Statistical Process Control as a LEAN tool!

Part 1:

I never wrote an article before, but I think there are several topics, which can be interesting within the LinkedIn professional users, and could start good discussions, or wake up some brains. In this post, I would like to start to talk about Statistical Process Control (SPC)

For all producing companies are key points the product quality, production costs, the production waste, customer satisfaction, etc. Until now, I never meet with any company where the continuous improvement wouldn`t be an important factor. Each companies are working daily to improve their processes, to be more effective, more successful.

Earlier as an engineer, later as manager the part of my daily job was to achieve such a kind goals, and find new interesting methods.

Some years ago under a discussion with the quality department we realized, our production control isn`t enough robust. Despite we identified problems in early stage our reaction for the problem was very slow, and the result was weak. We want to make an advantage from this finding, so started to analyze what are our possibilities.

After our study, we realized the Statistical Process Control (SPC) would be a good tool to strengthen our weakness in the production process. As you know SPC isn`t a new method/tool. It has already a long history, just didn`t used before by us. So we didn`t invented the water.

The father of the SPC was Walter Andrew Shewhart (American physicist, engineer, and statistician) in the early 1920s

What is Statistical Process Control (SPC)?

SPC is a method for controlling production processes. Useful for monitoring and controlling standard production processes based on statistical mathematical principles

Why is it important?

To detect as early as possible of non-random deviations in the production process and eliminate the causes in order to improve product quality through capable and controlled processes.

What does it mean in the weekdays? With the SPC we can:

• Increase product quality
• Achieve long term product stability
• Decrease scrap, and/or non-conform product qty.
• Increase productivity
• Increase customer satisfaction
• Reduce production costs

To find the right tool was the easiest step -I think- in our journey. The next steps took much longer, and of course we made some mistakes as well.

"I have not failed. I`ve just found 10,000 ways that won`t work" Thomas A. Edison

Many of us know to introduce a new tool in a production site isn`t an easy task. Need really good preparation, team work, check, and fine tune. As mentioned, it is not a one step action, it is a survey. Key point to convince the team what we would like to do, why we want it, and what would be the benefits for all of us.

A good manager need to use all of her/his soft skills to be able to manage it. I can tell you, it was really interesting exciting, and challenging task. But all time I was very proud, when I see the team how good they can work together, how they can motivate each other, and how they are helping us to make the journey successful.

And the result? The numbers showed us, our investment (time, energy) was rewarding. After the first positive results the team was more and more motivated, and the process was self-perpetuating. Great success, great team work!