Applying Lean Six Sigma and TRIZ methodology in banking services

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ApplyingLeanSixSigmaandTRIZmethodologyinbankingservices

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Applying Lean Six Sigma and TRIZmethodology in banking servicesFu-Kwun Wang a b & Kao-Shan Chen ba Department of Industrial Management, National TaiwanUniversity of Science and Technology, Taiwan, ROCb Graduate Institute of Management, National Taiwan Universityof Science and Technology, Taiwan, ROC

Available online: 08 Apr 2010

To cite this article: Fu-Kwun Wang & Kao-Shan Chen (2010): Applying Lean Six Sigma and TRIZmethodology in banking services, Total Quality Management & Business Excellence, 21:3, 301-315

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Applying Lean Six Sigma and TRIZ methodology in banking services

Fu-Kwun Wanga,b and Kao-Shan Chenb

aDepartment of Industrial Management, National Taiwan University of Science and Technology,Taiwan, ROC; bGraduate Institute of Management, National Taiwan University of Science andTechnology, Taiwan, ROC

Service operations now comprise more than 80% of the GDP in the United States andare rapidly growing around the world. The cost to maintain and service an application istypically more than the initial purchase price. The revenue growth potential ofimproving the speed and quality of service often overshadows the cost reductionopportunities. The Lean Six Sigma approach is a popular methodology to improvethe business opportunities in customer satisfaction, cost and process speed formanufacturing. In this study, we attempt to extend the Lean Six Sigma approach to abroader application in the service industry and integrate TRIZ methodology to enhancethe traditional techniques of Lean Six Sigma. Theoria Resheneyva IsobretatelskehuhZadach (TRIZ) is an effective method for analysing customer needs and developinginnovative solutions to meet those needs. A sample problem of the banking service isused to demonstrate how TRIZ can be applied to a real-world problem while in a LeanSix Sigma DMAIC process. The results show that the application of Lean Six Sigmamethodology with TRIZ performs effectively in the improvement of banking services.

Keywords: Lean Six Sigma; DMAIC; TRIZ; banking services

Introduction

Over the past two decades, industrial organisations have embraced a wide variety of man-

agement programmes that they hope will enhance competitiveness. Currently, two of the

most popular programmes are Six Sigma and Lean management. The Six Sigma approach

is primarily a methodology for improving the capability of business processes by using

statistical methods to identify and decrease or eliminate process variation. Its goal is

reduction of defects and improvements in profits, employee morale and product quality.

Lean management originated at Toyota Motor Corporation in Japan and is an approach

that eliminates waste by reducing costs in the overall production process, in operations

within that process, and in the utilisation of production labour. Inventory waste is also

eliminated by producing to customer order rather than to forecasted requirements.

In more recent times, some businesses have combined the ideas of Six Sigma and Lean

management, to produce a method called Lean Six Sigma (LSS), to emphasise the quality

and service improvement process offered by Six Sigma and the productivity and cost

reduction tools offered by Lean management. Thus LSS improvement is brought out of

manufacturing and into services as much of the world economy is now based on services

rather than manufacturing.

When we surveyed the application of LSS approach locally, we found that most

research usually focuses on the process improvement of manufacturing spots and

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Total Quality Management

Vol. 21, No. 3, March 2010, 301–315

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seldom discusses business performance from the viewpoint of the service industry,

especially in banking services, which is the most critical topic in service operations.

Service operations now comprise more than 80% of the GDP in the United States and

are rapidly growing around the world, and banking services are the most critical

concern in the service industry. It is necessary to find a method to improve the performance

of service operations. LSS for service is a business improvement methodology that maxi-

mises shareholder value by achieving the fastest rate of improvement in customer satisfac-

tion, cost, quality, process speed and invested capital. Most of the applications of LSS used

in the improve phase rely on psychological brainstorming tools that make the improve-

ment inadequately. There is lack of a systematic method in the improve phase of LSS.

The theory of inventive problem solving (TRIZ) is a systematic methodology that

allows creative problems in any field of knowledge to be revealed and solved, while devel-

oping creative (inventive) thinking skills and a creative personality. Often at the root of a

problem’s solution lies what seems at first glance to be a wild idea. TRIZ gives one the

ability not only to be prepared for such ideas, but to create them. TRIZ is an effective

method for analysing customer needs and developing innovative solutions to meet

customer needs. Here, we propose a new approach that integrates TRIZ into the

improve phase of the LSS approach to illustrate the business improvement for the

service industry focusing on banking services.

