The Seminar on LEAN 6 Sigma and DoE in service Industries, organized by TQM Consultants Co., Ltd (TQM) in cooperation with Hong Kong Society for Quality on 26 Jun 2015, gathered a full house.  Ir Dr Aaron TONG, ASQ 6 Sigma Black Belt Course Trainer and Dr Scott Kowalski, Director of International Training, Minitab Inc. shared their vision of process improvement and operational excellence.

Dr TONG highlighted that Hong Kong is a major international financial centre, comprising an integrated network of institutions and markets which provide a wide range of products and services to local and international customers and investors.  The services sector in Hong Kong is facing challenges like governance, counter-terrorism, security and skill labour shortage.  Dr TONG shared a case about how TQM supported Etrali, a leading provider of convergent voice and electronic trading infrastructure and services for the world’s major banks, to implement LEAN 6 Sigma for process improvement of their key business activities and achieved favourable results.  During the journey of process improvement, TQM reviewed the operation workflows and systems and identified various improvement opportunities. With TQM’s target-oriented approach, Etrali were able to prioritize the improvement actions, better allocate our resources, and achieved the greatest rewards within the shortest time.

Dr Kowalski further pointed out that the design of experiments (DOE) is a powerful tool for exploring and optimizing processes.  With LEAN 6 Sigma, process improvement was orchestrated through the five phases of Design, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control (DMAIC).  DOE can be integrated into the Analyze and Improve phases of the LEAN 6 Sigma DMAIC to facilitate the understanding of the factors that affect a process and then create meaningful and effective tests to verify possible improvement ideas or theories. 

Dr TONG said, “The need to embed regulatory and risk management considerations into the strategic decision processes of organizations becomes a critical element of each organization’s success and performance, with the ultimate goal of creating shareholder value.  LEAN 6 Sigma, supported by DOE, is a great tool to services industries like finance, government and healthcare sectors to critically review their process, identify key improvement initiatives and achieve operational excellence.”