Q & A

In-house courses and workshops 

1. What type of in-house courses/training have you run for other companies? Have a look at the case studies included at linklinklink
2. Is Government funding available? Part funding may be available for companies that apply to attend the Callaghan Innovation ‘Lean Thinking’ one day course and want to improve their businesses using lean methods. Lean6Sigma Ltd is a registered provider of Better by Lean programmes by the NZ Government via Callaghan Innovation since 2015.
3. Why should you choose Lean6Sigma Ltd to work with? Once you have satisfied yourself that we have the track record and experience to deliver the continuous improvement elements you are seeking – it’s probably down to what sort of working relationship can we establish together and then price! We have worked with 40+ clients in New Zealand small and big, different sectors, blue-chip names and smaller operators and different products and services and strived to achieve our aim which is to develop a collaborative partnership towards providing the opportunity self-initiated process improvement – see our client list linklinklink. We are happy for you to contact any of our past or existing clients for a reference (in fact we encourage it!).
4. We know we need to improve our company continuous improvement – where should we start? The best starting point is a discussion to understand your requirements and then we can make a proposal for a suitable continuous improvement programme to add value to your business. We will often start with a lean audit to gauge the lean maturity of a company and then suggest a six-step continuous improvement journey plan with actions and tactics. Talk to us if you would like a kick-off discussion – you can contact us through the contact page.
5. We would like to start lean six sigma training – can you help us? Yes, we can but first, we would like to discuss what your overall goals and objectives are, create a plan and then make some suggestions on how we could support you. A lot of clients often start with a short half-day senior management awareness session (we call this a White Belt workshop) to provide guidance and alignment for some potential continuous improvement initiatives. We usually advise a sequence of; choosing your objectives, deciding on some priority projects, selecting some suitable internal practitioners and then supporting them through workshop facilitation/training.
6. What would you recommend – training our own staff to complete projects or using an outside provider to complete the projects? We would suggest initially a ‘blend’ of both. Downstream we are seeking to build your capability internally to complete these projects by yourself. Your own staff have all the local ‘jungle’ knowledge of the processes – what we are providing is the methods and tools so when you have learn to apply these then you will feel more confident to complete projects by yourself.
7. What is the benefit of Lean6Sigma running some project workshops for us? Two main reasons are pace and what we would call ‘a detached authority’. Sometimes it helps companies particularly if there could be resistance to change to use an external specialist. In terms of adding pace, we can hit the ground running with any improvement project – engaging with your team, working collaboratively,  quickly selecting what tools to use, recognising if a change plan is needed, facilitating a series of internal workshops and gaining traction to execute the improvements but downstream we want you to do this for yourself.
8. If you facilitated a typical process improvement project for us how long would it take? Mmmm good question and it will obviously depend on; what you are looking to transform, availability of your staff and what your operational imperatives are. So some companies might say this is a cross-functional project but the sales team are only available for half a day every two weeks to work on the improvement. We work with whatever the client wants. So back to the question – a typical project scenario might involve 3 – 2 hour workshops say every two weeks and after 6 weeks we would expect to have the current process mapped, data collected, issues identified and solutions proposed. If the solutions were largely process changes we could have a pilot improvement tested in a month with some new data collected and implemented soon after that. So an improved process could be operating after say 3 months. This may take longer if IT system changes are needed or could be accelerated using the rapid improvement (kaizen) event tactics that we use.
9. What are the costs for in house programmes? We can offer a costed milestone plan where we invoice you when fixed activities or phases have been completed or work on an hourly rate for on-site support and a per candidate per day of training rate. In house, training is more cost-effective (around 50% cheaper) than public courses since you are providing the venue and food/refreshments and usually candidate volumes are higher. Talk to us about providing a quotation tailored to meet your requirements.