5S:-

Introduction

            5s denotes the five Japanese words which when Romanized begins with letter S. A set of concepts which forms the basis for all activities being undertaken during daily operations in the workplace is known as 5s

What is 5s?

1)     SEIRI (Proper arrangement)

2)     SEITON (Orderliness)

3)     SEISO (Cleanliness)

4)     SEIKETSU (Cleanup)

5)     SHITSUKE (Discipline)

Advantage of 5s

1.  Zero changeover bring product diversification

2.  Zero defects brings higher quality

3.  Zero waste brings lower costs

4.  Zero delay brings reliable deliveries.

5.  Zero injuries promote safety

6.  Zero breakdown bring maintenance

7.  Zero complains greater confidence and trust

     8. Zero red ink bring corporate growth

Kaizen

Kaizen is the lean manufacturing term for continuous improvement and was originally used to describe a key element of the Toyota Production System. In use, Kaizen describes an environment where companies and individuals proactively work to improve the manufacturing process.

 Detail

Kaizen events have become commonplace at companies that practice lean manufacturing. But these events are only a portion of the complete Kaizen process. Traditionally companies have focused on a project based path to change. Organizations that work toward a state of constant improvement understand that Kaizen events are a tool that allows them to focus resources and employees on process improvements. By understanding the current process and the future state goals you can implement Kaizen. Creating a corporate culture of continuous improvement will allow you to adapt to a changing marketplace and exceed customer expectations.

A critical component of Kaizen is an unbiased view of the current state. Particularly when companies are profitable and customers are generally satisfied, changes to any process can seem both a waste and a risk. There may be bias against change when the people who created a process are the same people who need to continuously change the process. In order to overcome this it is necessary to understand the current process, particularly any shortcomings. By studying, understanding and documenting the current process you can identify areas that would benefit from change.

Once the current state is understood and documented and the future state defined you are then ready to create and implement your improvement process. The most successful improvements involve everyone who is part of the process that is being changed. The actual steps and methods of changing aren't the focus of Kaizen. There are several tested and documented methods of improving a process.

Mistake Proofing Resources

The goal of mistake-proofing or poka yoke is to eliminate mistakes. In order to eliminate mistakes, we need to modify processes so that it is impossible to make them in the first place. With mistake-proofing solutions, many repetitive tasks that depend upon the memory of the worker are built into the process itself. Mistake-proofing frees the time and minds of the workforce to pursue more creative and value-adding activities. Mistake-proofing also involves a change in the mindset of the organization. Organizations must establish a mistake-proofing mindset that promotes the belief that it is unacceptable to allow for even a small number of product or service defects.

Poka Yoke Resources

The goal of mistake-proofing or poka yoke is to eliminate mistakes. In order to eliminate mistakes, we need to modify processes so that it is impossible to make them in the first place. With mistake-proofing solutions, many repetitive tasks that depend upon the memory of the worker are built into the process itself. Mistake-proofing frees the time and minds of the workforce to pursue more creative and value-adding activities. Mistake-proofing also involves a change in the mindset of the organization. Organizations must establish a mistake-proofing mindset that promotes the belief that it is unacceptable to allow for even a small number of product or service defects.

Poka yoke is a concept developed by an industrial engineer named Shigeo Shingo in the early 1960’s. Poka yoke (pronounced “poh-kah yoh-kay”) comes from two Japanese words – “yokeru” which means “to avoid”, and “poka” which means “inadvertent errors.” Thus, poka yoke more or less translates to “avoiding inadvertent errors”. The English translation is mistake proofing or error proofing. Shigeo Shingo’s objective was to eliminate or minimize the requirement for inspection by eliminating errors before they occur rather than finding and fixing them. Since human errors usually stem from people who are distracted, tired, or disinterested, a good poka yoke solution is one that requires no attention from the worker. Such a poka yoke device will prevent the occurrence of mistakes even if the worker loses focus on what he or she is doing.

Poka yoke is implemented by using simple objects like fixtures, jigs, warning devices, and the like to prevent people from making mistakes. These objects, known as poka yoke devices, are usually designed to stop the machine and alert the operator if something is about to go wrong. In addition to these types of devices, concepts like color coding, texturing, and visual indicators are also used.

Poka yoke concepts are not only used in manufacturing and assembly processes, they are also used in the product design process, designing parts that cannot physically be assembled incorrectly, and connection points are often color coded to prevent wiring or piping errors. Color coding is also used to allow the quick identification of the correct materials.

Some simple examples of poka yoke devices in everyday life are; the tethered gas cap which prevents you from leaving it behind, the screen on one side of the foul pole in baseball so the umpire can tell which side the ball passed on, a 3.5 inch diskette which can only be inserted if oriented correctly, the drain hole near the top of the sink to prevent overflow, pick-lists on computer data entry screens to prevent spelling errors or other typos, color coded forms, etc.

