Do it Better in 2015!

2015 is upon us tell yourself every morning this affirmation "Better everyday in every way." So like any good goal you need a way to be achieve, Well your in luck the basic methodology DMAIC "Duh-May-ick" is a great place to start. This is a basic six sigma methodology but from here there is a wide range of tools to increase your probability of success. I utilize DMAIC throughout CROFT in our distribution, manufacturing, service and engineering departments, below I have the quick five steps with our manufacturing as an example.

1. The “D” Define in the DMAIC process focuses on selecting high-impact projects and understanding which underlying metric(s) will reflect project success. The CROFT manufacturing Team already knew that there were poor performance metrics on a particular Critical to Quality "CTQ" which needed to be addressed, and achieving Six Sigma process capability on that CTQ would be the team’s goal.
2. The “M” Measure in DMAIC is about documenting the current process, validating how it is measured, and assessing baseline performance. In our case, a macro flowchart was useful in providing the team members with an initial, high-level view of the process –In the case of our equipment manufacturing company example, the project team also performed a study on a known critical measurement (welding phase) that affects a stream less welding condition. The initial results show that the welding measurements introduces far too much variation and rework –Finally, the baseline sigma level for the overall defect rate is estimated using a six sigma conversion chart, providing a relative indicator of how close the current process is to delivering zero defects.

3. The "A" Analyze phase in DMAIC isolates the top causes behind the metric or CTQ that the team is tackling. In most cases there will be no more than three causes that must be controlled in order to achieve success – if too many causes are identified, then the team is too ambitious to achieve success with a single project. The Croft Team used the 5 why method and Fishbone diagram to reduce the identified probable causes in order to increase the probability of success but there are many tools to utilize.In the CROFT equipment manufacturing example, the team understood the reasons behind two of the biggest Pareto items discovered in the Measure phase: (1) reworks on equipment not passing final inspection (2) failure of assembly compliance.

4. The "I" Improve phase focuses on fully understanding the top causes identified in the Analyze phase, with the intent of either controlling or eliminating those causes to achieve breakthrough performance. The overall theme for the Improve phase is process redesign, CROFT we performed hypothesis testing. Hypothesis testing is evaluating a proposed process improvement to see if its effect is statistically significant, or if the same improvement could have occurred by random chance. CROFT we also manufactured a limited production trial that demonstrated a significantly improved process prior to moving into the Control phase.
5. The "C" Control phase is about sustaining the changes made in the Improve phase to guarantee lasting results. CROFT manufacturing team wrote a control plan and created a quality checks and balances in then created a staging area for a cut materials/parts to be checked before proceeding into welding.

Remember for 2015 "Better Everyday in Every way."