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Lean Manufacturing Tools - The Six Big Losses

2/24/2019

One important tool of Lean Manufacturing is the Six Big Losses. While it is sometimes forgotten, you should make sure that you use it within your business.

The Six Big Losses were developed originally by Seiichi Nakajima back in 197. According to him, employees were responsible for all maintenance and they should carry it out divided into small groups.

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Why Should You Use The Six Big Losses

When you need a more detailed perspective on equipment loss, there is no better tool than the Six Big Losses. But let's take a closer look at each one of the Six Big Losses in more detail:

#1: Unplanned Stops:

Unplanned Stops occur when a piece of specific equipment should be up and running but, instead, it is stopped due to an unplanned event. Some examples include being blocked by downstream equipment, being starved by upstream equipment, lack of materials or operators, unplanned maintenance, tool failures, equipment breakdowns, among others.

#2: Planned Stops:

Another one of the Six Big Losses is Planned Stops. These occur whenever the piece of equipment is stopped due to a planned event but it should be running. Some examples of Planned Stops include quality inspections, planned maintenance, cleaning, tooling adjustments, changeovers, among others. There are some businesses that also consider meetings and breaks as Planned Stops.

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#3: Small Stops:

Small Stops are stops that usually only take about a minute or two. They occur suddenly but the problem is solved by the operator. This type of stops is usually called chronic since they can occur within any day. Some examples include periodic quick cleaning, equipment design issues, blocked or misaligned sensors, incorrect settings, material jams, misfeeds, among others.

#4: Slow Cycles:

Whenever a piece of equipment runs slower than the Ideal Cycle Time, we can say that Slow Cycles are occurring. Some examples include shutdown, startup, operator inexperience, poor environmental conditions, substandard materials, poor lubrication. worn out or dirty equipment, among others.

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#5: Production Rejects:

Simply put, Production Rejects are the defective parts that are produced during steady-state production. Some examples include lot expiration, equipment or operator handling errors, incorrect equipment settings, among others.

#6: Startup Rejects:

Startup Rejects include the defective parts that are produced since the startup and up to stable production. While they are more commonly tracked after changeovers, Startup Rejects can occur after any equipment startup. Some examples include equipment that inherently creates waste after startup, equipment that needs warm-up cycles, suboptimal changeovers, among others.

The Main Six Big Losses Benefits

The Six Big Losses has benefits both in terms of the short-term as in terms of the long-term. In what concerns the short-term, the Six Big Losses provide additional information to the OEE. In what relates to the long-term benefits, you can expect it to help you identify effective countermeasures for equipment-based losses through improved actions.

Using The Six Big Losses Within Your Business

As you can imagine, when you implement the Six Big Losses within your business, you will have some roles assigned to different members of your team:

- Operator: Is the one who should collect the reason codes on the equipment during Planned and Unplanned Stops. He should also be able to suggest improvements based on what he sees.

- Supervisor: His main role will be to validate Ideal Cycle Times. He will need to review all the losses at the beginning of each shift to identify and assign improvement actions.

- Manager: He is the one who defines how data should be collected as well as he also defines the standards for the Ideal Cycle Times. The manager will also be the one responsible for identifying strategic improvement initiatives, setting and tracking improvement targets, defining and maintaining reason codes, and auditing for sustainability.

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PDCA Cycle - What Is It And How To Use It

2/24/2019

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In case you are looking for the different lean methods that you can use within your business, you should consider the PDCA cycle.

But what exactly is the PDCA cycle?

imply put, the PDCA cycle refers to Play - Do - Check - Act cycle and it is a model that you can use when you need to make a change within your business. When you are looking for constant improvements in management, manufacturing, among others, then you should consider using the PDCA cycle.

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We can definitely say that the PDCA cycle is an interactive approach when you want to continually improve services, people, and products, and is an integral part of the Lean management.

Within the PDCA cycle, you will need to test, analyze results, and finally improve the process.

Let's say that your customers are always complaining about your support team is slow. Now that you know that you have a problem, you will need to improve your team so they can be faster in customer support.

The PDCA Cycle In Detail

As we already mentioned above, the PDCA cycle refers to Play - Do - Check - Act. This means that the PDCA cycle includes 4 different stages. Let's take a closer look at each one of these stages:

#1: Plan:

When you suddenly discover there is a problem within any area of your business, the first thing that you need to do is to plan what you need to do.

