The Focus and Leverage Improvement Book: Locating and Eliminating the Constraining Factor of Your Lean Six Sigma Initiative

Companies all over the world try their best to improve their business by implementing efforts such as Six Sigma, Lean Manufacturing, or a combination of the two methodologies. Logic would tell you that these two methods would be the right approach because you would have an improvement method that, through Lean, reduces waste and make value flow, while Six Sigma reduces and controls variation. If this were true, then why is it that many of these initiatives simply aren’t delivering quantifiable bottom-line results?

After having studied many of these on-going improvement efforts, the author believes that these efforts are missing an important focusing mechanism. That is, most of these improvement efforts attempt to improve "everything" rather than finding that key part of the system that should be assessed and improved, the constraining factor, and then focusing the improvement efforts there and only there.

The hallmark of this book is how to first locate this constraining factor and then determine the best way to exploit it to generate extreme profits, radically improve on-time delivery of products or services and increase market share by outperforming your competition at rates you never expected possible. How do we do this? By combining Lean and Six Sigma with the Theory of Constraints. This book demonstrates both the basics of improvement (i.e. results) with the "how to" (i.e. the methodology) in a very simple format that everyone within your organization will understand.

Bob Sproull is an Independent Consultant and the co-owner of Focus and Leverage Consulting. Bob is a certified Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt and a Theory of Constraints Jonah. Bob has served as a Vice President of Quality, Engineering and Continuous Improvement for two different manufacturing companies, has an extensive consulting background in Healthcare, Manufacturing and Maintenance and Repair Organizations (MRO) and focuses on teaching companies how to maximize their profitability through an integrated Lean, Six Sigma and Constraints Management improvement methodology. Bob is an internationally known speaker and author of numerous white papers and articles on continuous improvement.

Bob’s background also includes 9 years with the Presbyterian University Hospital complex in Pittsburgh, PA where he ran the Biochemistry Department at Children’s Hospital, performed extensive research in breakthrough testing methods and assisted with the development of organ transplant procedures. Bob completed his undergraduate work at the University of Pittsburgh and University of Rochester with a dual Math/Physics major.

A results-driven Performance Improvement Professional with a diverse healthcare, manufacturing, MRO and technical background, he has significant experience appraising under-performing companies, developing and executing highly successful improvement strategies based upon the integration of Lean, Six Sigma, and Constraints Management methodology.

Bob is the author of two books, including The Ultimate Improvement Cycle: Maximizing Profits Through the Integration of Lean, Six Sigma and the Theory of Constraints and Process Problem-Solving: A Guide for Maintenance and Operation’s Teams and co-author of Epiphanized: A Novel on Unifying Theory of Constraints, Lean and Six Sigma,2nd Edition, and Focus and Leverage: The Critical Methodology for Theory of Constraints, Lean, and Six Sigma (TLS).

Degrees, Certifications, and Memberships:

•     Bachelor of Science Equivalent in Math and Physics, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY
•     Certified Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt, Kent State University
•     Certified Six Sigma Black Belt, Sigma Breakthrough Technologies, Inc.
•     TOCICO Strategic Thinking Process Program Certificate
•     TOC Thinking Processes (Jonah Course) L-3 Communications
•     Critical Chain Expert Certificate, Realization Technologies
•    Lean MRO Operations Certificate, University of Tennessee