Lakshmi Chava

Swetha Munagala
Stephen Rich

Major Topics

Rationale for Continual Improvement

Managements Role in Continual Improvement
Essential Improvement Activities
Structure for Quality Improvement
The Scientific Approach
Identification of Improvement Needs
Development of Improvement Plans
Common Improvement Strategies
Additional Improvement Strategies
The Kaizen Approach
Goldratts Theory of Constraints
The CEDAC Approach
Six Sigma Concept
Lean Operations
Lean Six Sigma

Continual Improvement
One of the most fundamental
elements of total quality.
This concept applies to processes
and the people who are operating
them as well as to the products
resulting from the processes.

Rationale for Continual

Improvement

Continual Improvement is
fundamental to success in the
global market place.
Customer needs are not static;
they change continually.

Managements Role in
Continual Improvement

In his book Juran on Leadership for

Quality, Joseph Juran writes:
The picture of a company reaping big rewards through
quality improvement is incomplete unless it includes some
realities that have been unwelcome to most upper
managers. Chief among these realities is the fact that the
upper managers must participate personally and
extensively in the effort. It is not enough to establish
policies, create awareness, and then leave all else to
subordinates. That has been tried, over and over again,
with disappointing results.

Management should play necessary

Contd
role in continual improvement by
doing the following:
Establishing an organization-wide
quality council.
Working with the quality council.
Providing the necessary moral and
physical support.
Scheduling periodic progress reviews.
Building continual quality
improvement in to the regular reward
system.

Essential Improvement
Activities
Maintain

Communication.
Correct obvious problems.
Look upstream.
Document problems and
progress.
Monitor changes.

Customers Needs Change

Continually
Quality improvement is needed
for both kinds of quality: product
features and freedom from
deficiencies.

Improvement Must Be
Continual

Improve constantly and forever

the system of production and
service. Improvement is not a
one-time effort. Management is
obligated to continually look for
ways to reduce waste and
improve quality.

Improvement Is Not Putting

Out Fires

Putting out fires is not

improvement. Finding a point out
of control, finding the special
cause and removing it is only
putting the process back to
where it was in the first place. It
is not improvement of process.

Structure for Quality

Improvement
Establishing

a quality council.
Develop a statement of responsibilities.
Formulating policy as it relates to quality.
Setting the benchmarks and dimensions.
Establishing the team and project selection
processes.
Providing the necessary resources.
Implementing the project.
Establishing quality measures for monitoring
progress and undertaking monitoring efforts.
Implementing appropriate reward and recognition
program.

Contd
Establish

the necessary
infrastructure.

The Scientific Approach

Collect

Meaningful Data.
Identify Root Causes of problems.
Develop Appropriate Solutions.
Plan and Make Changes.

Collecting Meaningful Data

Before collecting meaningful data,
decide exactly
What data are needed
How they can be best collected
Where the data exists
How they will be measured
How you will know the data are
accurate

Identify Root Causes of

Problems

Too many resources are wasted by

organizations attempting to solve
symptoms rather than problems.
Total quality tools will help in
separating problems from causes.

Develop Appropriate
Solutions

Collect the relevant data

Make sure they are accurate
Identify root causes
Develop a solution that is
appropriate

Plan and Make Changes

Look a head
Anticipate needs
What resources will be used to
satisfy them and
Anticipate problems and consider
how they should be handled

Importance of Statistical
Thinking

Statistical thinking is critical to

improvement of a system. Only
by use of properly interpreted
data can intelligent decisions be
made.

Improvement Can Be
Measured
Improvement can be measured and monitored
by using performance indicators. Some of
the examples are listed below:

Number of errors or defects

Number of or level of need for repetitions of work tasks
Efficiency indicators
Number of delays
Duration of a given procedure or activity
Response time or cycle
Useability/cost ratio
Amount of overtime required
Changes in work load
Vulnerability of the system
Level of criticalness
Level of standardization
Number of unfinished documents

Identification of
Improvement Needs
Apply

multi voting
Identify customer needs
Study the use of time
Localize problems

Development of
improvement plans
Understand

the process
Eliminate errors
Remove slack
Reduce variation
Plan for continual improvement