Depending on the problem, you may need the help and support of your team to ensure that you detail each step of the plan to prevent any failures.

During this stage, you need to make sure that you are able to answer to the following questions:

- What exactly is the problem that you need to solve?
- What resources will you need?
- What resources do you already have?
- Taking into consideration the resources that you have available, what is the best solution for the problem that you have in hands?
- What are the goals that can be considered the plan to be a success?

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#2: Do:

Now that you already defined the entire plan that allows you to solve the problem, it is time to take action. During this stage, you will be using all the information gathered during the previous stage.

One of the things that you need to keep in mind is that there is a chance for unexpected problems to occur. In addition, you need to make sure that everyone in your team knows exactly what they needed to do as well as their responsibilities.

#3: Check:

Considered by many as the most important stage of the PDCA cycle, the Check stage is when you clarify the plan and ensure that you avoid all recurring mistakes. In addition, this is also the stage where you apply continuous improvement successfully.

This is the stage where you look at your plan and how things went and you evaluate if the plan actually worked or not as well as if it was well executed. In addition, you should also ask your team to identify any part or parts of the plan that was more problematic so that you can eliminate them next time.

In case there was any kind of problem executing the plan, you need to make sure that you find the root cause.

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#4: Act:

This is the last stage of the PDCA cycle and this is where you can finally act.

In case everything worked out fine and your team was able to get to the defined goals, then you can process and apply your initial plan.

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Key Steps To Make Your Organization Agile

2/9/2019

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As an entrepreneur or a business owner, you already know that having an efficient business model is crucial. It's not really important if it is a formal one or not, but having one is extremely important.

However, it's not just a matter of thinking about making your business more efficient. It's a matter of acting or keep on acting, to be more accurate. After all, making your business more efficient involves changes. And while some changes can be made quickly, others may need a lot of time. However, the results are well worth the effort.

Key-Steps-To-Make-Your-Organization-Agile

Strange enough, not all organizations are already making the necessary changes. According to the Achieving Greater Agility report from KPMG and the Project Management Institute, only 27% of business leaders considered that their organization was highly agile. Nevertheless, more than 90% of these same business leaders, agreed to say that agility is crucial to business success.

Agility - Where Should You Begin?

The truth is that agility should involve the entire organization. However, it needs to start in one place only and it doesn't need to be at the top. Sometimes, it is better to start is the upper management or even in the middle management.

Then, the agility should then expand to the rest of the organization. The executives should make their stand as well as employees should have some training in Agile, Lean, and Six Sigma.

Without the involvement of everyone within the organization, there is no way agility can be a success. So, there is the need to emphasize some important issues such as making better products for customers, cutting waste, and improve the speed to get the products on the market.

Agility - The Steps For Transformation

The reality is that every organization is different. So, the process of introducing agility into your organization will probably be different from a fellow entrepreneur that you know. Nevertheless, there are some approaches that have been getting a lot of success. So, we believe that it is worth to mention them:

A formal transformation plan should be created. In most successful cases, this has been done by the Project Management Office who reports directly to the chief executive officer.
Make an investment in coaching and training people. This will help them transition to their new roles easily and more efficiently.
The change should be made across the entire organization at the same time. However, it is important to notice that you should divide the changes into smaller pieces. This will be easier for everyone to get used to these changes.
You should try to implement the changes in waves and don't try to do it all at once. This way, you will be able to coordinate the support, technology, and management that you specifically need for each wave.
Agility is a continuous change. Therefore, it is important to keep monitoring changes as well as to make adjustments when they are required.

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7 Reasons to Get a Six Sigma Certification

2/9/2019

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As you probably already know, Six Sigma can help you improve your analytical skills. So, you can be sure that a Six Sigma certification will look very well in your CV.

But what exactly is Six Sigma certification?

Simply put, Six Sigma is a set of techniques and tools that help improve processes within organizations. So, the main goal of Six Sigma certification is to validate you as someone who has the knowledge and skills to identify defects or errors in a business process as well as to eliminate them.

In case you don't know, there are different skill levels of Six Sigma certification: Yellow Belt, Green Belt, Black Belt, and Master Black Belt.

