Black Belt Boy

Yes, but we have divisional black belts that take care of cross-plant, cross-division projects.
I’m more focused on the plant.
Plus once they go to division or another plant for approval or implementation, they get denied or put on the back burner for months.
I have 3 projects that is easy to implement, but the plants don’t want to spend any…[Read more]

My boss thinks that every project should be $200 minimum and the well of projects shouldn’t dry up.
Well, the low hanging fruit is taken and now it’s down to the $30k and below projects and the number isn’t a whole lot.

Getting participation is a difficult thing.
I work with hourly and management.
Both have the unspoken fear that if I help them do their job more efficient then they will lose their jobs.
Same fear as with any kaizen or lean activity…headcount reduction!
That and the real truth on what they spend their day doing will surprise people.

Could I get on the mailing list too?
[email protected]

I’m not ASQ certified, but have my certification from Six Sigma Consultants.
I am yet to work as a black belt in the true nature of my training.
I’m more of a “if it doesn’t fall under lean, VA/VE, then it’s black belt”.
I might as well be a registered sex offender, I’d get more respect and support.
I’m finding it a lonely road. Show me the…[Read more]

Thanks for your input.
I’m not asking or care for rewards for savings.
It’s the savings I’m concerned about.
We already had to restate earnings due to accounting practices.
The push to save money has caused a climate of make the numbers show a savings and don’t go back to see if the savings worked or see if the fix caused a worse problem.
One…[Read more]

Sorry, this is not Dave.

Wow,
I work at Dana and my reward is keeping my job.
I get no rewards for doing my job, except get more savings!
(Maybe that’s why Dana is where there at).
Anyone have any openings?
As a matter of fact, no one gets raises anymore.

At my facility we have to come up with our own projects. That can be daunting if you don’t know where the waste is. Also, it’s all about the money, if it doesn’t save $100k, it’s not a project.
We break projects out between Lean, Black Belt, MRO, VA/VE, and Purchasing.  The definition for a black belt project is focus is on solving issues…[Read more]

Currently we do not have a “frozen” schedule. It is free to change hourly if needed. Hence we chase our tails.
Our system is not able to go back in time to see shipments by week, but only monthly totals. No one keeps that information nor do they keep a schedule vs. shipment history.
I believe by freezing a schedule we can at least see where the…[Read more]

Ramblin,
Thanks for the info.
It was my plan was to “freeze” the schedule on Monday, but track the changes and adjust by adding the “carryover” onto the next week’s schedule. Tracking the changes by week can help predict the safety stock needed. We now change our daily planning based on these changes. I’ve shown that our overall volume changes…[Read more]

How about tracking defects from the training (things that they were trained on that they failed to do) along with execution. Is there a reoccuring failure? Compare student to student, etc.

I was a “company certified” black belt, but we took no tests, or even the homework or any other way of validating what we learned. I brought this up on why we don’t do that.  It was more of 4 weeks of sitting in class, partying at night and getting my certification. I had to correct my own master black belt during the training because of wrong i…[Read more]

I’m just frustrated with coming up with my own projects based on this scenero. “We are on the hook for $1.8 million in cost savings, we need to come up with projects to make that total.” “What projects are there?”. I ask how that number came from…”Based on a percentage of yearly sales.”.
Also, telling people they have a problem let’s fix it…[Read more]

When I interviewed I thought I asked the right questions.
“How do projects get created, do I do them or are they given to me?” – “We have a list of projects”. Wrong – you come up with your own.
“What is your stance of six sigma?” – “I think it is necessary.”. Then show it!

Take this as you may.
This is a union shop. So if I reduce the number of problems, the time it takes to fix them seems to go up. Does it really take 3 people 8 hours to change a switch out? And the cause is never identified? We use the system to track order and hours, not cause and fixes.
Trying to get a meeting together is proving hard now. The…[Read more]

Please fix downtime without spending anything. I say spend the money to bring in good equipment instead of cheap stuff that needs fixed all the time.
I have to come up with my own projects, these are given to me by the plant staff, so how much support will I get? I’ve never heard of coming up with your own projects. I am used to the plant coming…[Read more]

Here is the business case I’ve been given:
“the 2005 forecast for maintenane labor is $2.2 million. The high cost of labor relates to production machine downtime. A reduction in labor will also improve uptime. The plant must unvocer the causes of unplanned downtime and reduce this cost by $200,000.”
The lean area is implementing TPM throughout…[Read more]

Thanks for your help.
We do have planned downtime in our OEE (which is suspect).
How do you do you project when no one cares or wants to do it? The management staff must have support for six sigma or it will fail. I feel that is the case here. All they see is money and cost savings. They are willing to work overtime, work week ends and then send…[Read more]

AVY,
Thanks for the response.
The software tracking we use for maintenance (7i) has the length of time for repair and date, so I can track those for MTTR?
We got new equipment in the highest downtime department and they are debugging it. Everyone has their idea of why the pumps keep breaking.
Do we come up with how to solve the downtime?