We are starting some new training regarding environmental six sigma, we need to do 7 projects, has anybody got any good project ideas or experience of this?  

Hi Miles,

You could possibly look at carbon footprint.

Can U elaborate how one can apply six sigma in environmental projects.

I don't know whether your organizatin is registererd to ISO 14001 Environmental Management System. If you do that, automatically during the evaluation itself you will know your gaps with the environmental and regulatory requirements and most of those gaps you can take it as Six Sigma projects to have the robust system. Use DFSS if you haven't done the registration or DMAIC if you have already done it.

Yes we have the ISO14001 standard here for which I am responsible for.  The problem is I having been running this for over 5 years now and most new ideas have been dealt with either through objectives and targets which is part of the continous improvement which the standard asks.  

Or though audits that have been carried out through people such as the carbon trust.  These reports take 2 days and the report is 52 pages of improvements and recomendations that have been carried out.  

So we have run out of ideas!  The only ideas that we havent had the time or man power to carry out in depth would be, costings of the system, monitoring and reducing energy usage, spend/payback of environmental projects.

Definitely reducing energy usage can be a Six Sigma project to have energyefficiency and cost reduction together. Costings of the system will be more of business evaluation and there without compromising the achieved quality, if you have scope to reduce the cost or steps you can consider still.

To quote Miles above "The only ideas that we havent had the time or man power to carry out in depth would be, costings of the system, monitoring and reducing energy usage, spend/payback of environmental projects"

This statement indicates that the focus has been on reduction on Non-Conformance reduction but (probably) not on business benefits. Miles, please do correct me if I am wrong here.

I have conducted 400 plus third party ISO audits in multiple industries myself and know how the system works.

Six Sigma is about equipping the best people in the company with the best techniques to tackle biggest pain/reward areas for the biggest business benefits. Most of the times ISO 14001 focus is limited to conformance to requirements (and that is what it is supposed to do).

The big business benefit areas require ability to carry out projects with laser sharp data driven focus. Such ability is provided by DMAIC Green Belt and Black Belt programs.

Another interesting point is Six Sigma is about putting in more of preventive mechanisms in place so that there is reduced need for detective mechanisms (like audits)

Six Sigma learning and implementation is definitely not easy and shall require persistent effort in

• identifying good projects that make business sense,
  
• assessing current performance with reasonable accuracy,
  
• finding the critical causes and confirming them with scientific approaches,
  
• bringing the change in the critical causes and validating plausibility of business benefits,
  
• setting up controls so that the sustained and benefits can be realized repeatedly.
  

I look forward to reply and comments from Miles who initiated this discussion.

No conformance is not really a problem as we have only had one minor non conformance in 6 years on our Environmental standard. The one thing the auditor picked up was that we could not measure the reduction in our energy savings. 

I am a little confused with the initiation of new six sigma projects, I thought projects could only be carried out if you had a problem?

 

You don’t need to wait only for Non-conformances to start a Six Sigma Project. Process operating efficiency, costings, savings, cycle time, FMEA etc., could throw you up further to a robust design, process, with further savings. ISO 14001 procedures alone need not be targeted to do that. Six Sigma for that matter any continual improvement is related to process and even increasing any small incremental level is an achievement. Start with Sigma level, or OEE, Cycle/Takt time, RPN to find out whether you can start a project rather than starting from only Non-conformances.

Thank you, this is very helpful.

 

 

Hi,

 

i would like to add a few things on the discussion on energy savings,or building a Six sigma project on that, I could not get the type of industry from the disucssion , but , if is a process industry opportunities and six sigma projects are unlimited . I am currently working on identifying the specific energy consumption of the plant .

 

A starter would be to identify the loses , record the current energy conumption pattern, cell/layout/ machine wise and study the losses.

 

For example if you use compressors, crushers, injection molding machines the opoortunities are more

 

for more informations you can visit :

 

Bureau of Energy Efficieny- bee.nic.in

 

www.energymanagertraining.com/eca2008/AwardBooklet2008/18GeneralCategory.pdf

"Setting up large and lofty goals, and/ or identify niches where the things don't digest", these are the two tools which open up gamut of projects. Obviously, the first one may be considered as fiction-ous and not a worthy six-sigma-initiative. Yst it shall be used as a bargaining exercise to settle for something more realistic, achievable, yet be very challenging.

Larger the gains accrued better were a six sigma project.

Anyhow when we have myopic sights set over something more realistic, easily achievable, the ease or lack of challenge lets us overee many smaller things. I have seen the best of EMS auditors in their assesment of aspects misinterpret sources and thus- the real purposes are lost somewhere. Agreeable it was not their fault, but that of the consultants, but it is the former with who rests the ultimate responsibility of any failure. Setting sights highprepares one with the attitude to build up a holistic picture of the system, and outcomes from such an exercise are likely to be superior.

Thank you,

Priyavrat thareja

PEC university of Technology

Chandigarh

Hi,

I'm karthikeyan.

Can we start a project related to Natural resources without polluting an Environmental.

If you have an interest please shake your hands.

Yah! I'm also trying to do that kind of project.

 

                                                                                           Lovingly,

                                                                     karthikeyan.k

The above discussion shows that Lean Six Sigma techniques are applicable everywhere. 
 
Also, it is important to understand that the basic framework for any formulation requires basic of Six Sigma.