In case you're still in doubt about if you should get your Six Sigma certification, here are the main 7 reasons why you should:

#1: Eliminate Errors Within Your Organization:

When you have a Six Sigma certification, you become crucial for the organization. After all, you're going to be able to identify and eliminate errors that are many times repeated over time. Ultimately, this will increase the revenue of the organization and improve customer satisfaction.

#2: Improve Processes & Maintain Quality Improvement:

As soon as you get your Six Sigma certification, you will be able to easily look at the organization business and manufacturing processes and you should be able to measure, analyze, control, and improve them. In addition, you will also have the ability and the knowledge to perform a complete review of the organization practices and see where quality can be improved.

#3: Applicable To All Industries:

Even though most entrepreneurs know a bit about Six Sigma, most of them still believe that Six Sigma certification is more important in manufacturing, for example. However, and time has proved this over and over again, all industries can benefit from the Six Sigma methodology. Some of the industries that we can mention include marketing, Human Resources, IT. electronics, banking and financial services, and telecom.

#4: Ensure Compliance:

When you have a Six Sigma certification, this means that process and manufacturing errors are reduced to a minimum. So, you can see this as the result that everyone inside the organization is applying Six Sigma standards. So, you are actually helping your organization comply with the international standards as well as you can maintain profitable contracts.

#5: Improve Your Managerial And Leadership Ability And Skills:

As part of your Six Sigma training during the certification process, you will also learn more about how to become a good leader. You will learn different techniques that allow you to increase revenue, cut costs, and even the different ways that you have to improve the efficiency of the business process.

#6: Great Salary:

According to a recent survey, the salary for Six Sigma certified individuals tends to be one of the highest globally. You can expect to earn more than $100,000.

#7: Practical Certification:

One of the best things about Six Sigma certification is that besides all the theories and things that you need to learn, it also includes a substantially large practical part. So, during the Six Sigma certification, you will be able to gain experience with real-life scenarios.

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Lean Manufacturing Tools - The Six Big Losses

Why Should You Use The Six Big Losses

#1: Unplanned Stops:

#2: Planned Stops:

#3: Small Stops:

#4: Slow Cycles:

#5: Production Rejects:

#6: Startup Rejects:

The Main Six Big Losses Benefits

Using The Six Big Losses Within Your Business

PDCA Cycle - What Is It And How To Use It

But what exactly is the PDCA cycle?

The PDCA Cycle In Detail

#1: Plan:

#2: Do:

#3: Check:

#4: Act:

Key Steps To Make Your Organization Agile

Agility - Where Should You Begin?

Agility - The Steps For Transformation

7 Reasons to Get a Six Sigma Certification

But what exactly is Six Sigma certification?

#1: Eliminate Errors Within Your Organization:

#2: Improve Processes & Maintain Quality Improvement:

#3: Applicable To All Industries:

#4: Ensure Compliance:

#5: Improve Your Managerial And Leadership Ability And Skills:

#6: Great Salary:

#7: Practical Certification:

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Lean Manufacturing Tools - The Six Big Losses

Why Should You Use The Six Big Losses

#1: Unplanned Stops: ​

​#2: Planned Stops:

#3: Small Stops: ​

#4: Slow Cycles:

#5: Production Rejects:

#6: Startup Rejects:

The Main Six Big Losses Benefits

Using The Six Big Losses Within Your Business

PDCA Cycle - What Is It And How To Use It

But what exactly is the PDCA cycle?

The PDCA Cycle In Detail

#1: Plan:

#2: Do:

#3: Check:

#4: Act:

Key Steps To Make Your Organization Agile

Agility - Where Should You Begin?

Agility - The Steps For Transformation

7 Reasons to Get a Six Sigma Certification

But what exactly is Six Sigma certification?

#1: Eliminate Errors Within Your Organization:

#2: Improve Processes & Maintain Quality Improvement:

#3: Applicable To All Industries:

#4: Ensure Compliance:

#5: Improve Your Managerial And Leadership Ability And Skills:

#6: Great Salary:

#7: Practical Certification:

Six Sigma Blog

Archives

Categories

#1: Unplanned Stops:

#2: Planned Stops:

#3: Small Stops: