Zero Defect Movement, Six Sigma Method and Industrial Engineering - Robust Productive Process Design

Six Sigma - Contribution to GE - 1997 - Covered in the first version.

Zero Defect Movement, Six Sigma Method and Industrial Engineering - Robust Productive Process Design - IE Six Sigma Projects.

Industrial engineers have to make their process redesigns more productive. They have to  robust also with respect to variation and the six sigma exercise will facilitate that task. Industrial engineers can measure the output possible from a current process optimized using six sigma exercise and also  subject the redesigned process to six sigma exercise. It is logical that the process which gives better output in terms quality, productivity and cost will be selected. A multi-objective criterion can be used to make the choice.

Even in lean systems, necessary safety stocks are employed to manage the risks economically. The point in TPS is to attack the risk drivers first to change them for better before using safety stocks to compensate for them.  Narayana Rao, 17.2.2022.

Lesson 158 of  Industrial Engineering ONLINE Course. (Lesson of Analysis of Delays sub-module)
Lesson 156:     Analysis of Delays in the Processes - Part of Flow Process Chart Analysis

Moving closer and closer to zero defects goal improves processes. This will reduce defects and reduce delays that are caused by rework and the maintenance of safety stocks to avoid production stoppages.

Process industrial engineering has to aim at zero defects in its productivity improvement projects. F.W. Taylor specially highlighted the attention to quality in productivity improvement initiatives. But he was not given adequate credit for it by subsequent scholars who blamed productivity improvement for quality deterioration. Industrial engineers have to be conscious of quality dimension. Defects decrease productivity in terms of profit and cost. Additional production does not increase profit, if additional defects offset the contribution provided by the incremental good items produced. Industrial engineers have to justify their productivity improvement ideas and projects through engineering economic analysis. An industrial engineering ideas or suggestion or redesign can be implemented only when it provides adequate return on investment. In doing engineering economic analysis, the cost of defects will enter the calculation and more the defects, more will be the cost and it will reduce ROI.

Industrial engineers have to pay attention to the zero defect science and technology available and adopt it in the engineering systems achieve zero defects along with increased productivity.

Jidoka - Zero Defects - Japan

Jidoka, that is process design and process improvement  is  one of the two pillars of Toyota Production System, the World Standard for Manufacturing during 1970 to 2010. Now of course the aspiration is Smart Manufacturing System and Smart Factory. Many researchers, scholars, industrialists, innovators, engineers and administrators are making great efforts to come out with smart manufacturing system that will give them the competitive advantage in the Industry 4.0 engineering environment. Zero defects is practiced by Toyoda textiles and the objective and practices were further refined in Toyota Motors.

The Toyota Production System was developed by Toyota in the 1950's. Taichi Ohno is a leader in this system development. He wrote some books and also is quoted in some other books. He says Jidoka and JIT are the two pillars of TPS.  Thus, the origins of TPS started much earlier to the special efforts of Ohno and Shigeo Shingo.

The concept of Jidoka, which was originally developed by Toyota's founder, Sakichi Toyoda in 1920's, as 'intelligent automation', and first used on automatic looming machines to improve productivity as well as ensuring quality, by automatically detecting abnormalities. Automatic machines should increase productiion but should  not produce defects is the idea behind Jidoka. A machine that does not produce defects is an idea of Jidoka. Thus Japanese zero defect movement was started by Sakichi Toyoda.

In the 1930s the concept of 'Just-in-Time', was invented by Kiichiro Toyoda as part of his efforts to create an efficient way of manufacturing Toyota cars, when resources were scarce, and waste could not be afforded. Just-in-time depends on getting exactly the right goods (components) to exactly the right place at the right time.

