Continous Improvement for Production Lines

Hi all,

Can anyone share with me your experience doing continues Improvement for Production line. As a inexperience Quality Engineer,please guide me as on how to do continues improvement for the production line. i hope that you all can share with me the improvement that you all have done in YOUR production line.

Secondly,is there any reference/ Manual/Handbook that explain about line continues improvement. I hope i can get one here. Thanks

Re: Continous Improvement for production

I want to link your current post with a recent post of yours where you asked about how to be a good QA engineer.

Generally, for any post or position that one is employed, a good candidate must have competency to handle responsibilities in his area as well as sufficient people or soft skills to work with others.

Coming back to continuous improvement, it can come from individuals through his competency or know-how of his area of responsibility or for more complex and major ones, through a cross functional group or team where each member pool their know-how or expertise to come up with a solution that none are able to do it individually.

So, the key is competency (kemahiran in the Malay Language) and competency is usually attained through a mix of relevant knowledge and experience.

Re: Continous Improvement for production

Muhd Firdaus said:

Hi all,

Can anyone share with me your experience doing continues Improvement for Production line. As a inexperience Quality Engineer,please guide me as on how to do continues improvement for the production line. i hope that you all can share with me the improvement that you all have done in YOUR production line.

Secondly,is there any reference/ Manual/Handbook that explain about line continues improvement. I hope i can get one here. Thanks

Click to expand...

Hi Firdaus.
Begin to see this as continual improvement rather than continuous.
This meaning, you make some decision and take action to see the performance and results and then absorb it as a standard practice.
Any continual improvement can come from focused thoughts and actions based on data analysis of present practices.
These focused thoughts are about productivity improvement, cost reduction, process sequencing, line balancing, waste reduction ... and such other.
The results of analysis can be methods improvement based on time and motion study, design of jigs and fixtures, control in the use of materials to optimize usage of indirect materials and indirect consumeables, better sequencing to achieve increased productivity and balance line, Optimize work force., ... etc.
All these will be continual improvements for production.

Muhd Firdaus said:

Hi all,

Can anyone share with me your experience doing continues Improvement for Production line. As a inexperience Quality Engineer,please guide me as on how to do continues improvement for the production line. i hope that you all can share with me the improvement that you all have done in YOUR production line.

Secondly,is there any reference/ Manual/Handbook that explain about line continues improvement. I hope i can get one here. Thanks

Click to expand...

Continuous Improvement starts with setting with measuring, followed by recording, followed by analysis, followed by setting priorities, followed by developing improvement plans (brainstorming, 5 why analysis, team work !), followed by implementation of the selected plan and followed by continue to measure to see if the improvement plans are effective.

What to measure? For example, scrap, rejects, reworks, repair, downtime, change over time, tool life, tool wear.

How to measure? checksheets, run charts, costing reports

Use the PDCA Cycle.

In general, CI is related to business outcomes. I'm sure that if you can show your bosses that their bottom line improved due to your efforts, you are bound for success. Many tools and techniques to serve this purpose have been listed above by knowledgeable gentlemen.

In the QA context, CI relates to bettering the product (or service) quality, in a way that contributes to the business bottom line. There are many definitions to quality, but the one I like best is "everything that makes the customer happy" ("customer" = the one that pays). A bottom-up approach to improving quality and the bottom line has been already presented above. Alternatively (or in combination) you could apply a top-down approach by trying to identify sources of bad quality that affect the org's bottom line. One example is customer complaints - you could begin with analysing and trending these and their impact, to identify areas to focus upon. CAPA data is another such resource, and there are more.

Books abound (not sure where exactly is "here" though), just search the web and look for something that appeals to you. You could also start with relevant blogs to find your bearings.

Good luck,
Ronen.

Muhd Firdaus said:

Hi all,

Can anyone share with me your experience doing continues Improvement for Production line. As a inexperience Quality Engineer,please guide me as on how to do continues improvement for the production line. i hope that you all can share with me the improvement that you all have done in YOUR production line.

Secondly,is there any reference/ Manual/Handbook that explain about line continues improvement. I hope i can get one here. Thanks

Click to expand...

I did one a long time ago while in the Navy at a Torpedo maintenance facility. Basically ended up doing "Theory of Constraints" (google it) without know that was the term. We collected start times and stop times for the various tasks for doing torpedo maintenance (time and motion study) and then determined where the choke point was. Turned out to the the most basic, dirty task - engine cleaning, of which only the two most junior persons were qualified to do. We put more people on engine cleaning duty and a few other tweaks and more than doubled torpedo maintenance production.

Re: Continous Improvement for production

Terima kasih Mr Harry

Hi, you can get the inputs from down the line people. get the suggestions from them. It can be for anything...cost, quality, productivity, 5S, easiness,waste reduction...etc., Record the suggestions and review carefully along with experts. take implementable suggestions for continual improvement projects. track and implement. be sure that, the improvements did not affect the product quality. document the changes. Reward employees. In my opinion, it is a team effort. Also, as other members told, you can take the inputs from complaints, COPQ, CAPA, scrap data...

Attached the kaizen form of us.