LEAN SIX SIGMA APPLIED TO QUALITY AND

PRODUCTIVITY IMPROVEMENT IN THE MANAGEMENT

CYCLE – PLANNING AND CONTROL – OF AN EDUCATION,

TRAINING AND SOCIAL INTEGRATION INSTITUTION

Susana Falcão, Francisco Nunes

Universidade Autónoma de Lisboa, Rua de Santa Marta, 56, Lisboa, Portugal

Sofia Cheis Gil, Silvia Peres, Sandra Nunes Alves

Casa Pia de Lisboa, Rua dos Jerónimos, 1, Lisboa, Portugal

Keywords: Lean Six Sigma, planning and control process, quality management, educational environment.

Abstract: This paper aims to contribute with some insights on the use of Lean Six Sigma as an improvement tool in an

educational environment, in order to improve the efficiency of the network based structure for the provision

of social and educational services at the bicentennial institution: Casa Pia de Lisboa (CPL). We suggest to

combine management methodologies and Quality tools in order to build and implement continuous

improvement programs. The selection of Lean and Six-Sigma as improvement tools for Casa Pia is based on

the fact that organizations whose management is focused on processes, are currently incorporating LSS

methodologies in their continuous improvement programmes. The planning process is already designed,

with the goals and objectives of the various CPL units already defined and properly registered (Planning

Process). The implementation of the Control process was initiated in January 2011 and three months of

monitoring have already been secured. The expectations in the use of Lean Six Sigma to improve the

Control Process are high. If succeeded this project will allow CPL to better monitor and control progress

towards its goals, better support the top management and operational decision making processes. Although

the use of LSS in an educational context has been recommended by several authors, reality shows that, in

general, educational institutions are not aware of the benefits resulting from the application of these

methodologies.

1 INTRODUCTION

In a global market, an organization that wants to be

market leader or compete to become one,

increasingly needs to find ways of management that

can enable it to respond fast and adequately to new

challenges and changing environments. Quality

management, and the set of tools and methodologies

that it comprises, are essential in resolving this

problem.

Casa Pia de Lisboa, a bicentennial institution

serving the educational and social solidarity in

Portugal, has used and implemented several

organizational and management models, all of them

with important and conclusive results in the

educational and social context but also in the

management and administrative background.

Recently Casa Pia de Lisboa defined a new

strategy to modernize the institution, bringing it to

new and innovative management practices. The new

management model focuses on quality and process-

oriented procedures and on a network based

structure for the provision of social and educational

services. The main objectives are to increase

institutional cohesion and to become a reference

organization regarding quality management system

implementation.

The use of Lean Six Sigma (LSS) as the main

motto of the work, results of the strategy-related

need and opportunity to implement continuous

improvement programs (George, 2002). The specific

selection of Lean and Six-Sigma as improvement

326

Falcão S., Nunes F., Cheis Gil S., Peres S. and Nunes Alves S..

LEAN SIX SIGMA APPLIED TO QUALITY AND PRODUCTIVITY IMPROVEMENT IN THE MANAGEMENT CYCLE – PLANNING AND CONTROL –

OF AN EDUCATION, TRAINING AND SOCIAL INTEGRATION INSTITUTION.

DOI: 10.5220/0003640203260330

In Proceedings of the International Conference on Knowledge Management and Information Sharing (KMIS-2011), pages 326-330

ISBN: 978-989-8425-81-2

 2011 SCITEPRESS (Science and Technology Publications, Lda.)

tools for Casa Pia is based on the following factors:

 Organizations whose management is based on

processes are currently incorporating LSS

methodologies in their continuous improvement

programmes;

 Although the use of LSS in an educational

context has been recommended by several

authors, reality shows that, in general,

educational institutions are not aware of the

benefits resulting from the application of these

methodologies;

 Bandyopadhyay and Lichtman (2007)

recommend the use of Six Sigma in the

improvement of Strategic Planning processes in

Education Institutions;

 There are no studies on the use of LSS in

Strategic Planning process improvement in an

institution with the educational and social

mission such as the Casa Pia de Lisboa.

2 SIX SIGMA APPLIED TO THE

EDUCATIONAL

ENVIRONMENT

There are several examples of process improvements

in educational environment that inspire us for this

project.

Bane (2002), in the article "Leading edge quality

approaches in non-manufacturing organizations"

presents several cases where Lean, Six Sigma and

similar approaches to continuous improvement, have

been successfully applied in non-industrial areas,

giving concrete examples of improvement projects

in three educational institutions:

In Clarkson University, New York, the author

refers that Six Sigma was applied to reduce errors in

the schedules preparation. The process sigma

increased from an initial value of 3.1 (approximately

93% effectiveness) to 4.5 (over 99% effectiveness).

The application of DMAIC and Six Sigma related

tools resulted in a faster and more accurate

scheduling system for students and a significant

reduction in the work effort for academic and

programme coordinators;

Bane also refers Loyola University, New

Orleans, an institution that won the Louisiana award

quality, which implemented a project for the

improvement of the admissions process. With LSS

the Loyola University was able to raise both the

number of candidates and the admission criteria;

Finally he presents the use of Lean tools in the

improvement of payroll processes in a secondary

school. Within this project several non-value added

activities were identified and eliminated resulting in

a faster, more agile process reducing payroll lead

time and effort needed from the teachers (the

process clients).