Jidoka and Just-in-time formed the two pillars of the Toyota Production System which was developed by Taichi Ohno and has since been improved over many decades.
https://toyota-forklifts.eu/our-offer/services-solutions/toyota-lean-academy/toyota-production-system/

Supporting documents
https://blog.gembaacademy.com/2007/04/09/jidoka-forgotten-pillar/
https://books.google.co.in/books?id=hlgyDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA44#v=onepage&q&f=false
https://in.kaizen.com/blog/post/2016/10/12/jidoka-the-forgotten-pillar.html
https://books.google.co.in/books?id=K9aYpFdFONUC&pg=PA95#v=onepage&q&f=false
https://world-class-manufacturing.com/jidoka.html
http://alexsibaja.blogspot.com/2014/02/jidoka-is-path-to-zero-defect.html

Zero Defects Movement - Phil Crosby

Six sigma method is engineering solution to zero defect movement started by Phil Crosby.

Zero Defects is the approach to quality that was developed and promoted by the guru Philip B. Crosby in his book ‘Quality Is Free’.

It’s a way of thinking about quality that doesn’t tolerate errors or defects and continually strives to improve processes and prevent errors so that work is always done correctly without needing repetition or rework or generating waste;

The accepted theory was that a certain level of defects is seen as normal or acceptable, as implied by the Acceptable Quality Limit approach; Crosby took a strong line against AQLs for precisely that reason, he saw them as a “commitment, before we start the job, that we will produce imperfect material”.

Zero Defects is based on four key principles:

Quality is simply conformance to requirements.
It is always cheaper to do the job right the first time than to correct problems later
Quality is measured in monetary terms (the price of non-conformance)
The performance standard for a process must be Zero Defects.


The key word for achieving Zero Defects is Zero defects production. Not reworking to correct errors or deviations.

The case for Zero Defects

Crosby explains that defects result in costs which can be measured - inspection, waste/scrap, rework, lost customers, etc. By eliminating defects these costs are sufficiently reduced that the savings more than pay for the quality improvement programme; hence his assertion that ‘Quality is Free’ and his advocacy of the quality management movement.

As with many areas of quality management it’s about the philosophy and the journey you take from where you are now to being a better business, it is the “attitude of defect prevention”.

When your goal is zero defects it sets a standard against which all your processes can be assessed. It’s about continually striving to work better and not being satisfied with the status quo.

Crosby gave a 14 step quality improvement programme.
http://www.qualityandproducts.com/2009/12/08/the-pros-and-cons-of-%E2%80%98zero-defects%E2%80%99/

Lockheed Martin - Proud of Phil Crosby and Zero Defect Program

It was at the Martin Company’s Orlando plant that a far-reaching and influential program was born: Zero Defects, the granddaddy of nearly every quality control program in the world. One of the plant’s first jobs was the production of the first Pershing missile for the United States Army. Philip Crosby was the quality control manager on the Pershing missile program, and he established the four principles of Zero Defects:

1) Quality is conformance to requirements,
2) Defect prevention is preferable to quality inspection and correction,
3) Zero Defects is the quality standard, and
4) Quality is measured in monetary terms—the Price of Nonconformance.

Put simply, it’s better to do it right the first time than to have to correct mistakes later. Crosby’s standards were credited with a 25 percent reduction in the Pershing missile program’s overall rejection rate, and a 30 percent reduction in scrap costs. Zero Defects meant a better product, produced more economically.

The Martin Company offered Zero Defects freely to all other aerospace companies and, years later, it was adopted by automobile manufacturers around the world.

Zero Defects was the guiding principle behind Martin Marietta’s work on the Titan rocket series, which propelled NASA’s Gemini astronauts into orbit over ten months in 1965 and 1966. The end result was a program that launched ten manned missions and had a 100 percent success rate—a feat unmatched in space travel before.

http://www.lockheedmartin.com/us/100years/stories/zero-defects.html

Advancing zero defect manufacturing: A state-of-the-art perspective and future research directions

DarylPowell,   Maria Chiara Magnanini,  Marcello Colledani, Odd Myklebust 

Computers in Industry

Volume 136, April 2022, 103596

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0166361521002037

Very interesting. very detailed article

FMEA

https://www.juran.com/blog/guide-to-failure-mode-and-effect-analysis-fmea

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Source: Advancing zero defect manufacturing: A state-of-the-art perspective and future research directions

DarylPowell,   Maria Chiara Magnanini,  Marcello Colledani, Odd Myklebust 

Computers in Industry

Volume 136, April 2022, 103596

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0166361521002037

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Manufacturing Excellence - 'Zero Defect, Zero Effect'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpJ98WObz7w