The rest of this paper is organised as follows. Section 2 reviews the related research on

LSS and TRIZ methodology. Section 3 describes a case study using our proposed method

to improve the business performance in banking services. The final section presents the

conclusions and directions for future research.

Literature review

In the past, Six Sigma and the principles behind Lean management have often seemed

more like competitors than co-conspirators. The recent LSS approach in general

outline is a powerful action plan for dramatically improving quality, increasing speed

and reducing waste. Arnheiter and Maleyeff (2005) suggested that a LSS organisation

would capitalise on the strengths of both Lean management and Six Sigma. There are

many examples of implementing the LSS approach in the manufacturing industry.

Pickrell et al. (2005) presented two case studies for LSS projects completed at a world-

wide manufacturer of precision slip rings and integrated motion systems for high

performance requirements in military and commercial aircraft, satellites and space

vehicles, missiles, and automated industrial machinery. The results show that the LSS

approach can reduce the costs, cycle time, customer returns and inventory, and increase

in production capacity.

Furterer and Elshennawy (2005) presented a case study of applying Lean and Six

Sigma tools and principles to improving the quality and timeliness in a city’s finance

department. After implementing a LSS programme, the time to process payroll, purchas-

ing and accounts payable were reduced by 60%, 40% and 87%, respectively. Heuvel et al.

(2006) stated that hospitals faced major challenges where patients demand that quality of

care be improved continuously and health insurance companies demand the lowest poss-

ible prices. They applied a LSS programme to help healthcare providers to achieve these

conflicting goals. Koning et al. (2006) illustrated how principles of Lean thinking and Six

Sigma can be combined to provide an effective framework for producing systematic inno-

vation efforts in healthcare and emphasised that a service operation requires systematic

innovation efforts to remain competitive, cost efficient, and up to date.

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The theory of inventive problem solving (TRIZ) is a science that allows creative pro-

blems in any field of knowledge to be revealed and solved, while developing creative

(inventive) thinking skills and a creative personality (Altshuller, 2000). Often at the root

of a problem’s solution lies what seems at first glance to be a wild idea. TRIZ gives one

the ability not only to be prepared for such ideas, but to create them. TRIZ is the knowl-

edge-based, systematic approach to innovation. TRIZ methods are drawn from analysis

of the most innovative inventions in different industries, technologies, and fields of engin-

eering. These principles can be used to consciously develop a system along its path of tech-

nical evolution. It has been proved that TRIZ is a powerful problem-solving methodology

through its development over about 60 years. TRIZ provides people with a dialectic way of

thinking, which guides us to understand the problem as a system, to get an image of the ideal

solution first and to promote the performance of products by solving contradictions. Domb

and Dettmer (1999) reported that inventors using TRIZ experienced an improvement of

70% to 300% or more in the number of creative ideas that they generated for solving tech-

nical problems and in the speed with which they generated innovative ideas.

Many researches that integrate or compare TRIZ with different creativity tools,

methods and philosophies have shown that TRIZ provides the most useful help to

designers for developing high-level products and service application as well. Manufactur-

ing is an area wherein one can easily find applications of TRIZ integrated with problem-

solving tools (Stratton & Mann, 2003; Stratton & Warburton, 2003). During the

application, it is important to define the conflicts, and then based on the conflicts, to

develop innovative solutions. The service industry is an area where TRIZ is difficult to

apply; but along with its fast development and its integration with problem-solving

tools, integrated methods have been applied in this area (King, 2004).

Lean Six Sigma with TRIZ

No matter what the approach is for deploying improvements within the company, having a

standard improvement model like DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyse, Improve, Control)

is extremely helpful because it provides the company with an improvement roadmap.

There are a lot of resources out there that describe the DMAIC process. Generally, after

the project’s definition phase, key process characteristics are identified and benchmarked

in the measure and analyse phases; this is then followed by the improve phase where a

process is modified for better performance, and the control phase aims at monitoring

and sustaining the gains. The basic elements and key tools in LSS DMAIC are as follows.

In the define phase, a team and its sponsors reach agreement on what the project is and

what it should accomplish. They should establish some metrics to measure the success of

the project, such as customer satisfaction, speed or lead time, sigma level improvement,

and financial outcomes. In order to accomplish the objectives of this step, a tool is used

to help in confirming or refining project scope and boundaries. A common tool is a

SIPOC diagram which includes Suppliers, Inputs, Process, Outputs and Customers for

creating a high-level map of process:

. Suppliers – the entities that provide whatever is worked on in the process. The

supplier may be an outside vendor or another division or a co-worker.. Inputs – the information or material provided.. Process – the steps used to transfer (both those that add value and those do not add value).. Outputs – the product, service or information being sent to the customer (preferably

emphasising critical quality features).

