Whether it is in an organization, a business or the home, waste is the biggest enemy of progress and productivity. It has long been a goal for any good business to eliminate waste in all of its forms; therefore making processes, no matter how large or small, more efficient and more profitable. This does not mean skipping steps and losing manpower, it means being more efficient with the manpower available and refining each step to be as efficient and useful as possible. When you cut out excess steps in a process and you cut out lag time between processes, you save money on the resources that would normally be tied up within those processes. Six Sigma is a methodology that helps organizations, streamline manufacturing and other processes.

Nobody likes to hear it, but becoming leaner and more efficient takes teamwork. It takes effort from every department up and down the corporate highway. It will take new ideas from unexpected places and thoughts that combine with different viewpoints to help with the solutions that need to be dealt with. It can't be the effort of just one or two individuals; it will take everybody buying into the changes to make them take more quickly and with less resistance. This is accomplished by getting many different parties involved. When an employee, it doesn't matter what department or job they hold, has a say in the process, feels that he or she is contributing to the greater good of the business and will immediately see the rewards and benefits, then you have an employee that will stick with the changes and help refine them because it benefits them directly. Change is not an overnight process, it takes time and effort and change for the sake of change is not necessarily helpful. Identify the problem, put the team together to come up with the solution and then tackle it in an organized manner.