HERM tells you what runs and where the work flows. Lean Six Sigma adds how well it runs — turning the workflow maps into a measured conversation about waste, quality, and cycle time.
Lean Six Sigma is a process-improvement discipline that pairs two traditions: Lean, which removes waste and shortens the time work takes, and Six Sigma, which reduces variation and defects so a process gives a consistent result. Together they improve a process on both fronts — faster and more reliable — using evidence rather than opinion.
Its purpose is to answer a question HERM alone can't: not just "how does this work get done," but "how well, at what cost in time and rework, and where does it break." It is how a workflow becomes a candidate for improvement instead of just a diagram.
Improvement follows a five-step cycle. Each step has a clear exit before the next begins.
Name the problem, the process, and what a good result means to the people it serves.
Capture how the process performs today — cycle time, wait time, hand-offs, defect rate.
Find the root causes of delay and error, not just the symptoms.
Redesign the flow to remove waste and variation; pilot the change.
Lock in the gain — standardize, monitor, and keep it from drifting back.
DMAIC is the best-known roadmap, but it is one of several. Which you reach for depends on whether you are fixing, designing, or continuously refining a process — all of them run on the same workflow and step data the model already holds.
Define · Measure · Analyze · Improve · Control. For improving an existing process that is underperforming — the default roadmap.
Define · Measure · Analyze · Design · Verify. Design for Six Sigma — for building a new process or service right the first time, not fixing an old one.
Plan · Do · Check (Study) · Act. A lightweight improvement loop for small, iterative changes — quicker than a full DMAIC project.
Continuous, incremental improvement driven by the people who do the work — often run as short, focused Kaizen events on one workflow.
A Lean technique that maps every step and its wait time end to end — the workflow view here is a value-stream map once cycle times are added.
A one-page scope of a process: Suppliers, Inputs, Process, Outputs, Customers. Drafted before a value-stream map, it sets the start and end of a workflow, and its suppliers and inputs often match the systems and data topics already in the catalog.
A single-page structured method — problem, analysis, countermeasures, plan — good for framing one improvement for stakeholders.
The site uses DMAIC as the worked example because most estate-improvement work starts with a process that already exists. DMADV applies when you are standing up something new.
HERM and Lean Six Sigma meet at the workflow. HERM maps the steps of a workflow and the systems each touches; Lean Six Sigma measures those same steps — where the time goes, where errors enter, where a hand-off stalls. The workflow map becomes a value-stream map, and the seams the model already surfaces become the targets for improvement.
The workflow view shows the sequence; add elapsed and wait time and the bottleneck names itself.
The hand-offs between systems — already visible in the model — are where rework and delay concentrate.
Tie a defect rate to a step and the friction a student or colleague feels becomes a number you can move.
Extending the model toward Lean Six Sigma means adding a performance layer to each workflow step and a few new views. A pragmatic starting set:
Elapsed time and queue time per step, so the value-added share of a workflow becomes visible.
How many times work crosses a system or team boundary — each one a place delay and error accrue.
How often a step produces an output that must be corrected or redone downstream.
Mark each step value-add, business-necessary, or waste — the Lean lens on the flow.
Flag steps against the classic wastes: waiting, over-processing, defects, motion, and the rest.
Where an improvement effort stands per workflow: Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, or Control.
Start with one workflow that hurts — onboarding, grant setup, incident resolution. Put cycle time and a defect rate on each step you have already mapped, mark the hand-offs, and the longest waits and the biggest rework loops surface on their own. That is a DMAIC "Measure" step done, on data the model already holds.
Lean and Six Sigma are established process-improvement disciplines. This page describes how they complement HERM; the metrics and DMAIC status are local extensions an institution would populate with its own measurements.