Category: Lean Manufacturing

A cost–quality analysis is a way of studying the flowchart of a process to identify problems. The analysis helps a team look critically at individual steps of a process to find opportunities for improvement. Cost of quality means those costs incurred because of poor quality, costs that would not be incurred if things were done…

There are many parallels between the Six Sigma and lean philosophies. Both are focused on the process and process improvements. The techniques of each one complement the other and provide enhanced results. Comparing the Two Methodologies Six Sigma focuses on improving existing processes to give results that are essentially defect‐free. A CTQ characteristic or CTQ…

5S is a lean practice used to keep production workspace orderly and keep the workforce committed to maintaining order. Japanese terms English terms

Process sigma values provide a way of comparing performance of different processes, which can help you to prioritize the projects. The process sigma value represents the population of cases that meet the CTQs right first time. Sigma values are often expressed as defects per million opportunities, rather than per hundred or per thousand, to emphasize the…

Motorola Story The origin of Six Sigma is found at Motorola. In a study of the field life of a product, a Motorola engineer observed that products that were defect‐free at manufacturing rarely failed in early use by a customer. However, products which had failed during production and undergone rework were more susceptible to early…

Introduction Lean Six Sigma is a methodology that relies on a collaborative team effort to improve performance by systematically removing waste and reducing variation. It combines lean manufacturing/lean enterprise and Six Sigma to eliminate the eight kinds of waste (muda): Six Sigma seeks to improve the quality of process outputs by identifying and removing the causes of…

If we look at consumption of resources (any resource) or the impact of that consumption over time we can identify a trend, generally increasing over time. The sustainable rate of that consumption, or impact, is often much less. Here we can discuss sustainability in the context of a well cited of the Bruntland Commission, formally the…

In this section, we will dwell on discussing energy and, its close compliment, the environment with respect to precision manufacturing technology. These two – energy and the environment – will drive the technology and practice of precision manufacturing in the future. For sure, the more incremental development, following Moore’s Law – higher density data storage,…

Design for life cycle refers to the product after it has been manufactured. In many cases, a product can involve a significant cost to the customer beyond the purchase price. These costs include installation, maintenance and repair, spare parts, future upgrading of the product, safety during operation, and disposition of the product at the end…

Investments in Computer Integrated Manufacturing Systems are driven by the desire for high‐quality components, small batch sixes, agility, and short lead times. In the early stages of part specification, the creation of an integrated CAD/CAM environment is the key to rapid off‐line simulation and verification of new part designs. Design, process planning, and manufacturing integration…