Businesses have lately been focusing on profit and process improvement. However, profit improvement at any cost to make the upcoming quarter look bright has a price. It appears that most improvement effort leads with efficiency measured by head-count reduction. Improvement shouldn’t be measured by earned profits. In fact, businesses can tumble even if a quarterly profit is reported. For better performance, businesses must achieve sustained profitable growth, not simply profit.

Lean and Six Sigma are two great improvement methodologies. Many businesses implement one, both or some creative combination, but these methodologies are often implemented without deploying their major tenets. For lean, the major tenets are “no layoffs” and “pull system.” For Six Sigma, the major tenets are “measure what is valued,” and “breakthrough improvement” or “innovation.” Instead, corporations deal with housekeeping, kanbanand floor relayout while implementing lean; and extensive training and a heavy dose of statistics in the case of Six Sigma. Of course, some improvement is realized, but it isn’t sustainable at most organizations. I’m sure there are exceptions where both the methodologies have been implemented successfully.

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