What is your problem ?

I like to ask the question when I see someone struggling to fix some problematic case.

I ask the same question to one of my colleague who looks sad, he reply me as below;

“my problem is peoples keep complaining a lot of problems but they don’t know what the problems are.”

His respond doesn’t shock me, I had the same experience too.

I know he is facing difficulties on a project that in mass production stage recently. Everyday he receive complain from operation site regarding the manufacturing problem they are facing.

He show me the problem statement the engineers and manager email him, the statements are simple and general as below

Production line down since last night, due to inconsistent part dimension produced.

Production supervisor decided to down the machine because of many process related problem.

Quality inspector on hold all the lot for engineering verification, they feel not comfortable to release the lots.

Are these a good problem statement?

To me, it is just a noise from the operation site.

I do received this kind of problem statement, when I call up the guy who send out the complaint ( and keep all the big bosses in cc list ) to have better understanding of the situation, the answer giving to me probably will make me jump!

Example;

“Oh I am not sure, these are the feedback from production folk….if you want to know more, please ask them….”

This is a good “non value added” answer. Toyota production system classified “non value added” as waste and it have to remove from the main stream processes.

The best way to understand the situation better is to walk into production floor and interview the operators who handle the operation. Probably they can provide a better problem statement.

Actually, my biggest problem I face is the peoples I work together having problem to form a good problem statement. Most of the time I have to come back to them, tell them the problems they are facing and form the problem statement for them.

Hmmm… something not right….

DMAIC In Kid’s Problem Solving

DMAIC is my powerful problem solving tool. Besides using to solve my business problems, I also use it (some how) to guide my 4 years old daughter overcome her daily challenges.

You may ask me how. How I collect relevant data from her daily activities, perform statistical analysis and conclude a solution for her.

Well, data is just a set of information that helps to understand a situation better. Information could be in other form beside numerical format.

I don’t need statistical tools to analyze her problem. To me, data is not the most important ingredient in DMAIC problem solving process, whereas, logical or systematical thinking through out the process is the most important factor.

When my little GB come to me for help, the common question I will post to guide her through the DMAIC process will be as follow;

Define
What is your problem?
How severe the problems block you from achieving your target?
At which location you find the problem?

Measure
Show me how you perform the task
Show me the area that you have problem and what are the components that causing the problem.

I have to step in to assist her identify others potential root cause that she over looked.

Analyze
We will analyze and confirm the identified potential root causes one by one, we should able to conclude something after a series of detail analysis.

Improve
By now she should have some idea how to improve the situation. Usually I let her propose the solution she likes as long as it is logic.

Control
I don’t bother too much abut what has been done and sustainability. It is just a game and most of the time a one off case.

Anyway, I used to review with her what she has learnt from the problem solving process.

Question again
Have you get your problem solved?
Are you satisfied with the outcome?
Have you confirmed the source of the problem?
Most probably she will repeat the whole DMAIC cycle to show me how she gets the thing right.

I like to package the problem solving process into a game so that she has fun to walk through the DMAIC process to identify and solve her problem.

You may try this to solve your kids’ problem and share your experience in this forum.

I’m Sorry, I Can’t Help You

A new colleague comes over to my place to ask for help. She is hired to lead a quality improvement program launch recently. I m not really sure about the program, but someone did told me it works similar to Six Sigma program.

I understand her problem basically, but I don’t want to describe her problem here, anyway I can share my experience when I take up the assignment to drive Six Sigma program in my previous company about four years ago.

After I took over the function from the plant manager, I walk through the plant to meet up with the functional managers, to understand their expectation of the Six Sigma program and looking for opportunities to work together with their team for any breakthrough improvement.

The outcome of the interview is quite disappointing me. Noon of the managers know about Six Sigma deployments in the company, many of them don’t even know what to improve in their own department. In general, they are satisfied with their current situation.

On the other hand, there are another group of managers think that continuous improvement is part of their daily functional activities, they can handle their function well, why do they need a Six Sigma guy to involve in their operation? Further, I m just a outsider who not suppose to know too much about their function.

I’m loss for the first six month; I did nothing besides enhancing my Six Sigma knowledge. Honestly, I almost give up the job because I feel that I m useless in the company, fortunately I didn’t.

One day I walk into the plant manager’s office to ask for Six Sigma project. He actually not prepared with the question I ask. Finally he realized that he himself also not aware of the Six Sigma program.

This is the big problem, if the big boss of the company doesn’t care about the program, who care?

I have to tell him my problem and I suggest him to call a meeting together with the functional managers, tell them the company’s direction toward the Six Sigma deployment, the management’s expectation and the roles and responsibilities of the functional managers in Six Sigma program.

All the functional managers shall review their departmental activities and list down the key potential area for improvement.

