Improving a process

- [Instructor] No matter how good your supply chain is, there's always a way to make it better. There are three approaches to continuous process improvement that are so common, we throw the jargon around and just expect everyone to understand what we mean. Don't worry, I'm going to give you a really easy way to visualize Six Sigma, Lean, and the Theory of Constraints so that you can remember what they do and hold your own in those process improvement meetings. Start by imagining that your supply chain is a river that flows through your company. Upstream, you have suppliers. Downstream, you have customers. Let's say we go for a long time without having any rain, and the river level drops. Then, we suddenly get a storm, and the river floods. On average, the river might be moving the perfect amount of water, but that variability between the flood and the drought makes it really hard to manage. That's where we use Six Sigma. Six Sigma focuses on reducing the variability in all of your…