Poka yoke concepts can be applied at home and at work, in any job. One simply needs to find ways to make it obvious how something is supposed to be done, make it impossible to do something incorrectly, or make it obvious when something has been done incorrectly. The most commonly used techniques are color coding, distinguishing by size, and the use of pictures to show the correct outcome.

Note: The original term was baka yoke, which translates to fool proofing. Out of respect for people, the term was changed to poka yoke (mistake proofing/error proofing).

Lean Manufacturing Resources

Lean manufacturing is a business system for organizing and managing product development, operations, suppliers, and customer relations that requires less human effort, less space, less capital, and less time to make products with fewer defects to precise customer desires, compared with the previous system of mass production.

Lean manufacturing is a management philosophy focusing on reduction of the seven wastes

1. Transportation
2. Inventory
3. Motion
4. Waiting time
5. Over-production
6. Processing Itself
7. Defective Product (Scrap in manufactured products or any type of business.)

By eliminating waste (muda), quality is improved, production time and costs are reduced.

To solve the problem of waste, Lean Manufacturing has several "tools" at its disposal. These include constant process analysis (kaizen), "pull" production (by means of kanban) and mistake-proofing (poka-yoke).

Most experts now agree, however, that Lean Manufacturing is not just a toolset. Rather it is a holistic, comprehensive, enterprise-wide program designed to be integrated into the organization's core strategy. In addition, experts in this field believe that philosophy-based Lean Manufacturing strategy is the most effective way to launch and sustain lean activities. The so called "Toyota Way," popularized by Dr. Jeffrey Liker's book of the same name, emphasizes the creation of the right kind of environment in which to grow and support Lean Thinking.

Key lean manufacturing principles include:

* Pull processing: products are pulled from the consumer end, not pushed from the production end

* Perfect first-time quality - quest for zero defects, revealing & solving problems at the source

* Waste minimization – eliminating all activities that do not add value & safety nets, maximize use of scarce resources (capital, people and land)

* Continuous improvement – reducing costs, improving quality, increasing productivity and information sharing

* Flexibility – producing different mixes or greater diversity of products quickly, without sacrificing efficiency at lower volumes of production

* Building and maintaining a long term relationship with suppliers through collaborative risk sharing, cost sharing and information sharing arrangements.

Lean is basically all about getting the right things, to the right place, at the right time, in the right quantity while minimizing waste and being flexible and open to change.

Lean thinking got its name from a 1990’s best seller called "The Machine That Changed the World : The Story of Lean Production". The book chronicles the transitions of automobile manufacturing from craft production to mass production to lean production.

The seminal book Lean Thinking by Womack and Jones, introduced five core concepts:

1. Specify value in the eyes of the customer

2. Identify the value stream and eliminate waste

3. Make value flow at the pull of the customer

4. Involve and empower employees

5. Continuously improve in the pursuit of perfection.

Finally, there is an understanding that Toyota's mentoring process (loosely called Senpai and Kohai relationship) so strongly supported in Japan is one of the ways to foster Lean Thinking up and down the organizational structure. The closest equivalent to Toyota's mentoring process is the concept of Lean Sensei, which encourages companies, organizations, and teams to seek out outside, third-party "Sensei" that can provide unbiased advice and coaching, as indicated in Jim Womack's Lean Thinking book.

Experienced kaizen members at Toyota, for example, often bring up the concept of "Senpai, Kohai," and "Sensei," because they strongly feel that transferring of Toyota culture down and across the Toyota can only happen when more experienced Toyota Sensei continuously coaches and guides the less experienced lean champions. Unfortunately, most lean practitioners in North America focuses on the tools and methodologies of lean, versus the philosophy and culture of lean. Some exceptions include Shingijitsu Consulting out of Japan, which is made up of ex-Toyota managers, and Lean Sensei International based in North America, which coaches lean through Toyota-style cultural experience.

TPM Total Productive Maintenance Resources

Total productive maintenance (TPM) is the systematic execution of maintenance by all employees through small group activities. The dual goals of TPM are zero breakdowns and zero defects; this obviously improves equipment efficiency rates and reduces costs. It also minimises inventory costs associated with spare parts. It is claimed that most companies can realise a 15-25 percent increase in equipment operation rates within three years of adopting TPM. Labor productivity also generally increases by a significant margin, sometimes as high as 40-50 percent.

The Japanese imported preventive maintenance (PM) from the United States in the 1950s and it remained well established until the 1970s. This consisted mainly of time-based maintenance featuring periodic servicing and overhaul. During the 1980s PM was steadily replaced by predictive maintenance, or condition-based maintenance. TPM is often defined as productive maintenance involving total participation - a kind of marriage between PM and TQM. Many organisations misconstrue this to imply that only shop floor staff need be involved. However, TPM should be implemented on a company-wide basis.