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Six Sigma Method - Lessons

409

Six Sigma

http://www.intechopen.com/books/quality-management-and-six-sigma/six-sigma

http://nraomtr.blogspot.com/2014/05/six-sigma-introduction.html

410

Initiating Six Sigma - IE Six Sigma - Robust Productive Process Design

https://nraoiekc.blogspot.com/2022/03/initiating-six-sigma-ie-six-sigma.html

411

Measurements for Six Sigma - IE Six Sigma - Robust Productive Process Design

https://nraoiekc.blogspot.com/2022/03/measurements-for-six-sigma-ie-six-sigma.html

412

Data Analysis for Six Sigma - IE Six Sigma - Robust Productive Process Design

https://nraoiekc.blogspot.com/2022/03/data-analysis-for-six-sigma-ie-six.html

413

Improve The Process - IE Six Sigma - Robust Productive Process Design

https://nraoiekc.blogspot.com/2022/03/improve-process-ie-six-sigma-robust.html

414

Control the Process - IE Six Sigma - Robust Productive Process Design

https://nraoiekc.blogspot.com/2022/03/control-process-ie-six-sigma-robust.html

415

Implementing and Getting Results from Six Sigma - IE Six Sigma - Robust Productive Process Design

https://nraoiekc.blogspot.com/2022/03/implementing-and-getting-results-from.html

416

Design for Six Sigma (DFSS) - IE Six Sigma - Robust Productive Process Design

https://nraoiekc.blogspot.com/2022/03/design-for-six-sigma-dfss-ie-six-sigma.html

417

Application of Six Sigma. Successful Projects from the Application of Six Sigma Methodology - Jaime Sanchez and Adan Valles-Chavez.

https://www.intechopen.com/chapters/17409

Articles on Six Sigma

The Certified Six Sigma Black Belt - Donald Benbow and T.M. Kubiak - Book Information

Six Sigma - Introduction

Total Quality Management: Focus on Six Sigma - Review Notes

Control of Variation in Inputs and Outputs - Management Insights from Statistics

How GE Stays Young

by Brad Power

May 13, 2014

GE is an icon of management best practices. Under CEO Jack Welch in the 1980s and 1990s, they adopted operational efficiency approaches (“Workout,” “Six Sigma,” and “Lean”) that reinforced their success and that many companies emulated. But,  GE is moving on. While Lean and Six Sigma continue to be important, the company is constantly looking for new ways to get better and faster for their customers. That includes learning from the outside and striving to adopt certain start-up practices, with a focus on three key management processes: (1) resource allocation that nurtures future businesses, (2) faster-cycle product development, and (3) partnering with start-ups.

Harvard Business Review Article.

https://hbr.org/2014/05/how-ge-stays-young

Six Sigma - Contribution to GE - 1997

Excerpts from  GE Annual Report 1997
http://bib.kuleuven.be/ebib/data/jaarverslagen/GE_1997.pdf


The centerpiece of our dreams and aspirations "the drive for Six Sigma quality.

 “Six Sigma” is a disciplined methodology, led and taught by highly trained GE employees
called “Master Black Belts” and “Black Belts,” that focuses on moving every process that touches our
customers — every product and service — toward near-perfect quality.


Six sigma projects usually focus on improving our customers’ productivity and reducing their capital outlays, while increasing the quality, speed and efficiency of our operations.

We didn’t invent Six Sigma — we learned it.

Motorola pioneered it and AlliedSignal successfully embraced it. The experiences of these two companies, which they shared with us, made the launch of our initiative much simpler and faster.

GE had another huge advantage that accelerated our quality effort: we had a Company that was open to change, hungry to learn and anxious to move quickly on a good idea.

At GE today —finding  the better way, the best idea, from whomever will share it with us, has become our central focus.

Nowhere has this learning environment, this search for the better idea, been more powerfully demonstrated than in our drive for Six Sigma quality. Twenty-eight months ago, we became convinced that Six Sigma quality could play a central role in GE’s future; but we believed, as well, that it would take years of consistent communication, relentless emphasis and impassioned leadership move this big Company on this bold new course.

