Control

In the Control Phase we first made certain that this was an improved process by use of a control chart where we could see the difference between now and before we began the project.


Once decided that this process was better, by means of variation and a new higher mean output. We next wanted to control the new system. This will be achieved with Standard Work and whiteboards showing the progress they should be adhering too.
This works by having slots on the board that have a target in them depicting how many units they should have produced by that time.

The Above example is using the old skin on the board and will be updated.

This is made more visual by colour coding  the boards, all entries on target will be entered in green while any entries above or below the target are entered in red.

There is also a time series plot on the board that is filled in at the end of the shift by the Group or Team Leads.

These boards will be reviewed every shift to view progress, also audits will be done weekly by support staff to ensure the standard work is being followed.

The boards are also where the product builders will record any issues and reasons why the target has been missed.

These controls will help prevent the new process from regressing and also been reviewed 3 times daily will help drive any recurring issues being fixed.

Improve Phase

We began our Improve Phase by implementing a trial in two work pods targeting our goal output of 58.

In this trial we also kept a log of the issues that arose again preventing us hitting our target. This is useful information and should always be tracked we found from doing this trial and this project.

In this trial we have tried to free up time for the operator and we have done this by removing a step from the process

In the Analyse phase we realized that we prep our part in polish very similarly to how grind finish their part so we moved our belt and are trailing a new contact wheel with it in the grind job step. This is to try and improve the finish quality of the part so when it arrives at the polish job step there will be no need of the belt now moved to grind.

Also the parts tend to receive damage at the blast operation just before the polish job step so we brought in plastic guards for the grates in the blast cabinets and rubber mats for the tables they use at that operation.

Also we Entered 3 weeks of data into mini tab in the trial pods to generate a time series plot so we could better understand what was going on, we used this to view the variation from when we began at a stable 54 with explainable outliers, to the variation seen in the trial weeks. We see it start to get more under control near the end of the graph as the trial progressed.

Some tools we found useful in this phase were logs for the operators to fill if something prevented them hitting their target, a time series plot and trials that had been decided in the previous phase.

Analyse Phase

Analyse Phase

The next step in the DMAIC process is Analyse; I began this by finding out the scope of the machines we use in polish. We have a system which allows us to monitor the running time of our machines and also our downtime. See below



This shows that we only utilize 54% of our machines scope so achieving a higher output machine wise is possible now we need to look at how we can better manage the time for the operators so they can get achieve a higher output without increasing the ergonomic strain



The highlighted areas on this map are the areas we intend to make changes, firstly we noticed that we are repeating a step in grind and polish, in the grind jobstep we dry belt the part with a 220 belt and similarly we dry belt the parts in polish prep with a A65 belt.

In relation to the seven wastes this appears to be over processing of the part. 

Another change being brought in at NDT is also the implementation of a 8 part basket instead of a 4 part basket, this is beneficial as it will decrease the time it takes to run a batch down an automated line and free up the NDT operator to help the grind operator achieve a higher output also, this is vital as we cannot polish more units than we can grind as this will cause ‘’work in progress’’ (wip) shortages.

All this will be trialed and measured the Improve Phase.

Measure Phase

Measure Phase

I began my Measure Phase by making up a log for tracking issues for the product builders. These issues were highlighted in a brainstorming session carried out in the Define Stage.The team used this to keep track of the issues stoping them achieving their target in the polish jobstep. This is all bearing in mind that we are trying to implement a process inprovement and we have not yet gotten to trials where we will be aiming for 58 units a shift but nothing what problems and issues are already there making like difficult for the operators

Next with this information i constructed a pareto to make it visial
We have also been tracking the output across all 3 shifts in all the pods where we want to increase the output for the last 4 weeks. With this information we carried out a capability study where we compared our current baseline against our purposed output increase. we found that we are already hitting our purposed target 12% of the time without any changes implemented, this was a reality check and helped put things inperspective, i thought this was very useful, we used Minitab for this. (see below)
In summary i just gathered what data we felt we needed with the help of the team using a log to keep track of issues, we used a pareto to visulise this.
The output data was very important to guage where we are now against where we want to be. Minitab I found excellent.
We now have info for the Analyse Phase and will look at it more closely there.

Define Phase

Hi my name is Brian and as part of my course in six sigma I will be under taking a green belt project using a DMAIC approach to initiate a process improvement within our system to achieve a higher output in an 8 hour shift with the same head count as present, and also with a huge focus on not increasing the ergonomic strain on the product builders.

I started the Define stage by drawing up a detailed process flow chart; this outlined all the steps in the process that I need to improve, i.e. the steps within the process along with materials used and how many product builders were involved. With all these steps highlighted I was able to select three product builders that work in the relevant areas I will be focusing on (they would be subject matter experts in their roles), to join a team which I will head up under the supervision of the shift manager and a black belt sponsor.

With the team now picked I held a brainstorming session which was key in defining our goal from this project as getting the team together and ensuring that all members have the same understanding of the problem. Using this tool we created our problem statement and our objective statement.

Problem Statement:

More output required to bring down cost of labour per unit

Objective statement:

Increase output in a ‘’Pod’’ per shift thus reducing the labour cost of a unit without increasing ergonomic strains on the product builder

By outlining where we are at present with data we collect daily across all three shifts, that being outputs per ‘’Pods’’ per shift. We were able to establish our base line and our metric that we want to improve, next we started to come up with ideas on what was stopping us achieving more output per ‘’Pod’’. Furthermore with the data collected over the past few months we were able to identify that the average cost of labour per unit alone was $18.50 over the last four months which is $0.23 more than our target labour cost of$18.27, this adds up to a substantial amount over a year with a build plan of 300,000

In summary the tools I used and found helpful were a Process Flow Map and Brainstorming. I thought about using a Fishbone Diagram but felt at this stage a Brainstorming session was more suitable helping to identify what the team saw as the biggest issue's at present. With these identifed we can now set out a system to start measuring for our next step in the DMAIC process.