful goal, but by also removing the non-value added activities, and streamlining the process (Lean)gives more efficiency.