Common improvement
strategies
Establish

boundaries for the

process
Flowchart the process
Make a diagram of how the work
flows
Verify your work
Correct immediately any obvious
problems identified

Standardize the process

Identify the currently known best

practices and write them down
Test the best practices to determine
whether they are in fact the best, and
improve them if there is room for
improvement
Make sure that everyone is using the
newly standardized process
Keep records of process performance,
update them continually, and use to
identify ways to improve the process
even further on a continual basis

Eliminate

errors in the process:

Streamline the process
Reduce sources of variation
Bring the process under
statistical control

Improve the design of the

process

Define the objectives of the

experiment
Decide which factors are going to be
measured
Design an experiment that will
measure the critical factors and the
answers the relevant questions
Set up the experiment
Conduct the experiment
Analyze the results
Act on the results

Total manufacturing
management

Reduced lead time

Flow production
Group technology
Level production
Synchronized production
Overlapped/parallel production
Flexible schedules
Pull control

Visual control
Stockless production
Jidoka
Reduced setup time
In-process control
Quality improvement
Total cost cycles
Cost curves

Mushroom

concept
Suppliers as comakers
Total industrial engineering
Total productive maintenance

Kaizen approach
Kaizen

value system
Role of executive management
Role of middle managers
Role of supervisors
Role of employees
Kaizen and quality

Elements of kaizen
Customer

focus

Teamwork
Just-in-time
Quality

circles
Automation
Labor/ management cooperation
Total productive maintenance

Kaizen Five-step plan

Straighten

up: involves separating

necessary from unnecessary
Put things in order: tools and
materials in proper place and in order
Clean up: keeping clean to proceed
in efficient manner
Personal cleanliness: employees
being neat to appear better
Discipline: careful adherence to
standardized work procedures.

The five Ws and One H

WHO
WHAT
WHERE

HOW
WHEN
WHY

Five M checklist
Measurement
Methods
Material
Machine
Man

Activity

Goldratts Theory of
Constraints

An approach to managing that helps

organizations continually improve.
It is an intuitive (instinctive)
framework for managing
organizations.
Starts with:
1. clearly defined goals for the
organization.
2. establishing measurements to
determine the impact of any action on
those goals.

What Is So Different?
Does

not apply the traditional

system for measuring results
(profits)

Uses

throughput, inventory, and

operating expense.

Whats Different?
It

is based on the assumption

that every organization faces
constraints.

Greatest

negative impact on
performance is policies as
opposed to materials and
resources.

Goldratt Defines Restraint

anything

that limits an
organization from achieving
higher performance vis--vis (in
comparison with) its goal.

How Is It Applied?
Identify:

any factor that tends to

constrain.

Exploit:

how can the factor be

turned into positive factors,
eliminated, or circumvented.

CEDAC Approach
CEDAC

= cause-and-effect with
additional cards.
3 conditions must exist for continual
improvement to occur.
A reliable system (standardized and
reliable)
A favorable environment (favorable to
improvement)
Practicing as teams (Total Quality is
performed by teams. Teams must
practice)

CEDAC Diagram

http://syque.com/improvement/Cause-Effect

10-Step Process of
Implimentation

Draw Basic Diagram

Select the focus of improvement efforts
Name project leader
Establish measurement method
Establish improvement goal and date
Format effect side of the diagram
Collect fact cards for the cause side

(each team member fills out cards with

their ideas)
Collect improvement cards
Implement and test ideas
Select cards for standardization

Six Sigma Concept

http://www.youtube.com/watch?

v=LNtEW4DVRkE&feature=related
Introduced by Motorola in the
mid-1980s
Purpose: to improve the
performance process to where
defects rate was 3.4 per million
or less.
Designed for high volume
production settings.

Six Step Protocol

Identify the product
characteristics wanted by
customers.
2. Classify the characteristics in
terms of their criticality.
3. Determine is the classified
characteristics are controlled by
part and/or process.
1.

Protocol
4.

Determine the maximum

allowable tolerance for each
classified characteristic.
5. Determine the process
variation for each classified
characteristic.
6. Change the design of the
product, process, or both to
achieve Six Sigma performance.