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. Customers – the next step in the process, or the final customers. A core principle of

LSS is that defects can relate to anything that makes a customer unhappy, such as

long lead time, poor quality, or high cost, for instance.

To address any of these problems, the first step is to take a process view of how the

company goes about satisfying a particular customer requirement.

In the measure phase, the performance standard of the process is verified and estab-

lished to obtain a baseline for future improvements. One of the major advances of LSS

is its demand for data-driven management. Most other problem-solving methodologies

tended to dive from identifying a project into the improve phrase without sufficient data

to really understand the underlying causes of the problem. A service that is trying to

improve the process will spend a great deal of its time dealing with data problems.

There are a lot of measure tools that includes everything from data collection to brain-

storming methods and prioritising tools. Some of the most common tools are process

description tools (value stream maps, process cycle efficiency, and time value analysis),

focus/prioritisation tools (FMEA (failure mode and effects analysis), Pareto), data collec-

tion, and quantifying and describing variation (control charts).

The purpose of the analyse phase is to make sense of all information and data collection in

the measure phase, and to use that data to confirm the source of delays, waste and poor quality.

The most common tools used in the analyse phase are those used to map out and explore cause

and effect relationships such as ‘5 Whys’ analysis, cause and effect diagrams, scatter plots,

etc. One of the major themes of LSS is that slow processes are expensive processes. Value

stream mapping analysis is also a key tool for a team to identify the hidden time traps, and

to find out the root causes to achieve a substantial increase in value-added time in process.

The purpose of the improve phase is to make changes in a process that will eliminate

the defects, waste, costs, etc. Common tools are those such as solution matrices that link

brainstormed solution alternatives to customer needs and the project purpose. Many of

the Lean tools play their most important role in the improve phase, for instance the pull

system, set-up reduction, queuing methods for reducing congestion and delays, and 5s

(structurise, systemise, sanitise, standardise and self-discipline). As regards the service

industry, in particular the banking service, the above-mentioned tools for the improve

phase would be insufficient to solve the problem. Here we introduce TRIZ methodology

to substitute the tools. TRIZ provides people with a dialectic way of thinking, which

guides us to understand the problem as a system, to visualise the ideal solution first and to

promote the performance of products by solving contradictions. Except for the areas of

science and technology, TRIZ also has been applied to non-technical problems.

The purpose of the control phase is to make sure that any gains made will be preserved

until new knowledge and data show that there is an even better way to operate the process.

There are some areas of control that are critical in service environments, such as making sure

the improved process is documented, turning results into dollars, ensuring that maintenance

of gains is verified down the road, ensuring that an automatic monitoring system is installed

which will identify any ‘out of control’ situation, piloting the implementation, and develop-

ing a control plan. A control chart is one of the key control tools; mistake prevention and

mistake proofing are two other very helpful closely related concepts in the control phase.

Case study

We proposed a new approach that integrated TRIZ into the improve phase of the LSS

approach to demonstrate performance improvement in banking services. The case study

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in this research is a practical project involved in improving wealth management and

customer services in a representative savings bank. The case company called company-T

was established in 1966. During many years of operation, the company has provided a com-

plete range of services, including savings deposits, loans, guarantees, foreign exchange,

overseas banking unit (OBU), trusts, credit cards, cash cards, securities, bonds, financial

derivatives, electronic banking, etc. The growth of the company has been closely linked

to Taiwan’s economic development, as the company both experienced and played a part

in the formation and development of the country’s financial market. To enhance customers’

satisfaction and improve competitive advantage in the banking industry is very important.

In order to strengthen its position in 2006, in view of the hyper-competition in business, the

top management of company-T determined to gain further competitive advantage by utilis-

ing the Lean Six Sigma approach. One of the projects was to improve the operation of

savings accounts. Others include cycle time reduction of call centres, IT process redesign

and improvement of the operation of remittance based on the KPIs (key performance

indicators) of MBO (management by objectives) in the company’s yearly plan.

The sample of the savings account project was selected in this article because the

project is very important for both internal and external customers. The representative

activities of the LSS approach and TRIZ in this case study are demonstrated as follows.

