Integrating Lean & Six Sigma Practices into U.S. Shipyard Operations
The founders of NOVACES were pioneers in helping U.S. shipyards successfully implement Lean and Six Sigma methodologies. Today, our research focuses on integrating the Theory of Constraints with Lean Six Sigma for industries characterized by high demand variability. This combined approach delivers a system-level perspective that focuses efforts on managing constraints to maximize throughput. This is particularly beneficial for maintenance operations, hospitals, high-tech companies, and similar sectors. The integration of TOC and Lean Six Sigma has already yielded significant improvements across diverse industries.
NOVACES Innovation:
NOVACES is proud to co-lead the integration of TOC with Lean Six Sigma for the U.S. Navy’s Enterprise AIRSpeed program, aimed at enhancing naval aviation maintenance. Typically, maintenance, repair, and operations (MRO) environments experience very high variation in demand, repair time, and work content. Key findings of this integration effort showed how to best integrate these three methodologies in MRO settings.
Client Breakthroughs:
After stabilizing operations using TOC tools, Lean and Six Sigma projects are selected to achieve the desired improvement. Crucially, the integration transcends a simple “toolbox” approach. For example, our research has revealed that Lean and TOC tools must be applied with careful coordination; otherwise, interactions between Lean line balancing and TOC process design can impede efforts.
Learn More
For more information on integrating TOC with your Lean Six Sigma initiative, click here to download the whitepaper or contact us to speak with a NOVACES representative who is ready to assist you.