Six Sigma: The Name

From

the concept of standard

deviation signified by lowercase
Greek letter sigma:
Processes and outputs typically
measure in their standard
deviations from the mean (ideal
point).

What Does That Mean?

Most

good companies operate

between 3 and 4 sigma.
Or: 99.73% of process output will
fall between
3 standard deviation at 3
sigma or 99.9937% at 4 sigma.
3 sigma operation will yield 2700
defective parts for every 1 million
produced.

Six Sigma and Total

Quality
Six

Sigma is an extension of Total

Quality.
Six Sigma is a total quality
strategy, like all others, to
achieve: superior performance,
that is continually improved,
forever.
Six Sigma is achieved by
improving process performance.

Lean Operations
Lean=Lean

Manufacturing=Lean

Operations
Lean: originally a manufacturing
concept thus lean manufacturing.
Lean Operations: because it is
found to produce good results in
both manufacturing AND service
sectors.

Purpose of Adopting
To

produce better products or

deliver better services using less
resources.

Doing

better.

more with less and doing it

Defining Lean
Based

on the Toyota Production

System (TPS).

Lean

Operation: a better product

is developed or a better service is
delivered by using less of
everything required.

Definition
Lean

is: being flexible enough to

get the right things, to the right
place, at the right time, in the
right amounts.

The

Heart: reduction of waste

and the improvement of
workflow.

Lean Focuses on Waste

Overproduction

Waste
Inventory Waste
Motion Waste
Transportation Waste
Over-processing Waste
Defects Waste
Waiting Waste
Underutilization Waste

Tools and Techniques of

Lean
Five-S

workplace organization
Visual workplace systems
Layout
Standardized work (SW)
Point of usage storage (POUS)
Batch size reduction
Quick changeover(QCO)
Poka-yoke

More Tools:
Self-inspection
Autonomation
Pull

systems/kanban
Cellular and flow
Just-in-time (JIT)
Total productive maintenance (TPM)
Value stream mapping (VSM)
Change management
Teamwork

Lean Six Sigma

Combining
Key

Lean and Six Sigma

Concepts:

Green Belts
Black Belts
Master Black Belts
Champions
DMAIC Roadmap (or lean Six Sigma)

Where to Use?
In Manufacturing:
Especially

effective for the

following types of continual
improvement projects:

Accuracy in invoicing
Capacity of line and product
Lead time on delivery
Production
Replenish downtime on equipment
and lines

Where to Use?
In Service Sector:
Accuracy

in invoicing, delivery,
and product
Capacity of service area, call
center, and product
Lead time on delivery and call
hold time
Downtime on equipment,
servers, and lines

DMAIC Roadmap
The

Nucleus of Six Sigma: Define,

Measure, Analyze, Improve, and
Control.
Five Phases are constant
Steps, tools and outputs of each
phase may vary somewhat.

Define
1.

initiate the project

2. Define the process
3. Determine Customer requirements
4. define key process output
variables
Possible

tools: value stream maps,

affinity diagrams, brainstorming,
surveys

Measure
1.

Understand the process

2. Evaluate risks on process inputs
3. Develop and evaluate
measurements systems
4. measure current performance
Results: Knowing your starting
point, verification of measurement
systems, current capabilities

Analyze
1.

Analyze data to prioritize key

input variables
2. Identify waste
Results: root causes reduced.
Prioritize potential key inputs,
and list specific wastes.
Tools: Five-S (sort, store, shine,
standardize, & sustain)

Improve
1.

verify critical outputs

2. Design Improvements
3. Pilot the new process
Results: an action plan for
improvement, future state
process maps, control maps, new
process design/documentation

Control
1.

Finalize the control system

2. Verify long-term capability
Results: a control system,
improvement validated for long
term, identified continual
improvement opportunities, team
recognition

Bibliography
All

information obtained from:

Goetsch,

D.L., Davis, S.B. Quality

Management for organizational
excellence: introduction to total
quality. 2006. 5th edition

Why Do We Ned Six

Sigma?

Interview:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?

v=7rUQbTsc_ms