“AI will make my courses irrelevant.”

My Lean Six Sigma teacher said this to me. I understood the worry. But I couldn't disagree more.

In the course we played a simulation of a small assembly business. Eight people, all working flat out. Result: only 2 of 17 orders delivered, none of them on time.

Nobody was lazy. The process was broken.

Then we moved people to where the work was. Better, but still far from what the customer asked for. Balancing a wasteful process only spreads the waste more evenly.

That's exactly the risk with AI. Put AI on a broken process, and you get the same broken process, just faster.

AI is a fantastic new capability. Like the internet, it lets us do things we simply couldn't before. Everybody wants to use it. The question is where to start.

Lean Six Sigma gives you that starting point:

1. 01Definelisten to the three voices. What does your customer need? What does your operation need to deliver it? Where is the value for the business?
2. 02Measurehow long does it take to deliver? How much is on time and right the first time? And how much of that lead time actually adds value? It's usually a surprisingly small share.
3. 03Analysemap the process as it really runs, not as it's written down. Where does work wait, loop back, or get done differently by each person?
4. 04Improveredesign the flow, and then put AI where it removes waste. Sometimes a whole step simply disappears.
5. 05Controlmake the gains stick. Standards, KPIs and clear ownership.

The biggest gains in the simulation didn't come from working harder. They came from removing work nobody needed.

That's what I want for your organisation's AI journey too. At Bite the Bits, I help SMEs turn their digital and AI ambition into a clear strategy and a pragmatic, human-centred adoption plan.