Seven Basic Quality tools documents
Definition of Quality Management -- it is a method for ensuring that all the activities necessary to design, develop and implement a product or service are effective and efficient with respect to the system and its performance. It is also a principle set by the company to endure the continuous advocacy of quality services and products, or the further improvement of it.
Welcome to QT-charts knowledge base section. Hopefully you will find some of them useful in your work.
(Read articles below to learn more.)
Lean Manufacturing
Matt Wolff, OPMGT 345,November 18, 2002Original text on freequality.org
“Lean manufacturing is not a collection of best practices from which manufacturers can pick and choose. It is a production philosophy, a way of conceptualizing the manufacturing process from raw material to finished goods and from design concept to customer satisfaction. Lean is truly a different way of thinking about manufacturing.”
Running Today’s Factory: A Proven Strategy for Lean Manufacturing, Charles Standard.
Introduction
Lean
manufacturing has been defined as "a systematic approach to identifying
and eliminating waste (non-value-added activities) through continuous
improvement by flowing the product at the pull of the customer in pursuit of
perfection." The notion of lean manufacturing is not new and has been
identified in many different ways and even with many different names. It has
been called: flow manufacturing, the Toyota Production System, one-piece flow,
just-in-time production, and demand flow technology.
Lean
Manufacturing is simply the elimination of waste in the manufacturing process.
Waste can be in the form of material, time, idle equipment, or inventory.
Lean Manufacturing helps to improve material handling, inventory,
quality, scheduling, personnel and customer satisfaction. A lean manufacturing process is one that
continuously strives to eliminate waste, thereby increasing the percentage of
time devoted to value-adding activities. The more value you can add in your
overall process, the more effective your operation will be. In lean, the
customer drives the process. Production is to deliver to the customer exactly
what they need, exactly when they need it, in the exact quantity, with the
highest quality at the lowest possible cost.
Lean Manufacturing Procedures
The
main objectives of Lean Manufacturing are to challenge all processes to
simplify, streamline, synchronize, and create cost savings. There are many techniques that will help you
to achieve this in your organization.
For one, creating manufacturing cells can eliminate the wastes of
material handling, excessive motion, work-in-process inventory and more. Employing Total Productive Maintenance (TPM)
can eliminate the wastes of unplanned downtime, waiting, defective parts and
others. Even changing the layout of the
plant will often eliminate the wastes of transportation, over-production,
unnecessary processing and other wastes.
These
are all excellent techniques, but we may not be applying them to the right
areas of the business unless we have looked at our company's value stream - all
of the activities that take place from order acceptance to the customer's
receipt of the product. To begin the
quest for lean manufacturing, we should think about a technique called value stream mapping.
Value
stream mapping is a visual technique for describing how a business currently
operates, and could operate. A value
stream map displays the flow of information and the flow of materials. Information flow is quite often overlooked;
however, without an effective information flow, there can be no material
flow. Generating a value stream map will
help problem areas to stand out clearly.
You will see places where inventory is building up, both before and
after production processes. You will see
where long machine setup times and unplanned downtime are an impediment to
flow. You will see evidence of
unbalanced labor, or machine time, between processes creating delays. You will easily identify the place, or
places, in the value stream where you will need to start your waste elimination
efforts. Taiichi Ohno, former VP of
production at Toyota Motors, and the co-creator with Dr. Shigeo Shingo of lean
manufacturing explains this idea through the following analogy:
“This river is
inventory, and it flows through our factories covering rocks-these rocks are
the manufacturing wastes. The wastes are problems hidden by the inventory. Our job is to remove those wastes.”
Once
you have completed the value stream map you will be able to visualize how
things could operate. This vision will be the basis of your future value stream
map. In this value stream map, you will have the ability to eliminate processes
that add no value and then streamline those that do. You will emphasize areas
where your suppliers can provide better services. You will eliminate redundant
and unnecessary information flows. All of these changes will in turn directly
affect your end customer.
Results of Implementation
The key questions to ask about your
Lean Manufacturing implementation are:
·
Will
the process have fewer tasks?
·
Will
the process be faster?
·
Will
the process be more flexible?
·
Will
there be fewer non-value-adding activities and tasks?
·
Will
production floor inventories be reduced?
Keep
in mind that lean manufacturing is a systems approach. Each phase builds on the previous one. All processes that deliver value and all
processes that support the delivery of value must be integrated. Leadership, technical components, and
value-adding activity must be balanced, blended, and synchronized. Also remember that total cost will be your
ultimate performance metric.
Lean
Thinking at Boeing
Stanley Kandebo wrote an article in Aviation Week & Space Technology
about the success of Boeing’s new X-32 jet due to lean thinking. The underlying technology making these
improvements possible is the company's state-of-the-art Catia three-dimensional
solid-modeling techniques. This technology allows Boeing to electronically
assemble the whole aircraft checking for fit, obstructions and clearances
before cutting the first piece. And,
because the entire aircraft exists as a 3D database, manufacturing engineers
also can use proprietary software to conduct virtual simulations that help
determine the best assembly routines and sequences for assembling an
aircraft.
The
company’s achievements with the design and fabrication of this new fighter
prove that when properly applied lean techniques are introduced costs,
complexity, and errors can be dramatically reduced. According to Boeing officials, the X-32
aircraft cost 75% less to build than original company estimates. And corresponding with these cost reduction
achievements, the company was able to drive down the X-32's manufacturing
defect rate. There were about 80% fewer defects in the first X-32 than in the
equivalent build on a prior model.
Quality
Resources
If you wish to learn more about Lean
Manufacturing, then the following books will be of great assistance:
Feld,
William M. Lean Manufacturing: Tools,
Techniques, and How to Use Them.
Henderson,
Bruce A. Lean Transformation: How to
Change Your Business into a Lean Enterprise.
Liker,
Jeffrey K. Becoming Lean: Inside Stories
of U.S. Manufacturers.
Womack,
Jim. Lean
Thinking.