ramabadran

Hi SJ, I have attached an example of VSM for NPDI Process (VSM example.ppt). Its a part of Lean-Sixsigma initiative for reducing the Product Development leadtime from 9.2months to 6months. Will be useful for the group. Regards, Ram

Dear All, Do we mean to say only Toyota has failed & not other companies... lets take the recent Market complaint of Nokia Battery Bursting... Nokia initially said that there is no problem in the battery... later they arranged for inspection of all the batteries at Nokia care centre... they replaced all the defective batteries... there were also failure & product call back by major automobile giants like Ford, Chrysler, BMW, bajaj auto, TVS Motors, Maruthi Suzuki... just to have a knowledge on the same... you are just Google away... As many people have rightly said... just learn from mistakes... but lets not ignore some of the best processes created by TPS. Thats what we do in benchmarking... "Why a competitor perform well & where he has not..." regards, Ramabadran

Hi VK, I go with Shalini view on this. The duration of the course is based the Target group. Some may be a new joiner, some with 5~10years experience & some beyond that. It all depends on how far the person is exposed to the Production & Quality systems. Subgrouping of those cadres and conducting can give you an idea for deciding the course length. Ram

Hi, Sorry for the delayed response... Normally in the CAD Softwares, which uses higher memory for GUI, the regeneration of the 3D model is done as clusters. (ie) for every regeneration, the reference point varies. Hence the regeration is faster & accurate. In geospatial domain, the location of the galaxy,stars,planets are reffered by individual references. The distance & angular positions of these references are separate. A fused data of all these will give accurate relative positions & distances Regards, Ramabadran

Hi, I have seen some fields using indepth fusion data analysis... Geospatial domain - Location of planet wrt to individual references Pro-E & other 3D Cad Softwares MS SQL data link in databases. Fused data is always better than data on sigle reference, coz, Easier & Faster Manipulation of data Data is accurate Regards, Ramabadran

Hi Mahendra, Iam not fully aware of teh credit card transactional process, but for such transactional process, 1. Sub-group your quality limits to "AQ-Atrractive Quality" - that attacts your customer & "MBQ-Must be quality, the basic requirement for running the business". Now you have got to have a strong data base to identify the areas of concern. 2. To find out the limits for "Area of concern", benchmarking can help you. Just identify how other banks operate & in which stage you are... You can also have streched targets to perform better than you competitor". As the data deals with "money", be extra sure about the data accuracy of self & the competitor. It may mis-lead you if you take it for granted. 3. Now identity the first few major ("Vital Few") concern areas & jot down your project character accordingly... Regards, Ramabadran

Hi Rajeev, Color coding is a good way to identify. You can also try the other method. Normally, the heat treatment will have an effect on the dimensions. The dimension for heattreated (Normalisi / annealing—> Nitriding) casting will vary upto 35microns. If the casted part has any control dimension parameters like, drilled hole etc, it can be utilised. Design your pallet in such a way that only the non heat treated part will enter the locator in the pallet.. This will further improve the Poka-Yoke rating… One more example, Normally in any press-shop there is a high frequency of accident (ie) persons loosing fingers while loading the component urgently & pushing the start switch simultaneously. To avoid such accidents, currently the press machines are designed with dual start switches. The ram will operate only if both the switches are operated (which means both hands are occupied on switches eliminating the chance of hand related accidents) Ramabadran

Hi All, Even if we consider the 8D problem solving approach, the 8th "D" is Recognition... thats after the control phase... D0 - Prepare for the Ford Global 8D Process D1 - Establish Team D2 - Describe the Problem D3 - Develop Interim Containment Action (ICA) D4 - Define and Verify Root Cause and Escape Point D5 - Choose and Verify Permanent Corrective Actions (PCAs) for Root Cause and Escape Point D6 - Implement and Validate Permanent Corrective Actions (PCAs) D7 - Prevent Recurrence D8 - Recognize Team and Individual Contributions But recognising the efforts made at any stage of the projects can be through a high level of encouragement like offsite meeting in a hotel, a dinner outside etc.. this will improve the involvement of individuals in the project... Ramabadran

Hi All, Automation is the best way for reducing defects... People say, automation is costly... But there are automations which can be derived at very cheap rate... For example we had a problem in Watch Strap Assembly... Gap between Watch case & strap... Wrist watches The strap is of rubber... Its very difficult for a person to push the rubber strap against the case & 2 screws has to assembled in pressed condition... We made a small fixure (Rs.3600/-) which will hold the watch case against a wall at one end and at the other end a spring assembly will push the rubber strap against the case automatically... The operator can just assemble 2 screws... The FTA improved from 62% to 100% & lead time of assembly came down from 4 minutes to 1.5 Minutes per watch. Alternate solution of using a CNC/NC operated machine for this activity would have costed upto Rs. 2Lakhs. Automation is normally mis-understood by people as a costlier solution... For some operation like in Electronics assembly (Mother Board)... automation can be costly... But a clear understanding on ROI can clear our doubts... In automation, Production time & Inspection time fall parallely... Hence the cycle time is same as the production time thus reducing NVA & hidden factories... The Kaizen sheet is attached in the file cabinet... You can have a view.. Ramabadran