Six Sigma projects prioritization have to include in the agenda of monthly management meeting. The number of project in the pipeline shall be review during the meeting.

After that, only I see some progress of Six Sigma activities moving in the company.

Now, do you see the root cause of the problem?

Many companies leader think Six Sigma program will run by itself after putting in some guys in the Six Sigma function. If you are living in the company with such perception, I’m sorry, I can’t much.

6 Sigma & Lean

I like the way a Brazilian Black Belt described Six-sigma & Lean. “Six-sigma & Lean do not stand alone like “Yin” and “Yang” “. “Yin – Yang “is equilibrium state of all things in Chinese, Japanese, and Korean language. You need the combination of both Six-sigma & Lean to see the effectiveness of utilizing these tools.

My years of black belt experience in a MNC manufacturing company convince me to this conclusion. When the company launched six-sigma for 3 years, it has achieved nothing but frustration of BB, GB, and management. The champion is a senior management personnel full time driving 6-sigma implementation of the plant. A lot of time, projects are doing reverse engineering in using DMAIC tools. Virtually, problems can be resolve with out DMAIC methodology. Savings are quoted as high but it did not reflect in P&L. Six-sigma activities are not by motivation by more of a requirement. I have heard many companies who had launched six-sigma gone through this stage of Dilemma.

It is until Lean -6sigma running in parallel, the whole atmosphere had transformed. Lean culture drive and motivate everyone. It is a concept. This concept does open up the eyes and mind of every one in direct improvement. DMAIC is now applied only as necessary. DMAIC applied when solution is unknown and more so it is for process variation improvement.

With Lean-6sigma, we really can see and feel the transformation of the factory to be more cost effective and alertness. Cost savings need not to be quoted; it is the natural by-products reflect in P&L.

Six Sigma Project And Statistic

Continue from previous post My First Six Sigma Project In 2007

I received some feedback after publishing the Six Sigma project report. Most of the comments are, the project I did shouldn’t call it as a Six Sigma project because I didn’t apply any statistical tools.

Is that a mandatory requirement statistical analysis is a must for Six Sigma project?

Yes, I do have this perception once upon a time, but today I don’t.

Ideally we would like to see statistical analysis in the Six Sigma project, because origin of the Six Sigma concept is data driven approach. However, we have to accept the fact we have problem to find data when we need it. Because of the reason, many potential projects were dropped from the pipeline. Or this has become a good excuse for peoples for not being involve in Six Sigma project activities.

There are few reasons I did not put statistical analysis into this project;

• Six Sigma is new to the people in the company; they have the same perception as most people have, where huge data collection is required for Six Sigma project activities. In order not to frighten them, I try to show them a different way of running a Six Sigma project.
• It is a new problem to the management; I have limited historical data for assessment and base line setting.
• The objective of the project is to find out the root cause of the problem with DMAIC approach.
• I need to identify the root cause as soon as possible since the problem is critical to the management.

The tools that I applied through out the DMAIC process are as below

• Fishbone diagram
• C&E matrix
• Pareto chart
• Simple DOE for hypothesis testing
• Simple DOE for improvement activities

Statistical analysis is important to Six Sigma project, but we have to use it wisely. The most important factor for the success of Six Sigma project is the knowledge of objective to be met in each project phase.

You can apply all kind of complicated statistical analysis to make your project looks hi end but couldn’t conclude anything end of the day. What for ?

Why ???

Why do it this way…

If you have a chance to simplify your process in this way ?

My 1st Six Sigma Project In 2007

I never involve in any 6 Sigma project activities since I joint the new company. 6 Sigma not popular her as it is not a US based company. Because of that, I set up this blog to retain my 6 Sigma knowledge. Also write for fun.

Surprisingly, I had given a chance to take up a technical problem in July. My boss gives me a chance to investigate a problem (some one call it X-File) with my own way, of cause DMAIC is the method I preferred.

I take it as my first 6 Sigma project for this year and for this company. It is an important starting point for me.

Working on 6 Sigma project isn’t easy. As usual, people management is my greatest challenge. I have to pool a group of technical people to joint me in the study. As this is new to them and the activities some how not directly linked to their core function, they are not really interested. I have to do something to create the people’s interest in finding the root cause of the case.

Anyway, the hard time I face was not as bad as what I experienced in the company where I got my Black Belt certification. This is because I got the full commitment from my boss and he is one of the key team members of the project.

Finally, I get my analyze phase closed yesterday. We identified the root cause and understood the failure mechanism. Now I have to hand over the job to my colleague to continue the Improve and Control Phase just because I m loaded with my main function.

Great… it is a good start for me and for the company. I looks forward more cases will be handle with 6 Sigma way in the near future…