Define phase

In the define phase there are three steps:

Step 1

Identify the important problems and select the project – according to the experience of

company-T, it takes much more time and resources to serve the customers as compared

to the expectations of top management and external customers. Consequently, it was ident-

ified that the important problem was to shorten the cycle time of operation of the savings

account. Thus, for better turnover efficiency, according to the voices of customers, the

project title is identified as ‘to reduce the cycle time of operation in savings account’.

Step 2

Define the value stream map and determine the vital few factors – based on step 1, the

project team analyses the high-level process of SIPOC-related activities and value

stream map. It is a very effective and important communication tool in service operation.

It ensures that the team members are all reviewing the process in the same way. It also

informs leadership of exactly what the team is working on. The process is mapped at a

high level. Then working from the right, identify the customers, the outputs, the inputs

and the suppliers as shown in Table 1. Based on the high-level process of SIPOC, and

the value stream map of the project which the activity is ‘value added’ or ‘non-value

added’ as the process of Figure 1. According to the value stream map as shown in

Figure 1, all procedures as circled will be identified the main problems in this project.

Step 3

Define defects and determine the successful indicators – according to the cycle time col-

lection from the value stream map, there is approximately 40% difference between target

and actual time in the banking service activities for opening a new account, i.e. the average

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actual time is about 16 minutes for a customer while the target time is 12 minutes com-

pared to the benchmark. For in-scope, the project team defines ‘more than 12 minutes

for an opening new account activity’ as one defect in this case, and the successful indicator

is determined to reduce 70% cycle time of this activity.

Measure phase

In the measure phase, the performance standard of the process is verified and established to

obtain a baseline for future improvements. Two steps are given as follows:

Step 1

Data collection plan – in order to understand the process capability before improvement, a

data collection plan is deployed to gather sample data from actual time collection.

Table 1. The SIPOC process map with project scope.

Supplier Input Process Output Customer

† Customers† Staff

† ID card† ID sheet† Seal† Contract form† Signature

† Fill the form† Check the data† Establish savings

account file† Validate the data† Deliver all

documents

† Confirmed document† ID card† Contract† Application form† Account document† Bankbook† Band card

† Customers† Staff† Officer

Figure 1. The value stream map with project scope before improvement.

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Step 2

Measure as-is process capability. According to the individual control chart of latest 56

samples (see Figure 2), the results show that the average time is 14.83 minutes, the

short-term capability Cpk and long-term capability Ppk of this process is 0.86 and 0.57.

Thus, the current-state process capability is not so good compared to the target.

Analyse phase

In the analyse phase, the performance objective is defined and the key sources of variations

are identified. Three steps are given as follows:

Step 1

Identify root causes – the root causes of the problem of variation and waste between target

time and actual time are identified by using a cause and effect matrix and Pareto diagram

(see Figure 3). The cause and effect matrix is a method that uses the relationship between

input factors and output variables to identify the priority of causes, and the Pareto diagram

illustrates 80% problems are from 20% root causes as in Figure 3.

Step 2

Failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA) – the use of FMEA is to identify in advance the

factors that may cause function failure in the key process and allocate a risk priority

number (RPN). Factors with a high RPN, usually defined as greater than 125, will be

selected and corrective actions will be recommended (see Table 2).

Figure 2. The process capability sixpack for before improvement.

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Step 3

Identify vital few initial variables – in the Pareto diagram and FMEA as depicted in Figure

3 and Table 3. The project team concludes that the main problems in this project are: filling

in all new account forms; the procedure of applying a new account; and checking pro-

cedures of supervisors. The vital few initial variables are (1) too much of the file needs

to be filled in; (2) the file that needs to be filled in is unclear; (3) no notice customers;

(4) no standard operational procedure for supervisor to check the documents; (5) no

consistent operational standard for staff.

Improve phase

In the improve phase, we use TRIZ methodology to improve the process performance.

Four steps are given:

Step 1

Develop solutions – based on the findings of the significant causes in the analyse phase,

the improvement activities using TRIZ methodology are proposed. TRIZ analyses pro-

blems through the unique perspective of contradiction. In technical areas, contradictions

are relatively more tangible and easier to appreciate. Although services are different

from physical products, contradictions are also often found in services. Service contradic-

tions may seem more intangible and abstract than those found in technical areas. To extend

the TRIZ application and progress the project of implementing TRIZ in the service

Figure 3. The root causes analysis based on Pareto diagram.