TPM aims to establish good maintenance practice through the pursuit of "the five goals of TPM" :

1. Improve equipment effectiveness: examine the effectiveness of facilities by identifying and examining all losses which occur - downtime losses, speed losses and defect losses.

2. Achieve autonomous maintenance: allow the people who operate equipment to take responsibility for, at least some, of the maintenance tasks. This can be at : the repair level (where staff carry out instructions as a response to a problem); the prevention level (where staff take pro-active action to prevent foreseen problems); and the improvement level (where staff not only take corrective action but also propose improvements to prevent recurrence).

3. Plan maintenance: have a systematic approach to all maintenance activities. This involves the identification of the nature and level of preventive maintenance required for each piece of equipment, the creation of standards for condition-based maintenance, and the setting of respective responsibilities for operating and maintenance staff. The respective roles of "operating" and "maintenance" staff are seen as being distinct. Maintenance staff are seen as developing preventive actions and general breakdown services, whereas operating staff take on the "ownership" of the facilities and their general care. Maintenance staff typically move to a more facilitating and supporting role where they are responsible for the training of operators, problem diagnosis, and devising and assessing maintenance practice.

4. Train all staff in relevant maintenance skills: the defined responsibilities of operating and maintenance staff require that each has all the necessary skills to carry out these roles. TPM places a heavy emphasis on appropriate and continuous training.

5. Achieve early equipment management: the aim is to move towards zero maintenance through "maintenance prevention" (MP). MP involves considering failure causes and the maintainability of equipment during its design stage, its manufacture, its installation, and its commissioning. As part of the overall process, TPM attempts to track all potential maintenance problems back to their root cause so that they can be eliminated at the earliest point in the overall design, manufacture and deployment process.

TPM works to eliminate losses :

* Downtime from breakdown and changeover times
* Speed losses (when equipment fails to operate at its optimum speed)
* Idling and minor stoppages due to the abnormal operation of sensors, blockage of work on chutes, etc.
* Process defects due to scrap and quality defects to be repaired
* Reduced yield in the period from machine start-up to stable production 

Six Sigma Resources

Lean Six Sigma is the application of lean techniques to increase organizational speed, while combining the tools and culture of Six Sigma to improve efficiencies and focus on customers’ issues. The principles of Lean Six Sigma are to initially work on causes of customer critical-to-quality issues and those that create the longest lead-time delays in any process. Eliminating those causes provides the greatest opportunity for improvement in cost, quality, capital, and lead-time.

Six Sigma at many organizations simply means a measure of quality that strives for near perfection. Six Sigma is a disciplined, data-driven approach and methodology for eliminating defects (driving towards six standard deviations between the mean and the nearest specification limit) in any process -- from manufacturing to transactional and from product to service.

The statistical representation of Six Sigma describes quantitatively how a process is performing. To achieve Six Sigma, a process must not produce more than 3.4 defects per million opportunities. A Six Sigma defect is defined as anything outside of customer specifications. A Six Sigma opportunity is then the total quantity of chances for a defect. Process sigma can easily be calculated using a Six Sigma calculator.

Lean Six Sigma is the application of lean techniques to increase organizational speed, while combining the tools and culture of Six Sigma to improve efficiencies and focus on customers’ issues. The principles of Lean Six Sigma are to initially work on causes of customer critical-to-quality issues and those that create the longest lead-time delays in any process. Eliminating those causes provides the greatest opportunity for improvement in cost, quality, capital, and lead-time.

Six Sigma at many organizations simply means a measure of quality that strives for near perfection. Six Sigma is a disciplined, data-driven approach and methodology for eliminating defects (driving towards six standard deviations between the mean and the nearest specification limit) in any process -- from manufacturing to transactional and from product to service.

The statistical representation of Six Sigma describes quantitatively how a process is performing. To achieve Six Sigma, a process must not produce more than 3.4 defects per million opportunities. A Six Sigma defect is defined as anything outside of customer specifications. A Six Sigma opportunity is then the total quantity of chances for a defect. Process sigma can easily be calculated using a Six Sigma calculator.

The fundamental objective of the Six Sigma methodology is the implementation of a measurement-based strategy that focuses on process improvement and variation reduction through the application of Six Sigma improvement projects. This is accomplished through the use of two Six Sigma sub-methodologies: DMAIC and DMADV. The Six Sigma DMAIC process (define, measure, analyze, improve, control) is an improvement system for existing processes falling below specification and looking for incremental improvement.

The Six Sigma DMADV process (define, measure, analyze, design, verify) is an improvement system used to develop new processes or products at Six Sigma quality levels. It can also be employed if a current process requires more than just incremental improvement. Both Six Sigma processes are executed by Six Sigma Green Belts and Six Sigma Black Belts, and are overseen by Six Sigma Master Black Belts.