We were wrong!

Projections of our progress in Six Sigma, no matter how optimistic, have had to be junked every few months as gross underestimates. Six Sigma has spread like wildfire across the Company, and it is transforming everything we do.

We had our annual Operating Managers Meeting — 500 of our senior business leaders from around the globe — during the first week of January 1998, and it turned out to be a wonderful snapshot of the way this learning Company — this new GE — has come to behave; and now, with Six Sigma, how it has come to work.

Today, in the uncountable number of business meetings across GE — both organized and “in-the-hall” — the gates are open to the largest flood of innovative ideas in world business. These ideas are generated, improved upon and shared by 350 business segments — or, as we think of them, 350 business laboratories. Today, these ideas center on spreading Six Sigma “best practices” across our business operations.

At this particular Operating Managers Meeting, about 25 speakers, from across the Company and around the world, excitedly described how Six Sigma is transforming the way their businesses work.

They shared what they had learned from projects such as streamlining the back room of a credit card operation, or improving turnaround time in a jet engine overhaul shop, or “hit-rate” improvements in commercial finance transactions. Most of the presenters focused on how their process improvements were making their customers more competitive and productive:

• Medical Systems described how Six Sigma designs have produced a 10-fold increase in the life of CT scanner x-ray tubes — increasing the “uptime” of these machines and the profitability and level of patient care given by hospitals and other health care providers.

• Superabrasives — our industrial diamond business — described how Six Sigma quadrupled its return on investment and, by improving yields, is giving it a full decades worth of capacity despite growing volume — without spending a nickel on plant and equipment capacity.

• Our railcar leasing business described a 62% reduction in turnaround time at its repair shops: an enormous productivity gain for our railroad and shipper customers and for a business that’s now two to three times faster than its nearest rival because of Six Sigma improvements. In the next phase, spread across the entire shop network, Black Belts and Green Belts, working with their teams, redesigned the overhaul process, resulting in a 50% further reduction in cycle time.

• The plastics business, through rigorous Six Sigma process work, added 300 million pounds of new capacity (equivalent to a “free plant”), saved $400 million in investment and will save another $400 million by 2000.

At our meeting, zealot after zealot shared stories of customers made more competitive, of credit card and mortgage application processes streamlined, of inventories reduced, and of whole factories and businesses performing at levels never believed possible.

The sharing process was repeated at another level two weeks later in Paris, as 150 Master Black Belts and Black Belts, from every GE business throughout Europe, came together to share and learn quality technology. This learning is done in the boundaryless, transcultural language of Six Sigma, where “CTQ’s” (critical to quality characteristics) or “DPMO’s” (defects per million opportunities) or “SPC” (statistical process control) have exactly the same meaning at every GE operation from Tokyo to Delhi and from Budapest to Cleveland and Shanghai.

The meeting stories are anecdotal; big companies can make great presentations and impressive charts. But the cumulative impact on the Company’s numbers is not anecdotal, nor a product of charts. It is the product of 276,000 people executing ... and delivering the results of Six Sigma to our bottom line.

Operating margin, a critical measure of business efficiency and profitability, hovered around the 10% level at GE for decades.  With Six Sigma embedding itself deeper into Company operations, GE in 1997 went through the “impossible” 15% level — approaching 16% — and we are optimistic about the upside.

Six Sigma, even at this relatively early stage, delivered more than $300 million to our 1997 operating income. In 1998, returns will more than double this operating profit impact. Six Sigma is quickly becoming part of the genetic code of our future leadership. Six Sigma training is now an ironclad prerequisite for promotion to any professional or managerial position in the Company — and a requirement for any award of stock options.

Senior executive compensation is now heavily weighted toward Six Sigma commitment and success — success now increasingly defined as “eatable” financial returns, for our customers and for us. There are now nearly 4,000 full-time, fully trained Black Belts and Master Black Belts: Six Sigma instructors, mentors and project leaders. There are more than 60,000 Green Belt part-time project leaders who have completed at least one Six Sigma project.