Hi All, I was working in TVS - NPD Quality... We had a brainstorming on Improving Customer safety while driving... Example 1 We formed a team & came out with an idea for Side Stand wich is the most dangerous Accident creator... Normally, we used to see persons driving bikes/Scooterettes with side stand open... To avoid such error, we introduced a beep alarm... (ie) when you start the vehicle with side stand open... the beeper will blow... and alert the rider... Example 2 During Vehicle assembly stage, there are lot of chances that the wiring for various components (Headlight, Horn, Indicator light etc) are wrongly assembled... To avoid this, we decided to use color codings for wires... Blue for Head Light, Green for Indicator etc... This solved the wrong assembly Ramabadran

Hi all, As for as any process is concerned, we try to acheive "Zero defects". The number of categories & the % of Vital fews taken depends on the size of the project (ie) no of persons working on the project, investment on the project, immediate benefits after the project etc.... I can even take 1 amoung the 34 categories as each problem has an effect (may be with just 20%). Pareto is for prioritising the projects.... If i fail in solving the highest vital few, it doesnt mean that i should not attempt the second highest... Pareto shows the relativity of the problems to Vital few... there may or may not be any relation ship to each invidual problems... some times solving the second highest may reduce the first due to relative parameters... Regards, Ramabadran

Hi Sapna / Gisela, As far as the field "BLOOD BANK" is concerned, it deals with life. - Firstly identify the current problems & list down as a Problem bank. - Secondly prioritise your problems based on the importance it has as "Productivity, Quality, Cost, Delivery, Morale & Safety" - Create a high level project character for the prioritised problem - As BLOOD is the most vital part of medication, its better that you consult other Physicians on the requirements - you can use KANO's model / QFD - If it is more concerned on TIME - concentrate more on P-productivity & D-Delivery. You can have a better understanding through SIPOC & Value Stream Mapping. - In SIPOC you will come to know about you Suppliers for your invidual milestone in the process, Inputs given by the supplier, the Process, Output given by the process & the Customers (eg) The blood donor is the Supplier, Input is Blood, Process is ispection of blood, certification & storage, output is certified blood, customer is a patient in the hospital. - In VSM you can drill down the entire process & under stand the process time between the milestones. VSM consists of the Leadtime for each milestone, actual Process time & non value added time. Non value added time other wise called as the Waste can be classified into 7 types - "TIMWOOD" T - Transportation, I - Inventory, M - Movement, W - Waiting / Queing time, O - Over Production, O - Over Processing, D - Defects Biforcate each of your activity in the process with Actual time & Wasted time. Now the wasted time has to be biforcated into "TIMWOOD". This method can help you to identify potential areas. Also if possible, some techiques like KANBAN & 2 Bin systems can help. regards, Ramabadran

Hi all, Some good points from Manian / shalini. After being Hired by the company, I need to do the following things to exhibit my capability. Under stand the oppurtunities for Improvement. For this I should under stand the overall process & find out the AFI's. Experience / Knowledge - By virtue it is very important that we understand the process & parameters thoroughly before I define my project. Prioritize the projects & make a crisp presentation to the SMT with proper justification. Justification should speak more on Money Value. Also a formal approval from the SMT's in the form of PDQ (Project definition questionaire) is required and need to be circulated to all the concerned stake holders where the project is conducted. Involvement of people - This is the most important criteria as we need to understand we cannot complete the project all alone. It requires lot of resources based on the type of project & expected results. So the SMT & MMT involvement in trigering the project is very important. We will also need to win lots of mis-understanding but with an open mind. For this, we need to collect perfect data from an authenticated source. Over a period, we will easily be able to understand what we need to answer and refine our data accordingly. Avoiding mind blocks - Sometimes by experience, we assume things and may skip some of the process. (Eg) the Hypothesis test, DOE. A small difference over our assumption will have a major effect on the results. We may be forced to redo the project. Convert all the rate of improvements into Business results - Business results normally are shown in currencies. This will have a good appeal to SMT. Even the customer satisfaction score can be shown in currency by just getting the data on sales figures / market returns etc, before & after the project. Regards, Ramabadran

Hi all, The following are the 7 major wastes (MUDA), in other words the NVA's in a process, "TIMWOOD" T - Transportation I - Inventory M - Motion (Man movement) W - Waiting / Queing / High WIP O - Over Production O - Over Processing D - Defects / Re-work Any process need to be studied thoroughly for these wastes & need to be minimised. Regards, Ramabadran

Hi all, But from the books of Toyota, any activity which is not involved in Direct production is called as an NVA. 1. Toyota has not only made automation in its production line, but also in the corporate. (Eg.1), a person enters the company, swipe his card. Automatically the same is accounted into his salary. There is a very less human intervention, supposed to be for maintanance (Eg.2), More material movements within the factory which consumes more resources & money. 2. But for companies like IT, ITES/BPO the employee becomes the capital compared to other hardwares & softwares.(eg.1) Here, a peson serving a cup of coffee for the entire team is an NVA. Rather it can be a coffee maker. The person after filling the coffee maker can do some extra activity. Also here, this may lead to direct manpower distraction. (eg.2) More document movements Point (1) & (2) are relatively different. NVA may be described as a "Lengthier / fatter activity" to achieve a goal. This is "an opposite of Lean Process". Ramabadran