Eliminating Opportunities for Error Achieves Faster Lead Times for the Best Market AdvantageĪ company that utilizes both lean manufacturing and Six Sigma practices becomes a high-speed manufacturing pipeline able to maintain consistent, high-quality results and operational excellence. Under Six Sigma, employees are designated as Executive Leaders, Champions, Master Black Belts, Black Belts, or Green Belts. The roles are modeled after the colored belt system used in martial arts. Six Sigma assigns roles to employees and upper management to help maintain commitment to the improvement of process and efficiency. A close attention to detail is required from all levels of a Six Sigma company, but upper-level management is specifically expected to preserve the Six Sigma principles. It believes that one of the best ways to measure success is by actually measuring it-this calls for the measurement and analysis of all manufacturing processes. Six Sigma Manufacturing strives for consistent, predictable, and stable results. A “six sigma” process is one in which 99.99966% of all production is expected to be defect-free. “Six Sigma” refers to terminology associated with statistical modeling for manufacturing processes. Six Sigma is closely related to lean manufacturing, but it takes the idea a step further by outlining a set of techniques and tools for process improvement. Columbia Tech’s Caring Associates are able to assist you with the engineering and design phases of your products to ensure that each one is designed for manufacturability. Wasteful processes, uneven workloads, and material waste are eliminated to achieve the most efficient manufacturing system possible. Under the guiding principles of lean manufacturing, we determine value by what will be most important to you, the customer. Lean Manufacturing and Six Sigma Quality Processes The ideas implemented at their auto making facilities have become guiding principles for manufacturers in every industry type all over the world. These two individuals developed manufacturing principles that emphasized the elimination of waste and the increased velocity of processes for a smoother, more efficient manufacturing floor. Lean manufacturing has a long history with the manufacturing industry, beginning with Henry Ford of Ford Motor Company and Taiichi Ohno of Toyota. That’s why we’ve implemented the principles of Lean Six Sigma Manufacturing at our facilities. So, while my jaded side would like to dismiss the “Six Sigma” concept as a fad that’s just lasting a bit longer than others, I can’t quarrel with success.Columbia Tech is committed to bringing your innovative product designs to market at WARP SPEED. Sonora Quest Laboratories has achieved tremendous success since implementing Six Sigma in fact, the company’s COO is convinced that it would not be where it is today without Six Sigma. This month, our Lab Profile looks at Sonora Quest Laboratories and how Six Sigma has enabled the operation to reduce errors, improve processes, and save money (see page 34). Another important component of Six Sigma is understanding customer needs to improve and reinvent organizational processes. This measurement standard is still used, but many insist that Six Sigma is more a way of doing business than a statistical analysis. Put another way, only 3.4 defects would be allowed per million opportunities. They determined that to achieve Six Sigma, 99.99966% of what they did had to be without defects. Most agree that the term “Six Sigma” was coined in the early 1980s by one or more engineers at Motorola who wanted to measure and improve the company’s operational performance by identifying and eliminating defects in the manufacturing process. I soon learned that Six Sigma has been around for a while some say the ideas upon which the system is based date back to the 18th century. Everywhere I turned, there seemed to be discussions about the success of this quality-management system. So it was in this frame of mind that I pondered all that I was hearing about Six Sigma. I took what was useful from each system and ignored the rest. As you can imagine, by the third time this happened, I simply wondered how long the latest management “flavor of the month” would last. However, in most cases, within 2 years, the top executive would be out the door-along with his way of doing business that was no longer all the rage. And as always, I would commit to adopting this latest philosophy. Each new executive team at my former company had its own management system, complete with a cute name or clever acronym and a popular book on management that was currently flying off the shelves of bookstores everywhere. My previous job had left me somewhat jaded when it came to trendy management philosophies. When I first heard the term “Six Sigma” a week or so after joining CLP, my eyes rolled skyward and I silently wondered how long this newfangled idea would last.
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