5S, Kaizen & Quality Circles For Continual Improvement
(5S)
Six Sigma
Six Sigma process quality
improvement approach is more than the
statistical meaning of 3.4 defective parts /service deliveries per million
opportunities. It is a proven scientific philosophy for business excellence around
which successful breakthrough strategies can be built for improving the
process quality, bottom line, solving complex problems and bringing new improvements &
developments.
Our consulting services assist businesses and business managers learn
and implement Six Sigma process quality improvement approach.
Initially developed at Motorola, Six Sigma
process quality improvement approach found its admirers
and followers in GE, ABB, Texas Instruments and many more global & fortune 500
organizations. The list is growing as more and more organizations are learning
the Six Sigma process quality improvement approach.
Six Sigma Online
Green Belt Certifications are becoming an expectation in the business world. Six
Sigma Green Belt Online Training and certification unlocks the door for those whose schedule demands a "self-paced"
approach, rather than that of an on-site curriculum.
Six Sigma training
encourages individuals to stop what they are doing, examine how well they have
done it, and then implement improvements to iron out defects. Most organizations
focus only on the operational aspects of their business, seldom stopping to ask
themselves, “What went wrong?" Six Sigma forces people to continually evaluate
critical processes.
ISO 9001:2008
Globally, ISO 9001:2008
has been established as the most fundamental quality management system.
Though, it is called the Quality
Management System, It contain world's best process quality improvement and
management practices distilled and put together in the form of a standard ISO
9001:2008.
Our consulting services assist businesses and busines managers learn and implement
ISO 9001:2008 and help them on the path of continual improvement.
ISO 9001:2008 emphasizes customer satisfaction and continual improvement
for sustained growth of the business.
ISO 14001:2004
Globally, ISO 14001:2004
has been established as the most fundamental environmental management system.
Though, it is called the Environmental
Management System ( EMS), It contain world's best planning and
management practices distilled and put together for managing business aspects
and their environmental & legal impacts leading to emergency preparedness and
planning response in the form of a standard ISO
14001:2004.
Our consulting services assist businesses and busines managers learn and implement
ISO 14001:2004 and help them on the path of being responsible for the environment.
ISO 27001:2005
Globally, ISO 27001:2005
has established itself as the most comprehensive Information Technology
management system so far.
Though, it is called the IT Security
Management System (ISMS), It contain world's best planning and
management practices distilled and put together in the form of a standard ISO/IEC
27001:2005 for managing IT Security risks involved for today's businesses heavily dependent on IT and IT enabled services .
Our consulting services assist businesses and busines managers learn and implement
ISO 27001:2005 and help them on the path of secure work practices.
Lean
Lean Enterprise - A business system for organizing and managing product development, operations, suppliers, and customer relations.
Business and other organizations use lean principles, practices, and tools to create precise customer value—goods and services with higher quality and fewer defects—with less human effort, less space, less capital, and less time than the traditional system of mass production.
Many of the key principles were pioneered by Henry Ford, who was the first person to integrate an entire production system, under what he termed flow production.
Following World War II, the Toyota Motor Company adapted Ford’s principles as a means of compensating for its challenge of limited human, financial, and material resources.
The Toyota Production System (or TPS), which evolved from this need, was one of the first managerial systems using lean principles throughout the enterprise to produce a wide variety of products at lower volumes and many fewer defects than competitors.
Leaders today in a wide range of industries, nonprofit organizations, government agencies, healthcare, and other areas are finding ways to apply the principles of lean as a means of producing goods and delivering services that creates value for the customer with the minimum amount of waste and the maximum degree of quality.
Lean Six Sigma
Lean Six Sigma for services is a business improvement methodology that maximizes shareholder value by achieving the fastest rate of improvement in customer satisfaction, cost, quality, process speed, and invested capital.
