DaveG

Interesting topic…Acc. to Mil_Std_1629A, FMECA Procedures, Sec 3.1.6, severity should always considers the worst potential consequence of a failure, determined by the degree of injury, property damage, or system damage that could ultimately occur.
So whether it is Process FMECA or Product FMECA, Severity will always be the worst case…[Read more]

Ask yourself “What defect level will my Customer tolerate?”.  Assume the answer is zero.  Then why are you knowingly allowing defects into your production stream?  And why aren’t you, upon discovery of said defect, requiring C/A from your supplier?
AQL was a bad concept from the beginning.  If you must inspect, use C=0:  1 defective rejects the…[Read more]

“Are all nerds this good?”
“Yes, because all we think about is s_x.”

Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica by I. Newton.
All modern technologies are rooted in calculus.  What did you have in mind?

These are your options:

Raise the quality of your product so that you are a market differentiator

Reduce the delivery time

Increase the ratio of Sales to COGS by either increasing Sales per unit time, reducing COGS (resource consumption) or both
The other posters have provided the specifics – above all, your management should be…[Read more]

Please provide some context, such as the overall gap between your plant and perfection.  I’ve heard that Toyota is the leanest company in the world and only 20% of their resources are converted into value.  Is your management asking the correct questions?

Your post may draw some sarcastic replies, most of which will boil down to this:
Only use tools where appropriate.  The use of SS implies that the process to be improve can be stabilized.  Because networking is based on trading power with acquaintances and strangers, it is rooted in human emotion which is highly subjective and not given to s…[Read more]

…I should hope that people in management positions already have the skill sets to identify a problem/opportunity and then take action…
It’s true – most of them know how to destroy value when they see it.

Raj,
Your answer is very interesting, but you should address it to the original poster – you can’t be sure they are following the whole thread.
Dave

If you are new to SS, why are you responsible for determining cost savings?  A sponsor should do that.  It sounds as if someone already decided on lead time reduction.  If so why is it necessary to justify the project?  Any argument against lead time reduction would be highly specialized.
Do you have a clear model of your supply cha…[Read more]

Why don’t you tell us what the correct answer is for the following dimensions:

ethics

operations

learning
I’ll give you a hint:  if something outside the scope of my project led to the desired result, I would want to know what it was for the following reasons:  to gauge the effectiveness of my project plan (why didn’t I anticipate t…[Read more]

Having read half of the posts on this thread –
Have you looked at your system?  Specifically, if you have shortages, why did someone expect a part to complete an assembly?  Do you have a process that triggers component orders, asks make or pull from stock, coordinates leadtimes and tracks progress so that X and Y are on hand to make Z?

.

All I can add to aBBinMN’s post is start with the provable assumption that close to 100% of all compensated human activity is waste.  See if your management agrees with that approach.  Then avoid making changes that merely shift local efficiencies.
To paraphrase an ex-colleague, “the machines are running faster so we must be making money.”

Stan,
I can’t flip-flop?  OK, it’s a Fad.  But give [Mikel?] credit for creating so much buzz over Old News:  quality = mo’ money.  I have no idea why that idea is buzzworthy.

It is both.  The only thing “new” about Six Sigma is that Bill, Mikel et al were able to penetrate the firewalls that protect most American CEOs from accountability.  In so doing, they discovered a secret:  delighting your customers and reducing waste is good for business!  Unfortunately, what has resulted is, IMHO, “Deming / Juran / Taguchi / [Yo…[Read more]

That’s because Mistake Proofing eliminates or nullifies root causes, while SPC merely detects them.
In my personal experience, solutions are usually known but everyone avoids implementing them.  I can only guess why.  I was amazed the day a worker showed me that her pneumatic press, as designed and built, could stroke and take her fingers off…[Read more]

Maybe Mike Harry took Point #15, applied the 10:1 rule, and derived the 1.5 Shift (rimshot).

Thanks a (1/6.25*sigma)!

wood95ATcox.net
Thanks!