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my learning in Lean Six Sigma has only just begun.

By on December 10, 2012 in Lean Six Sigma, Uncategorized

Hi Jörn, I hope you are well.

I just wanted to drop you a line to thank you for the training course. I really enjoyed my week and although it was quite hard going in places I genuinely felt that your teaching style and support were the main reasons I learnt so much. I was slightly apprehensive about the accelerated learning because there is so much to cover. I know that these courses are partly designed to ensure rapid certification but I know that my learning in Lean Six Sigma has only just begun.

I am genuinely interested in learning more and in putting my knowledge to the test in real practical environments. I have already had a conversation with my CEO about running green belt projects and being an IBMer, and having experience himself in Black Belt projects, he is keen to support me in this journey. He has already given me the mandate to start working in some areas.

Next year I hope to run some projects and to develop my knowledge further and will hopefully be back studying for Black Belt as well. Ill keep you in the loop with regards to progress.

Anyway, I wanted to say a huge thanks to you. You made a hard week very enjoyable and you should take great credit for that.

Rob.

Lean Six Sigma TIM WOOD in engineering

By on April 25, 2012 in Lean Six Sigma, Uncategorized

Waste in Engineering Examples

Transportation:  Excessive data or information handoffs

Inventory: Requirements, specifications, documents waiting to be processed, test data waiting to be validated

Motion: Searching for information, or data, attending unnecessary, ineffective meetings

Waiting:  Inter-task variation, bottlenecks, failure of supplier to meet customer need dates

Over Production: Mass document releases, Preparing excessive reports, broadcast email of information

Over Processing: Gold plated designs (Including design features not required by customer, Re-inventing what has already been designed

Defects: Faulty, incomplete or inaccurate data, data translations

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Lean Tools and Technology in Lean Development

By on April 23, 2012 in General, Uncategorized

– Adapt technology to fit your People & Process; In some organisations it could be the opposite (Technology has to be mature first in accordance withTechnical Readiness Level process)

– Align organisation through simple visual communication More difficult for Engineering .

– Use powerful tools for standardization & organizational learning Lean organisation (reducing number of layers…)

at Toyota are the best exponents of Lean Development and since 1991 have identified 4 Critical Success Factors as follows:
  • Creating a strong vision to ensure that design engineers care about what the customer thinks of their future services and products
  • Limit the number of late design changes by striving for Perfect Drawings and Zero EC after production drawing release
  • Focus on precise and tightly scheduled industrialised drawing production to increase effectiveness
  • Focus on quality and cost of production itself to ensure build is with the cost bracket
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Lean Production

By on April 16, 2012 in General, Lean Six Sigma, Uncategorized

Toyota is the most documented Lean Company, talking about Lean Production.

 

1991 – The machine that changed the world – This was the first time Toyota opened it’s doors to external consultants based on the TPS (Toyota Production System) developed by Womack and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “The 5 Steps to Lean” (specify value, identify the value stream, make the value flow, let the customer pull, pursue perfection) were defined in this book.

1996 – Lean Thinking (Womack and Jones) – Easier to read, still based on TPS (Manu) with Case Studies

1997 – Concurrent Engineering Effectiveness – Jeff Liker and based on some of Toyota’s Engineering Principles

2002 – Lean Enterprise Value  –

2004 – The Toyota Way – Jeff Liker – Business Philosophy and 14 Management Principles

2006 – The Toyota Product Development System – Jeff Liker – based on the product development system not manufacturing. The product development system is the key behind the TPS and this is the first book that explores Toyota’s PDS and this is their main competitive advantage. Easier to replicate the TPS than the PDS. 13 Principles broken down, easy to read and you can dip in and out of the book.

2007 – Toyota Talent –  Jeff Liker – How to develop engineers

2007 – The Lean Product Development Guidebook –

 

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Role of a Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt

By on March 19, 2012 in Lean Six Sigma, Uncategorized

Role of a Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt

  • Training, mentoring and coaching everyone in the organization who is involved in Six Sigma.
  • Raising the level of organizational competency with respect to Six Sigma.
  • Being the highest level of technical expertise regarding Six Sigma in the organization.
  • Developing and conducting training sessions.
  • Transferring lessons learned.
  • Assisting upper management to drive change.
  • Leading large and complex projects.
  • Fostering an organizational culture of continuous improvement.