The author ends the article stating that

companies and organizations must be aware and

sensible on how they apply methodologies for

continuous improvement, within or outside our

industry, including Lean and Six Sigma.

Moreover, Bandhyopadhyay and Lichtman

(2007), report the existence of a pressure to reduce

the financing of educational institutions (recurrent

phenomena in the developed countries), which

results from the loss of political priority (due to the

need of reducing the tax burden on taxpayers), but

also from the need for greater efficiency.

Thus, according to the authors, it is up to

educational institutions to operate two management

fronts: a front-oriented enhancement of their role in

the country's competitiveness in order to ensure

adequate funding for its activities, and a second

front, aimed at efficiency and effectiveness gains in

its operation.

They conclude that it is imperative that

educational institutions incorporate the

methodologies of Six Sigma in their strategic

planning process, given the overall focus on cost

savings, productivity gains, quality and profitability:

“it is imperative that institutions for education take a

good look at Six Sigma approach and incorporate it

into their strategic-planning process”.

3 PROCESS MANAGEMENT AT

CASA PIA DE LISBOA

The Casa Pia de Lisboa has been, throughout

history, an example of innovation in the areas of

social work, education, training and socio-

professional integration (Carneiro, 2005). Its

capacity for innovation and change comes, once

again, reinforced by the recent commitment of a new

process-oriented management (Smith, 2003),

resulting in benefits in the short, medium and long

term.

Manage, innovate and participate is the Casa Pia

slogan of change towards the vision of this

bicentennial institution to ensure the “rights

promotion and protection of children and young

people, especially those who are in danger or at risk

of exclusion."

LEAN SIX SIGMA APPLIED TO QUALITY AND PRODUCTIVITY IMPROVEMENT IN THE MANAGEMENT

CYCLE - PLANNING AND CONTROL - OF AN EDUCATION, TRAINING AND SOCIAL INTEGRATION

INSTITUTION

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3.1 General Objectives

Under the implementation of its management

oriented processes, CPL defined the following

objectives:

 Define and detail the necessary processes for the

activity of an organization of socio-educational

intervention;

 Implement adequate core and support processes

and proper support tools to manage, regulate and

control strategy deployment, overall

management activity and service delivery

efficiency and effectiveness.

The application of this model-based approach seeks

among other things, to gradually adequate CPL

skills to its new management needs and to ensure the

standardization of its operations and support

processes.

3.2 Specific Objectives

The project aims to improve the Planning and

Control Process in Casa Pia de Lisboa by applying

Lean Six Sigma methodologies and related tools.

The aim is thus to achieve the following specific

objectives:

 Improve the overall performance of the Planning

and Control process;

 Ensure timely and concise management

information;

 Ensure the availability of all management

indicators of month n until the last day of month

n +1;

 Ensure the collection of valid, objective and

relevant information;

 Ensure proper analysis of the information

collected (correction of deviations) in order to

improve decision making processes;

 Ensure that relevant information from other

processes is reported to "control" in the defined

frequency (management indicators).

3.3 Control Process

This process comprises the gathering and

compilation of operational and diverse management

information, and subsequent analysis and control of

that information in order to evaluate the performance

of all units and departments of CPL. It aims to

determine the progress towards fulfilling predefined

targets set within the strategic and operational

planning process (Pereira, 2008).

The activities within a planning and control process

due to the fact that they relate to other entities (Ishii,

2004), necessarily include the definition of

performance indicators, implementation of control

mechanisms to be used to produce management

information on a regular basis (management

reports), analysis of this information identifying

trends and progress, and suggestion of appropriate

remedial action in case of deviation from predefined

targets.

3.4 Design of the Planning and Control

Process

The design of the Planning and Control Process

began with an high level characterization of the

necessary steps to provide management control of

CPL activity which included the design of the

Figure 1: CVCA involved in the process of planning and

control.

CVCA (Customer Value Chain Analysis), Figure 1,

assessment of specific process requirements,

preparation of the affinity diagram based on this

survey, construction of the SIPOC diagrams, design

mapping, definition of process indicators,

development of risk analysis and controls and

strategy implementation, among others, as depicted

in the flow diagram shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2: Flow of activities to construction of a process at

Casa Pia de Lisboa.

3.5 Macro-View Process Control

A high level design of the process control activities

(flowchart) is presented in Figure 3 and identifies

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Figure 3: Process Control Flowchart.

also the main flows between the various stages that

it comprises.

3.6 Critical Success Factors

After the design and initial monitoring of the

planning and control process we identified two

groups of critical success factors to be considered in

the implementation and improvement phase:

a) Communication related factors:

 Ensure coordination between the Planning

Process and Control Process;

 Ensure dissemination of information and

efficient communication channels (inbound /

outbound and inputs / outputs) maximizing the

potential of new technologies;

 Information compliant with procedure

guidelines and submitted within proper

deadlines;

 Clear and timely decision making process.

b) Execution related factors:

 Corrective actions adjusted in terms of content,

time and resources and proportionate to the

problems that arise;

 Ensure mechanisms to determine the deviations;

 Ensure training and specific capacity building of

process intervenients;

 Proactively identify and mitigate or eliminate

barriers to successful implementation of

improvement measures.

3.7 Definition and Selection of Key

Indicators of Process

Five key indicators were identified for the Control

process:

 Non-conformities (or defects) in the register of

information (percentage and DPMO – defects per

million opportunities);

 Indicators with targets/ SMART objectives

(percentage);

 Control functions with competencies defined

(percentage);

 Process efficiency (Percentage);

 Outgoing information arriving within time to

intended recipients (percentage).

3.8 Problems Identified in the Process

CPL planning process is now completed, with all the

goals and objectives of each CPL unit defined and

properly registered. The implementation of the

Control process was initiated in January 2011 and

three months of monitoring have already been

secured. Simultaneously an implementation of a

parallel system to control overall process efficiency

was initiated - performance monitoring of the

Control Process. Although these indicators may be

altered within the course of the improvement phase

(depending on the Define and Measure phases of the

Six Sigma methodology), it is possible, with 3

months of monitoring of this new process to list

some of its problems and defects. Without prejudice

to other issues that might be identified in future, the

project will examine measures to improve the

following problems:

 Non-conformities in the register of information

onto spreadsheets and other reports;

 Some indicators previously defined are

preventing SMART monitoring activities;

 Missed timings and deadlines in the reception

and transmission of information;

 Excessive time spent on filling the information

report;

 Excessive time spent in reporting and/ or in the

treatment of reported information.

4 SIX SIGMA APPLIED TO

PROCESS MANAGEMENT AT

CASA PIA DE LISBOA

Project next step is to initiate the Define phase of the

DMAIC cycle. Under this phase the focus of work

will be on the following:

a) Collection of customer requirements: top

management of CPL and process intervenients (CPL

unit participants);

b) Detailed characterization of problems to be

solved;

c) Estimation of expected benefits (improvement

LEAN SIX SIGMA APPLIED TO QUALITY AND PRODUCTIVITY IMPROVEMENT IN THE MANAGEMENT

CYCLE - PLANNING AND CONTROL - OF AN EDUCATION, TRAINING AND SOCIAL INTEGRATION

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329

objectives);

d) Definition of project team and respective roles;

e) Definition of project plan and project charter.

This initial phase of the DMAIC requires a focused

approach on the requirements of the clients. In order

to properly gather client needs we will be deploying

a questionnaire and conducting interviews with top

management and unit participants (i.e. performing

the Voice of The Customer). This questionnaire will

be focused amongst other things on the identification

of client needs regarding:

- Reporting requirements (e.g. report content,

report frequency, report structure);

- Technology and system related requirements;

- Process related issues (timings, flow of activities,

responsibilities);

- People and other organizational requirements

(e.g. competencies, training, etc).

The questionnaire will also be designed in order to

gather information on the effort/ time spent by each

participant unit with the control process (either

filling in information or analyzing reports).

5 SYNTESIS

Aligned with the vision and strategy defined for

Casa Pia de Lisboa we believe that a serious and

focused quality improvement in the Planning and

Control Process will accelerate this institution

towards the achievement of its goals and objectives.

The ownership and the commitment of people from

the various units has been an important asset of the

project so far. The Planning and Control process is

now properly mapped, documented and

implemented. Improving it to a higher standard is

one of the next management challenges of this

institution.

The expectations in the use of Lean Six Sigma in

this project are high. This methodology has proven

to be a robust tool to achieve relevant improvements

in other organizations, even in educational

institutions. This project will allow CPL to better

monitor and control progress towards its goals,

better support the top management and operational

decision making processes and pursue the

fullfillment of its educational and social mission.

REFERENCES

Bandhyopadhyay, J e Lichtman, R., 2007. “Six Sigma

Approach to Quality and Productivity Improvement in

an Institution for Higher Education in the United

States”, International Journal of Management, Vol 24

No.4, ABI/INFORM Global.

Bane, R., 2002. “Leading edge quality approaches in non-

manufacturing organizations”, Annual Quality

Congress Proceedings; ABI/INFORM Global, p.245.

Carneiro, R., 2005. A project of hope, Principia, ISBN:

972-8818-43-2.

George, M. (2002), Lean Six Sigma, McGraw-Hill, ISBN:

0-07-141821-0.

Ishii, K., 2004. “Customer value chain analysis (CVCA).

ME317 dfM: product definition coursebook. Stanford

Bookstore, Stanford University, pp 1.3.1–1.3.8

Pereira, Z. L, Requeijo, J. G., 2008. Qualidade:

Planeamento e Controlo Estatístico de Processos,

FCT-UNL e Prefácio, Lisboa

Pyzdek, R., 2003. The Six Sigma Handbook – revised and

expanded, McGraw-Hill, ISBN: 0-17-141015-5.

Smith, H., Fingar, P., 2003. Business Process

Management: The third wave, Meghan-Kiffer Press,

ISBN: 0929652339.

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