SCENARIOS: a) Implementing the Lean Sigma framework in an SME: Lean and Six Sigma are two widely acknowledged business process improvement strategies available to organizations today for achieving dramatic results in cost, quality and time by focusing on process performance. Lately, Lean and Six Sigma practitioners are integrating the two strategies into a more powerful and effective hybrid, addressing many of the weaknesses and retaining most of the strengths of each strategy. Lean Sigma combines the variability reduction tools and techniques from Six Sigma with the waste and APU Level 3 Asia Pacific University of Technology & Innovation REDO AQIROLLSMA Grown Proiect Page 2 of 3 non-value added elimination tools and techniques from Lean Manufacturing, to generate savings to the bottom-line of an organization. The last two decades has witnessed an increased pressure from customers and competitors for greater value from their purchase whether based on quality, faster delivery, or lower cost (or combination of both) in both manufacturing and service sector. This has encouraged many industries to adopt either Six Sigma (as their process improvement and problem solving approach) or Lean Manufacturing (for improving speed to respond to customer needs and overall cost) as part of management strategy to increase the market share and maximize profit. II REQUIRED: Discuss the implementation of a Lean Sigma framework into a small to medium-sized enterprise (SME) in order to reduce the defects which occur in the final product manufactured by the companies and satisfy their customers. (50 marks)