Already, Black Belts and Master Black Belts who are finishing Six Sigma assignments have become the most sought-after candidates for senior leadership jobs in the Company, including vice presidents and chief financial officers at some of our businesses. Hundreds have already moved upward through the pipeline. They are true believers, speaking the language of the future, energized by successful projects under their belts, and drawing other committed zealots upward with them.

In the early 1990s, we defined ourselves as a company of boundaryless people with a thirst for learning and a compulsion to share

Now it is Six Sigma that is  permeating much of what we do all day.

We are feverish on the subject of Six Sigma quality as it relates to products, services and people — maybe a bit unbalanced —  because we see it as the ultimate way to make real our dreams of what this great Company could become.

Six Sigma has turned up the voltage in every GE business across the globe, energizing and exciting all of us and moving us closer than ever to what we have always wanted to become: more than a hundred-billion-dollar global enterprise with the agility, customer focus and fire in the belly of a small company.

In our 1994 letter to you, we addressed the perennial question put to management teams, which is “how much more can be squeezed from the lemon?” We claimed, then, that there was in fact unlimited juice in this “lemon,” and that none of this had anything to do with “squeezing” at all.

We believed there was an ocean of creativity and passion and energy in GE people that had no bottom and no shores. We believed that then, and we are convinced of it today. And when we said that there was an “infinite capacity to improve everything,” we believed that as well — viscerally — but there was no methodology or discipline attached to that belief. There is now. It’s Six Sigma quality, along with a culture of learning, sharing and unending excitement.

2006 — Six Sigma Excellence Award Winners

Award for “Best Defect Elimination in Manufacturing”, sponsored by Minitab.

Winner: Reliance Industries Ltd (Neeraj Dhingra)

https://www.isixsigma.com/press-releases/2006-six-sigma-excellence-awards-and-winners-are/

2009 Six Sigma Excellence Finalists

Manufacturing

Medtronic Spinal & Biologics – "Set-screw Breakoff Torque"

Perlos Telecommunication & Electronic Component India Pvt. Ltd. – "Yield Improvement of In Mold Decoration (IMD) Molding Process"

Xerox – "Photoreceptor Belt Tensioning System"

https://www.reliableplant.com/Read/14589/isixsigma-names-finalists-for-six-sigma-awards

SIX SIGMA PRINCIPLES

Six Sigma is based on the following basic principles.

1. Y=f(X) + ε: All outcomes and results, the dependent variable (the Y) are determined by inputs (the Xs) with some degree of uncertainty (ε).


2. To change or improve results (the Y), you have to focus on the inputs (the Xs), modify them. (In the six sigma method, values of different variables X are changed systematically and resulting output is recorded and analyzed to find the best combination of values.

3. Variation is everywhere, and it degrades consistent, good performance. Your job is to find it and minimize it!

4. You get minimum variation for a particular combination Xs for given set of X and some times by including more input variables.

5. Valid measurements and data are required foundations for consistent, breakthrough improvement.

6. Only a critical few inputs have significant effect on the output. Concentrate on the critical few. There is some effort involved in determining the set of Xs that have significant effect on the output.


Philosophy – Process inputs control the outputs and determine their level of quality.

Focus – An unending quest for improving business processes.

Methods – Known as DMAIC (define, measure, analyze, improve, and control) and DMADV (define, measure, analyze, design, verify).

Measure of Success – Ultimately reducing defects to 3.4 per one million opportunities, through iterative application of six sigma methodology to understand the process better.

Books

https://books.google.co.in/books?id=VSsHiZlPieAC&pg=PA50#v=onepage&q&f=false

https://books.google.co.in/books?id=Us3PBAAAQBAJ

https://books.google.co.in/books?id=wQsA2dKzvQkC     2010 - Mikell J. Harry

https://ashwinmore.com/origin-of-lean-six-sigma/

Updated 11.10.2022,  22.7.2022, 14.4.2022,  17.3.2022,  17.2.2022, 7.2.2022, 21 Jan 2022, 23 Sep 2021,  25 August 2019, 24 August 2017, 3 March 2012