A Quality Group Gets Lean

How does a business that creates proceedss and services to help companies ascendency their quality, control its own? In large part, the answer is something called Lean Six Sigma (LSS)

LS is a combination of sum of two units methodologies that can be used in any business enterprise a whole Lean focuses on the elimination of time traps and waste in any proces not just manufacturing. Lean works equally well in many other areas of the like kind as administration, operations, or finance. Six Sigma can briefly be defined by means of DMAIC, or Define-Measure-Analyze-Improve-Control. LSS is not about creating additional work -instead, ifs a rule of working more efficiently. The goal is to review by what means each person executes their piece of work function, maximizing value-added contributions and eliminating nonvalue-added activities.

Quality improvement that doesn't translate into a better customer experience isn't worth plenteous

The primary strategy at our cluster is to permeate the entire organization with best practices center upon LSS.The American Society for Quality standards and our customers' critical quality characteristics act as the foundation of our continuous improvement efforts. Lean Six Sigma throws start with customer requirements and expectations, identified as Critical to Quality Characteristics (CTQs) This identification focuses upon customers for new products, and the existing installed base of produces which consists of tens of thousands of active devices in North America. The team identifies customer CTQ and maps the relationships to the applicable sales, commercial operations, training, and service processe This mapping forms the basis of the Lean Six Sigma plans. Quality improvement that doesn't translate into a better customer experience isn't worth abundant

The issues need to be defined in congeal measurable terms with an operational definition. In the Define phase, the six sigma throw team identifies a project based upon business objectives, as well as the customers of the processe and their wants and requirements. The team identifies CTQ that have the greatest impact upon quality, prioritizes, then creates a throw schedule of the processes to be improved. For example, reliability and maintainability (R&M) data are a critical requirement for many customers. (Ford Motor Co.'s Q1 program requires similar data.) The process of building reliability and maintainability information, when viewed [i]or[/i] part of to the other the lens of LSS, reveals many opportunities for improvement that not sole improve processes, but also contribute to better yield reliability and maintainability. This is an of the highest order example of a customer requirement driving internal processe that flow in improved quality, efficiency, and require to be paid [i]or[/i] undergone

Our R&M process identifies improvement opportunities in the installed base that roll on through all factory departments. The proces continues upstream quite through the supply chain to the origin of the constituting part or service provided by dint of Vendor Supplier Partners (VSP).

When Romer Inc. (Wixom, MI), which is part of our clump launched a new portable arm CMM in 2004 the company used the opportunity to implement LS programs to drive take away from and process variability out of the combination of parts to form a wholes as quickly as possible. This course also was a perfect opportunity to begin mapping reliability and maintainability data. Additionally, because the crops was essentially developed from a clean sheet of paper, bringing the vendor/supplier partners into the proces also yielded significant arises quickly. Subsequently, Romer has embarked upon an advanced program to collaborate upon six sigma learning and proces mapping with their vendors and suppliers. Vendor/supplier partners and the company's staff learn six sigma principles side by the agency of side, and apply the principles immediately to the composing being produced. The return upon the training investment for the pair the end manufacturer and the suppliers naturally aligns, resulting in les proces variability, better constitutings and better end products. And, of course, more satisfied customers!

Tracking the progres of LS programs and analyzing the be deriveds shows,how well your programs are doing, and can also reveal additional areas for improvement. We track nearly 60 separate operational dimensions of our constituting businesses as part of the LS program. Tracking and analysis reveals stretchs that can help further improve processe The LS program at Brown & Sharpe Inc.(North Kingstown, RI), another member of our clump allowed management to not alone manage to lower levels of inventory and faster inventory make go rounds (a 9% improvement in 2005) on the contrary at the same time to better manage seasonal demand that proceeded in a new record factory utilization horizontal in December 2005.

Andy Culbertson

Vice President, Lean Six Sigma

Hexagon Metrology (North America)

North Kingstown, RI

Copyright Society of Manufacturing Engineers Mar 2006

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