Lean and Six Sigma Consulting Editing and Proofreading Services

"Improve efficiency in the packing area" sits at the top of the sheet, and eleven weeks later a team has mapped a process, run three workshops, and produced a list of actions. Nobody can say whether the actions were worth doing. The sheet never stated what was wrong, by how much, or how the packing area would run once the problem was fixed. The team was handed a topic, and a topic does not tell anyone when to stop.

The documents we edit for Lean and Six Sigma Consulting

A3 reports and the problem statements at the head of them account for most of this work. Project charters, scope documents, and current and target condition descriptions come with them. Value stream map narratives, standard work documentation, kaizen event documentation and outcomes, and control plan and sustainment documentation follow. DMAIC phase gate documentation, coaching and training material, benefit realization and savings claims, and reporting to sponsors and steering groups make up the rest. Our editors work on the problem statement and the target condition.

What the editing involves

A problem statement is a measured difference between what is happening and what should be happening, in a named place, with a consequence attached. "Improve efficiency" names an area of interest instead. We work through these until the gap carries its measure, its current level, its reference level, and the difference between the last two. A team told that a changeover runs at 240 seconds against a reference of 180 knows when the project is finished. A team told to improve efficiency does not.

Location and boundary belong in the same sentence as the gap. A charter reading "the packing area" leaves a team to choose among the four processes the client's own value stream map shows there, and that choice is the client's to make rather than ours. We ask which process the charter means and record the answer in the words the client used. The consequence belongs in the units the organization already counts: hours, units, cost, late deliveries, or safety events.

The target condition describes how the process will run, not what the number will be. "A 15 percent improvement" gives a team nothing to design against, while a paragraph describing the flow, the sequence, and the points where material waits gives them something to build toward. Assumptions about cause are better kept out of the problem statement altogether, because a statement reading "operators do not follow the standard" has settled the analysis in advance. The date the gap was measured belongs on the sheet as well, since a figure taken in March is a different figure by November.

Confidentiality and the limits of our role

Everything you send us is treated in confidence, including client data, project material, and results. We are editors, not improvement practitioners, and we offer no opinion on methods, analysis, or results. What we can do is turn a topic into a measured gap.