Supporting Sustainable Business Practices with Six Sigma

It’s all too convenient to just forget about sustainability. But no matter what you do, it’s going to come back to haunt you later. It’s essential to align your Six Sigma work with sustainable business practices like minimizing waste and eliminating variation. As such, learning to implement sustainable practices will hold you in good stead later. If you don’t, your efficiency will suffer, as will your business processes and resources. When you keep sustainability in mind, you’ll find it easier to maintain strong Six Sigma strategy. Today’s article details how Six Sigma, particularly DMAIC project guidelines, supports sustainable business practices. Learn to live and breathe sustainability, and your organization will be all the better for it.

 

Sustainable DMAIC – Define

 

In Six Sigma, organizing projects with clearly defined aims will support sustainable business practices. Six Sigma always considers the needs of internal and external stakeholders carefully. Whether tracking improvement performance or adjusting supply chain processes and even simply using green materials to monitor product quality are just some ways Six Sigma DMAIC can support sustainable work.

 

Measure

 

With constant strides made in Lean and Six Sigma applications, data can help you make more precise process improvements. Using metrics to single out and examine the efficiency of your supply chain can highlight other issues. These issues include accumulated waste and redundant processes. Remember, sustainability goes hand in hand with Six Sigma and helps your company achieve more rigorous bottom line performance goals. That’s why accurate measurement is important. Using DMAIC to streamline your project as it progresses will support your sustainability efforts and increase productivity.

 

Analyze

 

If you want to leverage a competitive advantage over your opponents, sustainable products and processes are the way to go. By using in-depth analysis of your data to highlight the root causes of problems, you can maximize your performance goals. Analysis can also shed light on where the project may need to turn its focus. Additionally, this will help you select appropriate metrics to locate the sources of inefficiencies.

 

Improve

 

Six Sigma is all about making improvements that will last, which is why sustainable practices can set you up for life. Material and product development don’t remain the same for long. Organizations are always changing to achieve greater sustainability and to secure support from an ever more discerning consumer base. By utilizing better quality, sustainable materials, you can help standardize the quality of your products. But to do that, you need to ensure a culture of continuous improvement flourishes in your business. That way, as supply chain accountability improves, and corporate responsibility expands, you’ll be better equipped to meet customer demands.

 

Control

 

Finally, control is important when it comes to implementing sustainable business practices. As we know, processes always overlap and mediate each other, which means any changes you make will affect everything. This ripple of effect can create powerful data, bringing new insights and inspiring further goals to pursue. Six Sigma coalesces with sustainable business practices, such as corporate transparency and continual improvement. The more you control your process performance in the present, the more you can influence and predict its future success.