 Who should attend?

      • The Six Sigma Master Black Belt program is intended for outstanding individuals who have the aptitude and desire to master the complexities of the training program and fulfill the role of the Master Black Belt.

Course Prerequisites

Candidates for the Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt certificate must be previously certified as a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt prior to enrolling for this course, or must complete the Key Performance Lean Six Sigma Black Belt training program prior to enrolling in this course.  Candidates should have college level math skills and are required to utilize statistical analysis software.

Candidates must have been certified as a Black Belt for at least six months and must have completed at least two projects as a certified Black Belt prior to enrolling in the Master Black Belt program.

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Lean Six Sigma and Supermarkets

By on March 14, 2012 in Lean Six Sigma, Uncategorized

In Lean Six Sigma the word Supermarket is used to describe a central location for a group of products often held in Kanbans that are collected by a customer.

The obvious analogy is a retail Supermarket that has a range of food, electrical or clothing products held in one large store so customers do not need to visit many different locations. A constant product flow is something you might get in the chemical industry where they use pipes.

Although we aim to make things flow, in most industries constant flow is not possible; we need supermarkets. Basically a supermarket is a store; parts in the supermarket are there because supply cannot be linked directly to demand.

Supermarkets are a group of centrally located Kanbans;

the central location is to allow ‘customers’ the time saving benefit of one stop shopping and supplier consolidation In Lean thinking, supermarkets are a necessary evil;

they should be located as close as possible to the customer(s) and not confused with a buffer stock that may be held within the production chain.

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Lean Transformation; From Old Cheese To New Cheese.

By on March 7, 2012 in General, Lean Six Sigma, Project Managment, Uncategorized

What Old Cheese are we holding on to in our organisation?

When working out our Lean Transformation approach through the Lean Six Sigma methodology, we often give our sponsors the booklet written by Spencer Johnson.

Who Moved My Cheese? is the best-selling business book on transformation and change. It’s has been translated into 42 languages. People have relied on it to get them through changes big and small.

You can put those same principles to work in your organization. Whether you are reacting to changes around you or there are changes you would like to make happen, we can help you harness the ideas in the book to get results.

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In the Lean Six Sigma methodology is Level Scheduling an important concept.

By on March 2, 2012 in Lean Six Sigma, Uncategorized

In the Lean Six Sigma methodology is Level Scheduling an important concept;

‘ The process of smoothing production volume and model mix over a given time period.’

This major component of the Lean philosophy is to smooth out the flow of value so that minimal waste inventory and waiting are incurred. To be able to provide a smooth flow when many product types are produced on the same lines it is necessary to even out the schedule, so Level Scheduling is often used. Benefits to be gained from employing level scheduling include; reduces inventory of raw materials, reduced quantity of finished goods and reduced lead times.

Not only the scheduling will do the job, with Lean Six Sigma, it will also require implementing other process improvements, e.i.;

• replacing the existing order entry process with an online system

• cross-training engineering / operations
• automating the BOM
• standardising parts where possible to allow suppliers to build-to-stock
• developing blanket orders to reduce the work involved in the purchasing
• initiating purchasing in parallel with the customer approval process
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Translating Customer Needs into Key Process Measures

By on February 6, 2012 in Lean Six Sigma, Lean Six Sigma @de, Uncategorized

Listening to the Voice of the Customer.

Do we really know the answer to these questions?

  1. How does the customer view my process?
  2. When it starts for them?
  3. When it is finished?
  4. What is the customer looking for when measuring the performance of my process ?
  5. How well does my process meet the customer’s expectation of what constitutes value ‘in their eyes’?

We must first understand who the Customer actually is.  We should then define how to listen to the Customer when he is expressing his opinions about the quality of our products or services.  There may already be an established process within your business to extract this valuable information on an ongoing basis (Market Research), however, it may also be the case that the business does not capture such information in a coherent and usable format.  This is often the case with internal customers.  Therefore, specific techniques and deeper analysis is required to understand what the customers requirements for the process output actually are.

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