The fusion of Lean and Six Sigma improvement methods is required because:
Lean cannot bring a process under statistical control
Six Sigma alone cannot dramatically improve process speed or reduce invested capital
Both enable the reduction of the cost of complexity
The root of both Lean and Six Sigma reach back to the time when the greatest pressure for quality and speed were on manufacturing. Lean rose as a method for optimizing automotive manufacturing; Six Sigma evolved as a quality initiative to eliminate defects by reducing variation in processes in the semiconductor industry. It is not surprising that the earliest adopters of Lean Six Sigma arose in the service support functions of manufacturing organizations like GE Capital, Caterpillar Finance, and Lockheed Martin.
In short, what sets Lean Six Sigma apart from its individual components is the recognition that you cannot do "just quality" or "just speed," you need the balanced process that can help an organization to focus on improving service quality, as defined by the customer within a set time limit.
Ironically, Six Sigma and Lean have often been regarded as rival initiatives.
Lean enthusiasts note that Six Sigma pays little attention to anything related to speed and flow, while Six Sigma supporters point out that Lean fails to address key concepts like customer needs and variation.
Both sides are right. Yet these arguments are more often used to advocate choosing one over the other, rather than to support the more logical conclusion that we blend Lean and Six Sigma.
APQP
Advanced Product Quality Planning is a process developed in the late 1980's by a commission of experts gathered from the 'Big Three' US automobile manufacturers: Ford, GM and what was then Chrysler.
This commission invested five years to analyse the then-current automotive development and production status in the US, Europe and especially in Japan. At the time, the success of the Japanese automotive companies was starting to be remarkable in the US market.
APQP is utilised today by these three companies and some affiliates. Tier I suppliers are typically required to follow APQP procedures and techniques and are also typically required to be audited and registered to ISO/TS 16949.
Advanced Product Quality Planning (or APQP) is a framework of procedures and techniques used to develop products in industry, particularly the automotive industry. It is quite similar to the concept of Design For Six Sigma (DFSS).
TPM
Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) is a maintenance program which involves a newly defined concept for maintaining plants and equipment.
The goal of the TPM program is to markedly increase production while, at the same time, increasing employee morale and job satisfaction.
TPM brings maintenance into focus as a necessary and vitally important part of the business. It is no longer regarded as a non-profit activity.
Down time for maintenance is scheduled as a part of the manufacturing day and, in some cases, as an integral part of the manufacturing process.
The goal is to hold emergency and unscheduled maintenance to a minimum.
5s
5s is practiced globally for its very simple yet
very powerful & effective concepts & techniques for process quality
improvements.
Our consulting services assist businesses and busines managers learn and implement 5s and help them on the path of continual improvement.
5s emphasizes organization,
orderliness & cleanliness thereby increasing efficiency , productivity &
safety.
Kaizen
Kaizen is a Japanese philosophy that focuses on continuous improvement throughout all aspects of life. When applied to the workplace, Kaizen activities continually improve all functions of a business, from manufacturing to management and from the CEO to the assembly line workers.
By improving standardized activities and processes, Kaizen aims to eliminate waste .
Kaizen was first implemented in several Japanese businesses during the country's recovery after World War II, including Toyota, and has since spread to businesses throughout the world.
Quality Circle
A Quality Circle is a volunteer group composed of workers (or even students) who meet to talk about workplace improvement, and make presentations to management with their ideas, especially relating to quality of output in order to improve the performance of the organization, and motivate and enrich the work of employees. Typical topics are improving occupational safety and health, improving product design, and improvement in manufacturing process. The ideal size of a quality circle is from eight to ten members.
Quality circles have the advantage of continuity; the circle remains intact from project to project. (For a comparison to Quality Improvement Teams see Juran's Quality by Design.
Quality circles were first established in Japan in 1962, and Kaoru Ishikawa has been credited with their creation. The movement in Japan was coordinated by the Japanese Union of Scientists and Engineers (JUSE).
The use of quality circles then spread beyond Japan. Quality circles have been implemented even in educational sectors .