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Table 2. FMEA analysis for the key process.

Specificfunction(s) ofprocess step

Potential failuremodes

Potential effects offailures Severity

Potential causesof failure Occurrence

Currentprocesscontrols Detection

Riskpriority no.

(RPN)Recommended

corrective actions

Complete thedocuments

The document isnot complete

Rework by customers 3 Too much fileneeds to be filled

7 No 10 210 Redesign the sheet

Customers comeagain to complete thedocuments

6 No remark tonotice customers

10 No 10 600 Redesign the sheet

Supervisorcheck andacceptance

Documentscheckuncompleted

Customers need tocome again tocomplete thedocuments

6 No consistentoperationalstandard

4 No 10 240 Redesign the checkmechanism

Take wrong passworddocument

6 No standardoperationalprocedure

4 No 10 240 Error proofingmechanism

To

tal

Qu

ality

Ma

na

gem

ent

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industry, 40 non-technical inventive principles with applications in service operations

(Saliminamin & Nezafati, 2003) will be applied in this case to solve the service contradic-

tions. Based on the professional analysis in the analyse phase and the experience of the

project team, it could be observed that customer satisfaction is the primary problem.

Improvement of customer satisfaction becomes the goal of the company as it tries to

gain a competitive advantage in the operation of its business. The other problems

include extra costs due to waiting time of operation and working errors. For this

purpose, the project team delivered new business solutions to customers. From this,

improved customer satisfaction, operation cost and time management are acquired

through the useful functions of improving operational availability and enhancing the oper-

ational performance. However, the harmful functions (HF) of an operation cost and

waiting of service availability are accompanied by a corresponding increase in the com-

pany’s total operation cost. Since there are inherent contradicting relationships existing

in this situation, we could identify the problems to be within the various areas of the

operation’s efficiency, waiting time, cost of operation, and performance of operation.

To improve the performance of the accounting operation, the project team attempted to

simplify the checking process of opening an account, enhance the filing capacity,

shorten waiting times, and enhance ease of use within the operations. Corresponding to

the definition of the 39 features of the contradiction matrix, the features will be considered

for improvement as follows:

. 3 Speed (corresponding to the operation’s efficiency).

. 19 Loss of time (corresponding to waiting time).

. 27 Ease of use (corresponding to ease of use).

. 32 Extent of automation (corresponding to simplify the checking process).

On the other hand, in the process redesigns, the risk will be increased when the new

process is released, and the operation becomes complex. Add to these the difficulties

encountered and we now come up with the worsening situations occurring in the new oper-

ation. Hence, we consider the following contradiction matrix as the ones which became

worse:

. 2 Weight of stationary object (shorten the waiting time, the voice of customer will be

ignored).. 21 Reliability (simplify the checking process, the performance will be worse).

Table 3. The partial contradiction matrix with suggested inventive principles.

Worseningfeature ! 2 21 29 32

Improvingfeature �

Weight ofstationaryobject

Reliability Adaptability /versatility

Productivity

3 Speed — 11, 35, 27, 28 15, 10, 26 26, 35, 18, 1919 Loss of time 10, 20 10, 30 35, 28 2, 26, 35

26, 5 4 10, 1827 Ease of use 6, 13 17, 27 15, 34 2, 35

1, 25 8, 40 1, 16 35, 2433 Extent of

automation28, 27 1, 35 1, 35 15, 1, 32

15, 3 10, 38 28, 37 1, 8, 35

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. 29 Adaptability/Versatility (enhance the filing capacity, the operation system will

be limited).. 33 Productivity (enhance ease of use, the output of operation will be worse).

We examine the contradiction matrix to denote the numbers of the inventive principles

in which the rows contain the features that have been worsened as a result of improv-

ing the features in the column; the partial contradiction matrix with suggested inven-

tive principles is shown in Table 3. The principles will be used in the project as

follows.

The denoted numbers by the frequencies in the matrix will be ranked the order as

follows: no. 35 (occurred nine times), no. 1 (occurred six times), no. 10 (occurred five

times), nos. 15, 26, 28 (occurred four times), no. 27 (occurred three times), nos. 2, 8, 18

(occurred two times), and the rest occurred only once. A rule will be suggested that we

use those non-technical inventive principles occurring at least three times as our targeted

reference principles to start with. These are the following:

. Inventive principle 35: Transformation of the structure function or value in social

process units.. Inventive principle 1: Social intermediate.. Inventive principle 10: Recognising and making necessary social situations for

future.. Inventive principle 15: Dynamicity.. Inventive principle 26: Recognising similar systems and renewed programme

running.. Inventive principle 27: Temporary and small systems for old, permanent systems.. Inventive principle 28: Using more influence social process with less connection.

