Lean Sigma is the integration of two widely used business improvement approaches - Lean and Six Sigma. Each of the approach by itself has its own merits and focus. However, when integrated together, Lean Sigma offers the organization a wealth of tools and techniques to resolve issues that they may not have been able to overcome through the singular use of Lean or Six Sigma.

Both Lean and Six Sigma are widely recognized as sound management principles with proven methodologies and tools to achieve financial gains. Where they differ is their focus. Lean tools are effective in improving efficiency and speed to market by its focus on the process flow and pull, while Six Sigma tools are more suited for reducing defects and errors through controlling process variation. They are both complementary and with Lean Sigma, one gets to harness the best of Lean and Six Sigma in a single, coordinated initiative.

Lean Sigma has been successfully implemented in both manufacturing as well as service organizations for examples, Production, Trading, health care, financial, tele-communication and information technology.

With Lean Sigma, one can accelerate one's aspirations to achieve business excellence in Quality, Cost and Delivery, with dramatic results to the organization’s bottom line.

Lean is a way of working that enables organizations to use optimal resources to achieve maximum output.

Lean is an organizational-wide strategy that is focused on the relentless elimination of unnecessary, non-value-added activities ie WASTES. Any activity or process that consumes resources, adds cost or time without creating value presents an opportunity for improvement. The outcome of implementing Lean is an organization that is nimble, competitive, flexible and responsive to market demands and needs.

The benefits of Lean deployment are: greater customer satisfaction in terms of shortened delivery or lead time, increased capacity, and cost reduction.

Although the Lean concept has its origins at Toyota ; the Lean management principles and approaches are relevant to both manufacturing and service organisations. The difference lies in the tools that are used for analyzing and improving processes; with some tools generally more suitable for manufacturing processes and some others more suited for services.

Today, Lean is widely applied in manufacturing, as well as hospitals, logistics, travel, financial and government services the world over.