Step 2

Implement improvement plan – the project team iteratively analysed each of the inventive

principles and met with the professional staff and managers from related departments to

generate the improvement action according to the problems (see Table 4).

Step 3

Redesign the value stream map and identify the new process capability – after the improve-

ment plan has progressed for approximately six months, the project team collects the latest

60 samples to calculate the new process capability in order to observe the improvement.

After implementing improvement action from Table 5, there is significant improvement

for the waiting time of opening an account, and the operational cost and internal failure

cost are reduced as well. A new process has been designed as per Figure 4 and the

process capability after improvement as per Figure 5. The results of analysis show that

the average waiting time is reduced dramatically from 14.83 minutes to 9.96 minutes for

each operation. Furthermore, the process capability of Ppk and Cpk are enhanced from

0.57 and 0.86 to 1.51 and 2.04, respectively.

Control phase

In the control phase, a robust control plan of risk management to prevent system failure is

proposed, together with use of a control chart. The project team uses possibility points and

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influence points, which rank from 1 to 9 points individually, to determine the final risk

score, which is formed by possibility multiplying influence. The representative example

is demonstrated as Table 5 and the control chart is as Figure 6.

After the adaptation of the LSS approach, the waiting time is reduced from 14.83

minutes to 9.96 minutes for each operation, and the cost saving during 12 months will

be about US$828,000.

Table 4. The improvement action with the inventive principles.

No.Problems needed to be

improved Selected inventive principles Improvement action

1 Customers usually makemistakes while writingdocument in peak time

Inventive principle 15:Dynamicity

Making placard to remindcustomers to avoid mistake

Inventive principle 27:Temporary and small systemsfor old, permanent systems

Marking an annotation in theplace where it is easy to makemistake

2 The annotation in thedocument is unclear thatcaused the errors thatoccurred in branch office

Inventive principle 1: Socialintermediate

The staff in the branch officeremind customers to read theannotation through SSCannouncement

3 The key-in staff easilymake mistakes

Inventive principle 26:Recognising similar systemsand renewed programmerunning

Improving the performanceappraisal for key-in staffSetting the criteria forrecruitmentRecruiting the person who isreliable

4 The person who has thehigh-speed key-in usuallymakes lots of errors

Inventive principle 26:Recognising similar systemsand renewed programmerunning

Improving the performanceappraisal for key-in staff

Inventive principle 28: Usingmore influence social processwith less connection

Setting the error proofmechanism in operationsystem

5 Simplify the operation ofchecking documents

Inventive principle 35:Transformation of the structurefunction or value in socialprocess units

Rearrange the checkingsystem based on the accountvolumeThe standard operationprocedure of opening accountwill be amended to match thenew check system

Table 5. Example of risk management in the control plan.

Risk causes Possibility Influence Risk score Prevention actions

Job turn aroundperiodically.

4 5 20 Establish a standard operationalprocedures guide

Records in system arenon-conformance.

3 6 18 Building a mistake-proofingmechanism in key-in system

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Figure 4. The value stream map with project scope after improvement.

Figure 5. The process capability sixpack for after improvement.

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Conclusion

The majority of applications of the LSS approach are usually focused on the improvement

of the manufacturing spots instead of the service industry, especially in banking service.

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the improvement effectiveness of utilising the

LSS approach with TRIZ methodology in the service industry, to reduce waste and cost in

a savings bank company. Basically, for LSS to work smoothly, managers at all levels must

commit to invest the resources to initiate, promote, actualise and support the programme.

In other words, providing employees with training, resources, knowledge and authority to

solve problems is crucial for the success of the LSS project.

By execution of DMAIC þ TRIZ, the case study company, company-T, successfully

eliminates waste of waiting time for opening an account, modifies business cultures and

creates the infrastructure to initiate and sustain greater performance and profitability.

The concrete performance of utilising LSS in company-T shows the cost saving of

US$828,000 and obvious enhancement of short-term and long-term process capability

from 0.86 and 0.57 to 2.04 and 1.51. The results prove that the application of the LSS

approach combined with TRIZ methodology effects successful improvement of service

activities as well as the improvement of manufacturing spots.

References

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Figure 6. Control chart for waiting time of opening new account operation.

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